Winter 2022 Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives Events
Winter 2022 Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives Events

Upcoming Events at the Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives

Over the coming weeks, there will be three exciting upcoming talks at the Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives. Full details are provided below!

1. The 2022 Fredeen Lecture: "Evolution of Co-operative Law in the 21st Century" featuring Bill Oemichen

Event details:

Over the last 30 years, there has been declining scholarly interest in the study of co-operative law. In this year’s Fredeen lecture, the recipient of the 2021 Hartley and Margaret Fredeen Scholarship in Co-operative Studies, Bill Oemichen - an experienced cooperative attorney in both Canada and the United States, will present some of his early research comparing recent efforts to modernize co-operative acts in Western Canada with existing legal provisions in the American Upper Midwest, an area known for its large and growing co-operative sector. The discussion will range widely, discussing how trends in co-operative law are shaping the evolution of the cooperative business model but also calling out possible future directions for legal scholars interested in the model. 

Click here to learn more about the Hartley and Margaret Fredeen Scholarship in Co-operative Studies. 

2. Our next Co-op Conversation: "Making Financial Services Accessible for Underserved Communities" featuring Susan Henry

Event details:

For more than 20 years, the Alterna Savings Community Microfinance Program has focused on making its small-dollar loans available to women, BIPOC, new and racialized Canadians, and low-income individuals. In this Co-op Conversation, Susan Henry, Alterna Savings’ Director of Community Impact & Financial Inclusion, talks about how Alterna Savings is realizing on the co-operative values of equity, equality and solidarity by making available opportunities for financial independence by reducing barriers to banking for those often excluded from mainstream financial institutions. As part of her talk, Susan will dig into the impact of Alterna’s Community Microfinance Program at the individual, corporate, and broader societal levels and share how lessons learned from the program are helping shape the development of new lending programs for underserved communities.

3. The 8th Annual MacPherson Talk: "Fomenting a Different Kind of Green Revolution: Distributism, Co-operatives, Permaculture and Renewing Peter Maurin's Dream of the Agronomic University" featuring Josh Campbell. 

Event details:

“Given what you’ve learned so far about the challenges currently facing humanity and the need to build community resilience, how would you have liked your childhood education to be different?” That was the question that Josh Campbell asked a group of his Grade 10 science students after leading them through several classes devoted to climate change and ecosystems. Their responses inspired him to envision a school that would give students the tools they need to meet the greatest challenges of our times. In this year’s MacPherson lecture, Campbell explores how the little-known past of one of Canada’s pre-eminent hockey schools, Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Saskatchewan, could be marshalled to imagine a new agronomic university built around permaculture, distributism and co-operative values and principles, and hope for an uncertain future. 

Click here to learn more about the annual MacPherson Talk series. 

We hope to see you at these events!