The Social Economy in the News

Emerging Leaders Scholarship Winner!

The Canadian Social Economy Hub (CSEHub) is proud to announce the winner of the Emerging Leaders Scholarship Program.  The proposals were submitted on April 15th, 2009, and one hard-working youth is now the recipients of $3000 to help with her research project.  The winner is Jody Bauche from British Columbia.

Celebrating a Century of Co-operation: Honouring the Past, Building the Future

Please see link below for the Keynote Address from the 2009 Congress and Annual General Meeting held in Ottawa, June 2009

Historic Gifts, a Heritage of Unease
by  Ian MacPherson Emeritus Professor of History

Redesigning Canada's Food System

‘The Role of the Social Economy in Rebuilding Community Food Security’

This article was published in Making Waves volume 19, number 3 and is co-authored by Leslie Brown, Liesel Carlsson, Debra E. Reimer, and Patty Williams.

Please click here to access the full article

New SE Book Available for Fall Courses: Living Economics

Living Economics
Canadian Perspectives on the Social Economy,
Co-operatives, and Community Economic Development

Living Economics is the first introductory text to present the various perspectives used to explore and analyze the "third sector" of the economy: activities that emphasize the creation of public good as their primary goal.

April 20, 2009 – News

Whose Economy is it Anyway?

April 2, 2009 - News

The Coming Co-op Crunch

March 19, 2009 – News

UVic students to cycle 3,000 km
Many students include cycling as a part of their summer activities, but two UVic students are taking summer bike rides to a much higher level. First-year writing student Cody Gold and third-year history student Sarah Curry will be embarking on a month-and-a-half-long bike ride to Tijuana, Mexico from Vancouver (3,000 kilometers total) on May 31.

March 10, 2009

Social spending will stimulate economy: CCPA
British Columbia's poor and middle-class families are getting poorer, a fact that does not consider the effects of the recent economic downturn.

A study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that when factoring in inflation, the bottom 70 per cent of B.C.

February 3, 2009 - News

Make housing the priority for 'shovel-ready' federal dollars
For the first time in a generation, the federal government is poised to become a major partner in social housing development in Canada. This creates real opportunities for housing advocates and providers who, after decades as lone voices in the political wilderness, have ready-made solutions for ending homelessness.

January 6, 2009 - News

Shelter on wheels: A UVic-community partnership leads to “shelter in a cart” for homeless “binners”
You may think it’s the end of the line when you put a beverage container into your recycling bin, but as Jutta Gutberlet knows, it’s really just the beginning. The University of Victoria geographer is finding ways to help make life better for informal recyclers or “binners”—people who make their living collecting the beverage containers we put in our recycling bins and dumpsters.

January 1, 2009 - News

Low Income in Canada: 2000-2006 Using the Market Basket Measure - October 2008
Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) has just released a new report, Low Income in Canada: 2000-2006 Using the Market Basket Measure. The Market Basket Measure (MBM) is a more robust proxy indicator of poverty in Canada compared to other principal low income measures.

December 11, 2008 - News

A light in the economic darkness: Community economic development links social well-being with economic opportunity
The current global economic crisis presents an opportunity to start talking about alternatives to unfettered, free-market capitalism. That's exactly what more than 450 people were doing at Manitoba's sixth annual Community Development and Community Economic Development Gathering, held recently in Winnipeg at St. John's High School.

November 21, 2008 - News

Why BC's Credit Unions Aren't Melting Down
In all the uproar this autumn about the global financial crisis, one local group of institutions hasn't been in the news. B.C. credit unions. Are they in any trouble? To find out, I talked to Chris Catliff, CEO of North Shore Credit Union, and Ian Smith of Central 1 Credit Union, as well as Charles Priester, a financial consultant based in Metchosin. In general, what they had to say was reassuring.

September 16, 2008 - News

Good news for Harrop Proctor Co-op
The Harrop Proctor Community Co-operative will be celebrating on Friday, when they hold the formal signing of a 25 year replaceable Community Forest Agreement. Chair of HPCC Dave Johnson says people in the area have been waiting for this news since the mid nineties, and now they have reached their goal they're hoping for local support.

September 5, 2008 - News

The trials and tribulations of home grown vegetables
Inside Iqaluit's Piruqsiavut greenhouse, the zucchini, beets and lettuce sprung up nearly as fast this summer as the new RCMP building under construction next door. Tomato plants, loaded with ripening red fruit, hang from the 17-foot-high ceiling of the greenhouse, while scarlet runner beans snake along the translucent plastic walls on strings. Successfully growing vegetables in a greenhouse can be hard.

September 1, 2008 - News

Churches tackle climate
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus and author Peter Matthiessen are among those who have said they will attend an interfaith climate summit being organized by the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden here in November. The gathering is to take place immediately before a United Nations climate change conference in Poland and aims to deliver a strong ethical and religious message to the political leaders at the UN meeting.

August 26, 2008 - News

Fondaction invests $1.5 million in Ranaz - Vote of confidence from a prime strategic financial partner
Ranaz Corporation ("Ranaz") (TSX-V: RNZ), a company specialized in the manufacturing and marketing of protein and dietary supplements, reports that it has issued today a $1.5 million unsecured convertible debenture to Fondaction, le Fonds de développement de la Confédération des syndicats nationaux pour la coopération et l'emploi ("Fondaction").

July 25, 2008 - News

Giving people SEED of hope
Pam Rubachuk planted a seed this year she hopes will sprout into a post-secondary graduate in a couple of decades. The single mom running a day care out of her home happened upon a pamphlet for SEED Winnipeg, a non-profit community economic development agency. Not only has it changed her life, it has also helped her lay some financial groundwork for her 21-month-old son, Lucas.

July 24, 2008 - News

Farmers' market awaits its rainmakers
Citizens have plopped down almost three-quarters of a million dollars of their retirement money to invest in a new harbour-side home for the Halifax Farmers' Market, bringing the structure one step closer to realization. But while organizers are optimistic, some of the government funds needed to move forward with the project remain unsecured and each delay sees staggering increases in construction costs.

July 16, 2008 - News

More and more companies faced with globalization challenges
As a community economic development agency, our first role is to provide the necessary leadership to allow our region to deal adequately with the many challenges and opportunities it faces. During the last fiscal year, many companies in our region have been confronted with the challenges of globalization.