Register TODAY and join us for a fascinating discussion on co-operatives and health care.

BACKGROUND

Many Canadians are both proud and worried about health care. For decades it has been a defining aspect of our nationality, a subject of immense pride -- as well as a deliverer of good services. The system is now often in question and despite its strengths, many wonder if it could not be improved. Co-operative health services in Canada and many other parts of the world provide excellent services based on concerns about community health as well as individual health and on encouraging individual citizens to assume greater responsibility for their own health.  During this session speakers will address the following questions:

Catherine Levinten-Reid is an Assistant Professor in the Shannon School of Business, Cape Breton University.  She teaches in the Master's in CED program, and currently does research on organizational form and social care.  She is also on the board of directors of the Saskatoon Community Clinic.

John Restakis has been a committed activist and troublemaker his entire life. He was born in
Athens and grew up in Toronto where he was expelled from high school (Thistletown Collegiate Institute) for general insubordination and being a bad influence. At the age of eighteen, he started working as a community organizer in Toronto’s Riverdale area, joining the staff of the Greater Riverdale Organization, at the time Canada’s foremost direct action organization. He then moved to Chicago to continue his training as a community organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation. Returning to Canada he became active in the Toronto parent movement as an organizer for school reform with the School Community Relations (SCR) Department of the Toronto Board of Education. To his great surprise, he was not fired for the aggravation he caused, but he did adopt a life-long respect for the infinite adaptability of bureaucracy. After the dissolution of the SCR by the school board, Restakis went to India to study and to teach at the Rishi Valley School established by J. Krishnamurti. He returned to Canada to work as a popular educator and trainer in adult literacy. In the early 90’s Restakis became active in the co-op movement of Ontario. The combination of the election of Mike Harris and the bleak Toronto winters finally drove Restakis westward to take up his current post as the Executive Director of the BC Cooperative Association. In addition to his duties in building the co-op movement of BC, he does consulting work on international co-op development projects, researches and teaches on cooperative economies and globalization, and is a founding director for the MA Program in Community Development at UVic. He was also the co-founder and Co-ordinator of the Bologna Summer Program for Co-operative Studies at the University of Bologna. Restakis earned his BA at the University of Toronto with a Major degree in East Asian Studies and specialist studies in Sanskrit and Classical Greek. He holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy of Religion. Previous books by the author: The Co-op Alternative: Civil Society and the Future of Public Services Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2001 Storylines: Oral Histories for Literacy Ontario Ministry of Education, 1987.

Jean-Pierre Girard is a lecturer and researcher affiliated with the Institut de recherche et d'éducation pour les coopératives et les mutuelles de l'Université de Sherbrooke. Mr. Girard is also a member of the board of the International Health Co-operative Organization.

Ian MacPherson is the founder of the British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studies at the University of Victoria. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of Western Ontario. He first taught in the History Department at the University of Winnipeg from 1968 to 1976, where he served as the founding co-ordinator of the Canadian Studies Programme, and has been at the University of Victoria since 1976, serving as Chair of the Department of History from 1981 to 1989 and as Dean of Humanities from 1992 to 2000. His research has been largely on the history of the co-operative movement, particularly in Canada. He has written books on the English-Canadian co-operative movement from 1900 to 1945; the Co-operative Union of Canada; Co-operative Insurance Services; Co-operative Trust Company; the British Columbian credit union movement and the international credit union movement.

MacPherson has served on boards of co-operatives for twenty-five years at the provincial, national and international levels. He was the founding President of the Canadian Co-operative Association between 1989 and 1993. He chaired the process and wrote the documents by which the international co-operative movement prepared an identity statement for co-operatives and revised their basic principles at the Manchester Congress of the International Co-operative Alliance in 1995. Ian is currently the chair of the ICA Committee on Co-operative Research.
He has twice received the Distinguished Service Award of the British Columbia credit union movement and a Distinguished Service Award from the British Columbia Region of the Canadian Co-operative Association. He is a member of the Canadian Credit Union Hall of Fame and he has received the “credit union ambassador” award from the World Council of Credit Unions for his work on documenting the history of the international credit union movement. He is the first recipient of the Canadian Co-operative Achievement Award, presented by the Canadian Co-operative Association to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the co-operative movement. In 2005, the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) presented MacPherson with the Rochdale Pioneer Award, the highest award in the international movement.