British Columbia is facing two challenges at once: a housing affordability crisis and growing economic uncertainty. At the same time, thousands of locally owned businesses are approaching a generational transition as owners prepare to retire. Yet one of the province’s most effective tools for addressing both challenges remains overlooked: the co operative model.
As government parties compete to show British Columbians how they’ll tackle affordability and economic uncertainty, they should recognise co-operatives as a practical and proven way for people to come together and meet shared needs.
People Coming Together to Solve Problems
British Columbians have seen the power of co-operation before. Vancity itself was founded in 1946 when people who were underserved by traditional financial institutions came together to meet a common need: access to fair and affordable credit. That’s what co operatives do. Whether it’s housing, employment, financial services or shared business services, co-ops are created when people come together to solve a challenge they can’t address as effectively on their own.
Around the world, co-operatives help people meet common needs through housing, banking, insurance, food production and employment, demonstrating the power of member-owned organizations to deliver solutions that are both economically successful and rooted in community needs.
At their core, co-operatives exist to serve the shared interests and needs of their members. Their success isn’t measured by financial performance alone, but by the difference they make in people’s lives: helping people find housing, build livelihoods, support local businesses, and create stronger, more resilient communities. At a time when governments are searching for practical solutions to support the larger Canadian and local economies, co-operatives offer something rare: a proven track record of helping communities solve problems while keeping wealth, ownership and decision-making rooted locally.
Related: Co-ops contribute $61.1bn to Canadian economy, sector report reveals
Across B.C., co-operatives are helping deliver affordable housing, create jobs, strengthen small businesses and tackle challenges that are harder to solve alone. But the legislation governing them hasn’t kept pace with today’s economic realities. B.C.’s Co-operative Association Act was last comprehensively overhauled more than 25 years ago. The next provincial government should modernise the Act to improve access to capital, remove barriers to growth and enable co-operatives to play a greater role in addressing the province’s housing and economic challenges.
A housing model built for the long term
For decades, co-operative housing has provided stable, affordable homes for thousands of British Columbians. Housing co-ops remove the incentive for speculative profit while giving residents a meaningful stake in their communities. Community land trusts strengthen this approach by taking land out of the speculative market and preserving affordability for future generations.
Together, these models create housing that stays affordable over time, rather than becoming more costly with each ownership cycle. The province can help scale these models through reforms that improve access to land, financing and development support for co-operative and community-owned housing projects.
Housing is not the only area where co-operatives can help address a pressing economic challenge.
Keeping local businesses local
Over the next decade, thousands of small business owners will retire. Without succession plans, many locally owned businesses risk closing their doors or being sold to outside investors, taking jobs, expertise and decision-making out of the communities they currently serve. Worker co-operatives and employee ownership trusts offer an alternative. They preserve local ownership, protect jobs, empower employees, and cement a legacy of achievement while helping retiring business owners realize the full value of the businesses they’ve built.
If British Columbia wants more affordable housing, stronger local economies and greater economic resilience, it needs a policy framework that allows co-operatives to grow and succeed. The province should modernise the Co-operative Association Act of 2001 to ensure co-operatives have access to the capital tools and governance structures needed to grow in a modern economy.
Many co-operative organisations face barriers that do not exist for other business models, limiting their ability to attract investment, secure financing and scale their impact. The province should also work with the sector to improve access to capital.
B.C. doesn’t need to invent new ways to tackle its biggest economic challenges. It needs to make better use of the solutions that already exist. Co-operatives are helping people secure housing, keep businesses in local hands and build wealth that stays in their communities. They do this by bringing people together to meet needs that markets alone often fail to address.
Yet outdated legislation is limiting their ability to grow, attract capital and do more. Modernising B.C.’s Co-operative Association Act is a practical step toward unlocking that potential, giving co-operatives the tools to help address the province’s housing, business succession and economic resilience challenges.
