Telelearning Session 19: The Long View of the Social Economy

THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS SUCCESSFUL TELE-LEARNING SESSION!

For the podcast of the complete session, please click here. (Mp3 file, 28.5 MB, 1 hour, 2 min)

Tuesday March 30th, 2010, 9:00 am Pacific Time (12:00 pm Eastern time)

This session offered an engaging look into the past, present and future of the
Social Economy in Canada.

SPEAKERS:

Ian MacPherson, Co-director of CSEHub, and founder of the British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studies at the University of Victoria. He 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.

Jean-Marc Fontan, Professor of sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Co-director of the Social Economy Community-University Research Alliance in Québec.

MODERATOR:

Mike Toye, Executive Director of CCEDNet. Upon earning his Master of Social Work at McGill, Michael helped set up two worker co-operatives that provide research, consulting and training services related to CED and the social economy.

SESSION FORMAT: 1 Hour
Welcome: 5 min
Presentations: 10 min by each speaker
Discussion: 25 minutes

RESOURCES:

Ian MacPherson

Jean-Marc Fontan

Michael Toye

Other


BIOGRAPHIES:

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.

Jean-Marc Fontan is a professor of sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He has over twenty-years experience in research on local and community development and has an important number of publications in this field. His research projects are funded by the SSHR of Canada and others public and private institutions. His research interests lie in the field of economic sociology, development studies in metropolitan context, local governance, social innovation, poverty and are generally done in partnership with community actors.

He is Co-Director with Nancy Neamtan, of the Social Economy Community-University Research Alliance in Québec, of two important community-based research organizations dedicated to social economy: Community-University Research Alliance on Social Economy and Regroupement québécois pour la recherche partenariale en économie sociale (ARUC-RQRP-ÉS : www.aruc-es.uqam.ca/). He is member of the Centre de recherche sur les innovations sociales (CRISES, www.crises.uqam.ca/) and co-founder of the Collectif d’étude sur les pratiques solidaires (CEPS / http://www.unites.uqam.ca/ceps/) who set up a new model of linking universities with communities : l’Incubateur universitaire Parole d’excluEs (IUPE : http://iupe.wordpress.com/). L’incubateur universitaire Parole d’excluEs is associated to the Service aux collectivités of the Université du Québec à Montréal (www.sac.uqam.ca/accueil.aspx).

Mike Toye became Executive Director of CCEDNet in August of 2008, bringing a deep background in community economic development (CED) to the Director's chair. Upon earning his Master of Social Work at McGill, Michael helped set up two worker co-operatives that provide research, consulting and training services related to CED and the social economy.

Toye's involvement with CCEDNet dates back to 2000 when he helped organize CCEDNet's National Policy Forum while serving as a coordinator with the Coopérative de consultation en développement La Clé. In 2003 he joined CCEDNet officially as Community Learning Program Director.
As CCEDNet's program director from 2003 to 2006, Michael coordinated a 3-year action-research project funded by Social Development Canada exploring the links between social inclusion and CED. In addition, he led the coordination of CCEDNet's annual national conferences, which attract hundreds of CED experts and practitioners from across the country each year.

More recently Michael has deepened his knowledge of Canadian social policy and parliamentary process serving as a policy analyst at the Library of Parliament in Ottawa, while teaching courses on CED and social enterprise at Concordia University.

Michael has written a number of articles and other publications on CED and the social economy, including co-editing the book, Community Economic Development: Building for Social Change.

He lives and works from his home in Tingwick, Quebec, on a farm that has been in his wife's family for five generations. He enjoys exploring the land with his two dogs (a Newfoundland and a Labrador).