Article contains significant errors. MEC was never owned by its members. If it were, we would have had a say when it was sold, voting on whether to accept the offer, and receiving a share of the payout. MEC was never actually a cooperative. I think there should be consequences for this deception. I also think there need to be more consumer cooperatives than there are. Please mention any you know below.
When MEC incorporated, there was not an option under Canadian law to have a legal cooperative. They attempted to conduct themselves as one, but in the end, members were not owners, so it was never a cooperative. That situation did eventually change, but MEC didn’t restructure to take advantage of the new laws.
No option for a cooperative? That’s news in the agricultural world. There’s plenty of rural coops, we have one locally called Pembina West Cooperators and it’s been around for decades, as long as I can remember. UFA is another one, hell, it started out as a political party. We get annual dividends back from them based on our spending throughout the year, against the profit of the coop.