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Social Movements and Development In Quebec: The Experience of the Desjardins Movement
Abstract
Along with the other sectors of the banking industry over the last two decades, the savings and credit cooperatives have been affected by deep currents which are radically changing their form and structure. In Quebec, the Desjardins movement is at present involved in a fundamental reform of the organizational structures which have characterized its growth since the period between the two world wars. This article deals with the major transformations which the Desjardins movement experienced, from the creation of the first caisse populaire in 1900 to the situation existing at the end of the twentieth century. Using an approach at the junction of history and sociology, it considers the Desjardins movement as one of the components of what Alain Touraine calls a ‘social development movement’. We aim to show that the present changes affecting the savings and credit cooperation fall within the long-term historical trends, while at the same time reflecting new phenomena. We shall point out the most significant aspects of these new developments.
... The individual caisse are independent and autonomously incorporated entities, but operate in a structured, standardised and closely inter-connected environment (McMurtry and Brouard, 2015). The Desjardins federated structure provides significant economies of scale and both industry presence and profile in the marketplace (Levasseur and Rousseau, 2002). In other jurisdictions such as the US, credit unions form Credit Union Services Organisations (CUSOs) which are limited liability companies to facilitate shared services. ...
Financial cooperatives play an important role in the financial systems of many countries. They act as a safe haven for deposits and are major sources of credit for households and small- and medium-sized firms. A not-for-profit orientation (in many cases) and a focus on maximising benefits to members have ensured the enduring popularity and sustainability of financial cooperatives. This is particularly evident since the global financial crisis when financial cooperatives continued to extend credit to members as many profit-orientated commercial banks restricted credit to households and firms. The overarching theme of the first part of this review is the structural and behavioural characteristics of financial cooperatives. In this part we consider, the origin and diffusion of financial cooperatives, network arrangements, the business model, relationship banking, balancing the interest of members, tax treatment and regulatory framework. The second part has performance and contribution to the real economy as the overarching theme. In this part we consider, efficiency and sustainability, mergers, acquisitions and failures, the benefits (and challenges) of FinTech and the contribution of financial cooperatives to the real economy including during times of crisis. The paper concludes with a summary of what we now know (and do not know) about financial cooperatives and provides suggestions as to where future research may usefully concentrate.
... Access to bank loans during this period was limited, and Canadian households relied much more heavily on the informal sector than did households in the US (Harris and Ragonetti, 1998). A lack of bank finance led to the rise of credit unions in 1930s Canada, but these organisations often channeled all of their resources into loans for small businesses, providing no consumer credit (Levasseur and Rousseau, 2001). If our hypothesis regarding the negative correlation between RPV and unanticipated inflation in the 1980s is correct, then we should also see such a correlation in the Canadian inter-war data. ...
Most studies find that relative price variability (RPV) is a U-shaped or V-shaped function of anticipated inflation, and a V-shaped function of unanticipated inflation. One exception is Reinsdorf (1994), who finds that RPV in the United States during the 1980s recession was monotonically decreasing in unanticipated inflation. We suggest a reason for this difference, and test our conjecture using data from inter-war Canada. Our results indicate that in recessionary conditions a positive inflation shock does reduce RPV. However, this reduction is unlikely to correspond to higher consumer utility; this has implications for the conduct of monetary policy during a recession.
... To facilitate this, FSCs in C1 use international normalized guides that include criteria similar to Bill C-8; thus it is not surprising that these FSCs comply with Canadians' expectations in terms of reporting. Their development, strongly linked to their local communities, as well as the proactive social behaviour of FSCs in this group have generated significant interest in the literature (Bouchard & Rondeau, 2002;De Champlain & Dupuis, 2003;Levasseur & Rousseau, 2001;Malo & Tremblay, 2004;Poulin & Tremblay, 2005). ...
After the crash of financial institutions and the negative effects of the financial crisis, financial service cooperatives (FSCs) emerged as good performer compared to commercial banks. But this condition will not be enough to face the challenges that the new financial panorama will bring on the banking arena. Among them, challenges related to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) sphere will play a special role. In Canada, the financial regulatory framework forces some federal institutions to publish information on social responsibility. Although FSCs are not forced to disclose information they need to provide CSR information to show their role as an institution capable of innovating in sustainable matters. This work analyses public communications of Canadian FSCs to determine the degree of inclusion of CSR information requested from financial institutions. Results show that the CSR Canadian legal framework has a reduced impact on FSCs communication practices, although with significant differences among them.
This study reports that small business loans advanced by cooperative lenders have a significantly lower probability of default than those disbursed by mainstream banks—at least for the first four years post disbursement, during which default costs are highest. Default rates are particularly low among loans to younger, and, to an extent, smaller, firms; and loans to firms that had experienced significant changes in their business environment post-disbursement. These results are consistent with the argument that cooperatives face relatively less severe information asymmetry because their close community ties facilitate soft information production and their governance structures embed self-selection and peer monitoring mechanisms (e.g., Angelini, Di Salvo & Ferri, 1998). Comparison of loan portfolio performance between co-ops and small regional banks suggest that both close community ties and governance structure contribute to cooperatives’ lower default rates. Results are robust to distance and competition effects, and to various alternative explanations.
This paper devoted to the Societe des Artisans canadiens-francais and L'Alliance nationale has undertaken to trace the main lines through which evolves French Canadian mutual aid up to Second World War. Starting from an analysis of the social and territorial bases of both organizations, this study brings up to date the special relationship which they maintained with local parishes, then gradual erosion of these original bonds to the favor of strategies of growth on a large scale. This metamorphosis of mutual aid was concerned by transitory figures, borrowing at the same time from the prototype of "active union member" and that of contemporary insurance agent.
This paper devoted to the Société des Artisans canadiens-français and L'Alliance nationale has undertaken to trace de main lines through which evolves French Canadian mutual aid up to Second World War. Starting from an analysis of the social and territorial bases of both organizations, this study brings up to date the special relationship which they maintained with local parishes, then gradual erosion of these original bonds to the favour of strategies of growth on a large scale. This metamorphosis of mutual aid was concerned by transitory figures, borrowing at the same time from the prototype of "active union member" and that of contemporary insurance agent.
This paper presents a two-tier approach to studying institutional change, where institutions are differentiated as either 'instrumental' or 'defning.' Instrumental institutions are formal institutions made up of a set of rules, regulations and practices meant to facilitate economic or political activities. These are in contrast to defning institutions which are made up of norms, values and goals that help to defne a society's culture and socio-economic goals. Important change is driven by political actors at the instrumental level. This type of change is incremental, and not only linked to occasional crisis. Instrumental institutions are imperfect tool sets which political actors alter to meet socio-economic goals. Actors use knowledge obtained from information on institutional performance in their own jurisdiction, or best practices in other jurisdictions to implement change in their own institutional context. This paper will describe finance in the high technology sector to illustrate how instrumental institutions such as rules, regulations, practices, and bodies are created or altered by political actors to meet long held socio-economic goals. The case of Quebec in the early millennium will be used to illustrate the issues discussed, and how changes to the publicly-owned organization Société de Innov-atech was part of efforts to change the instrumental system of venture finance in the province.
Through an analysis of work published since 1930, the author traces the main stages of scholarly discourse on the co-operative movement in the history of Quebec society. The literature is viewed in light of its responses to two major questions: the place of co-operatives within a market economy run by capitalist enterprise and their specific character compared to other forms of economic organization. In a critical review of studies devoted to the Mouvement Desjardins, the article emphasizes shifts in meaning in the discussion of these two questions and, more generally, in the debates defining the co-operative formula sometimes as an original form of development, sometimes as a response to the economic weakness of francophones.
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