Quebec has a concentration of cooperatives in the forestry sector: over 30 worker cooperatives, as well as several multi-stakeholder and producer cooperatives. The companies range from 50 to 800 workers, employing more than 3,000 people in total. They have their roots in the parish economic organizing of the 1930s and 40s, when northern communities sought better conditions than the foreign-owned pulp and paper mills were offering. The first forestry co-op was formed in 1938. Within a decade there were more than 20, and by the late 1960s there were more than 160, spread throughout the large province.
When the Parti Québécois was elected in the 1970s they saw the forestry cooperatives as an ally in rural economic development and resource management goals. The province passed supportive legislation: 50% of all logging contracts on state lands would be earmarked for cooperatives. They also incentivized the co-ops to merge and scale up. Mechanization transformed the sector in the 1980s, boosting productivity, but requiring more capital, which further drove consolidation and mergers.
With the new government partnership the cooperatives formalized a network in 1979, which in 2005 became a trade association, the Fédération Québécoise des Coopératives Forestières (FQCF). 90% of the forestry co-ops are members. Many of the cooperatives have diversified to include forest management and replanting services alongside logging. Some have also expanded vertically in the supply chain, buying out saw mills and distribution companies.
2010s
- Guillote et Charbonneau – Objectifs de développement durable quelle contribution de la part des coopératives forestières (2019)
- FQCF – Guide pour faire connaître la coopération comme mode d’organisation d’entreprises forestières en milieu autochtone (2018)
- Guénette – L’engagement des travailleurs du mouvement coopératif de Québec (2018)
- Audibert – Les coopératives forestières comment concilier la démocratie économique et la démocratie industrielle étude de cas de Charlevoix-Est et du Bas-Saguenay (2013)
- Leclerc et al – Crise forestière et ancrage territorial : le cas de la Coopérative des travailleurs forestiers de McKendrick (2013)
- Lessard – Coopératives forestières et communautés pour un développement forestier plus durable (2012)
- Ryan – L’historie d’un Reseau a la Defense des Interets des Cooperatives Forestieres (2011)
2000s
- Gingras et al – Les coopératives forestières dans le développement économique et social des régions périphériques du Québec (2008)
- Filion – La Coopérative forestière de Ferland-Boilleau à l’aube du troisième millénaire (2004)
- Commission d’étude sur la Gestion des forêts du domaine de l’État – Pour la Consolidation de l’industrie de l’aménagement Forestier (2004)
- Lessard – L’expérience Des Coopératives Forestières Du Québec (2003)
- Lacasse, Trudel et Lessard – Les Coopératives: Des Racines Pour Développer “Des Forêts Pour Les Gens” (2003)
- Tessier et Klein – L’économie sociale en milieu forestier: les coopératives forestières et les organismes de gestion en commun dans le développement des régions-ressources du Québec : mémoire de maÎtrise (2003)
Earlier
- Girard – Mouvement Cooperatif et Exploitation Foresterie Les Cas du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (1985)
- Dorion – L’influence régionale des coopératives forestières du nord-ouest québécois (1972)
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