Reporting from the Historical Materialism conference “The Great Transition” in Montreal. There are several panels on cooperatives and radical cities. Montreal and Quebec more generally are hotbeds of cooperatives, the social economy, and solidarity economies. This panel looked especially interesting. Martin Zibeau of Horizons Gaspésiens (Saint-Siméon, Canada) will be talking about:

How can a community of individuals hope to regain some control over its economy, without being “controlling” in turn? In Gaspésie, some concrete examples on the ground have been under test for a few years. The examples presented will be those of Horizons Gaspésiens, a solidarity cooperative created to serve as administrative support for a variety of self-managed projects. Among these, Loco Local is a self-managed citizen’s area open to everyone, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and where trust is at the heart of the experience. Le Demi, an alternative currency created from the Canadian dollar by cutting it in half with a pair of scissors and the Gaspésie Paths (Chemins gaspésiens), a self-managed living repertoire that wants to help bring out of the shadows the fact that the social economy and collaborative is a strong pillar of the Gaspésie economy.