The case of la Coop de solidarite en soins et services de Saint-Camille, The Saint-Camille Care and Services Solidarity Co-operative, and its impact on social cohesion : Coop de solidarité en soins et services de Saint-Camille et son impact sur la cohésion sociale

It is also part of CRISES’s contribution to the results of a national research project titled “Co-operative Membership and Globalization: Creating Social Cohesion through Market Relations,” funded by an award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives at the University of Saskatchewan, which is co-ordinating the project. [...] The intent of the group was to respond to the needs of the elderly in the community, who desperately required housing facilities adapted to their needs. [...] On the one hand, the concept of nature is instrumental in measuring the extent to which services rendered by the co-operatives satisfy the existing demand or defi- ciency (in terms of the nature of the need). [...] Lastly, accessibility of services can also be examined under a parity angle as one seeks to understand the nature of the compromise made by co-operatives (if compro- mise there is) among the various interests of individuals, the interests of members as a whole, and the interest of the population in general in regard to the accessibility of services offered. [...] First, the “nature of the democratic process” refers to the practice of democracy itself, in the operational and dynamic sense of the term.