The Church and the cooperative movement in Quebec

With the education of Catholics landing squarely upon the shoulders of the Church under the constitutional framework of 1867, it was natural for the clergy to take charge of rural youth, which it did by investing in agricultural schools. The Church’s commitment provided the impetus for an educational and technical ecosystem in the École d’agriculture de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, which would play a key role in the development of the agricultural sector. It would become the main reference point for the faculty of agriculture at Université Laval.

Published in 1891, the encyclical Rerum novarum invited religious authorities to take part in economic and social development. Relying on this work and inspired by the Boerenbond Belgian Catholic associations, the members of the clergy included the cooperative movement in the search for a third way, between capitalism and State socialism. 

The approach taken by the clergy was certainly conservative and moralistic, as evidenced by the Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin poultry college motto: “après la religion l’agriculture,” (religion before agriculture). But torn between the desire to put the teaching of Christian values first and the need to build profitable organizations, agricultural cooperation would become one of the worlds where the modernizing spirit of Church members most vigorously manifested itself. 

For example, the Comptoir coopératif (founded by the Jesuits a few years before it joined the Coopérative fédérée), according to article 2 of the Comptoir’s general statutes, was required to work for the religious, intellectual, social and economic progress of its members by taking their material interests to heart. This is also evidenced by the contribution of Abbé Jean-Baptiste-Arthur Allaire.  Cooperation courses were given at Collège Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin, which he ran, stating that “it was at this college that cooperation was born.” Having become one of the founding fathers of the weekly newsletter Le Coopérateur agricole, in 1915 the Department of Agriculture commissioned him to develop the movement. Ten years after the passage of the 1908 legislation on the creation of agricultural cooperatives, the Loi des sociétés coopératives agricoles, Quebec had 270 cooperatives, most of which benefited from active support from clergy.