This is Part One of a two-part piece on co-operative education amongst BC West Coast fishers during the 1940s and early 50s through the guidance of the UBC Department of Extension. The following is a revised selection taken from my BA thesis titled, Pockets of Co-operation: Co-operative Movements and Vancouver Island, 1896-1980. (B.A. Honours Thesis, Department of History: University of Victoria, 2006).

In late January 1939 the University of British Columbia Department of Extension (UBCDE) held a short course on fishing co-ops over three days in Vancouver. The course cost each person one dollar and, while it was geared towards fishers, it was open to the general public. The course started on January 26 at 9:30 am with a lecture from the University’s president, followed by an introductory lecture on the co-operative movement in Nova Scotia by Rev. J.D. Nelson MacDonald of Saint Francis Xavier University (SFX). After lunch, attendees participated in lectures titled “Economic Aspect of Co-operatives” and “A Program for Economic Democracy”. Following each session, time was set aside for questions and debate. This format was similar over the next two days. MacDonald gave most of the lectures (typically three to four each day) but his talks were augmented by speakers from credit unions, fishing co-operatives, and prairie agricultural co-operatives. The course was well received and, when funding from the federal Department of Fisheries was secured later that year, the UBCDE was able to begin a regular program promoting co-operative education on the West Coast.

The progress of UBCDE’s work was reviewed in annual reports, which are revealing sources for both the evolution of the movement and the goals and motives of the University. Specifically, they reveal two main objectives for the program: first, to show how fishing co-operatives, in co-operation with other co-operative societies (particularly credit unions and supply co-operatives), could improve the fishers’ economic condition; and second, to foster a co-operative environment that would influence “constructive social attitudes”, “civilian morale”, and act as a “bulwark in the defense of Canadian democracy.” These goals had both practical and philosophical components, both of which were vital to the development of a viable social movement.

To carry out the educational work, the UBCDE hired two fieldworkers in 1939, A.S. MacIntyre and Norman MacKenzie. MacIntyre, a coal miner and ex-Marxist from Cape Breton, and MacKenzie, a United Church minister, were both brought from the Maritimes because of their experience in co-operative organization in the Antigonish movement. For these two field workers, it must have been quite a job to tour the convoluted coasts and hidden inlets of British Columbia. MacIntyre and Mackenzie traveled with the fishing fleets, holding meetings at sea when the season required it. Despite these challenges, the field workers managed to visit 30 B.C. communities, and to organize 168 public meetings (with 9,000 attendees), 125 study clubs, 21 “associated study clubs”, and seven credit unions by the end of their first year. While travel on the west coast of Vancouver Island was particularly difficult for MacIntyre and Mackenzie, they managed to meet with members of the Kyuquot Trollers Co-operative Association and set up study groups in Bamfield, Port Alberni and Ucluelet.

Transportation and the migratory nature of the industry were two of three main issues that the field workers identified as contributing “difficulties” in the promotion of further co-operative development among fishing communities.

The third “difficulty” outlined by MacIntyre and Mackenzie was the “Racial Question”. The “Racial Question” hinged on the relations between “first generation Japanese and occidental” fishers. The report argues that there has always been conflict between these two groups, but that “Canadian-born Japanese were much more willing to cooperate with ‘whites’ and several of their number evinced a keen interest in the co-operative movement.” While the report urges using co-operatives as a method to “breakdown existing racial barriers and to encourage better inter-racial feeling,” it focused solely on educating Japanese fishers on co-operatives. Whether or not “white” fishers received lectures in the “open membership” aspect of co-operative principles is unclear. If Kyuquot fishers received such education, they ignored it. As A.V. Hill notes, this co-op refused the entry of Japanese fishers to its Tofino and Ucluelet associations until after the war.

1. BCICS, unorganized files, University of British Columbia (here after UBC) Extension Material, UBC Department of Extension, “Short Course In Co-operatives, At Vancouver, January 26, 27, 28” (Pamphlet).
2. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Short Course in
   Co-operatives”. MacDonald was an active co-operative organizer who had taken part in the SFX Department of Extension’s work in organizing co-operatives in the Maritimes.
3. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Short Course in Co-operatives”.
4. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Short Course in Co-operatives”. It is arguably significant that despite the existence of agricultural co-ops in BC, none were invited, or interested, in speaking at the course. This seems to further the argument that there existed divisions between the different co-operative sectors.
5. BCICS, unorganized files, UBC Extension Material, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program for British Columbia Fishermen, Report on Period from September 1, 1939 to March 31, 1940”, 2. Thankfully the UBC Department of Extension kept annual records of the project which have been a valuable source of information on the state of fishing co-operatives and their relation to other co-operative organizations, particularly credit unions. BCICS has a good number of these reports dating from 1939 to 1953.
6. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 2.
7. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 13.
8. Ian MacPherson, Co-operation, Conflict and Consensus: B.C. Central and the Credit Union Movement to 1994 (Vancouver: BC Central Credit Union, 1995), 36.
9. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 9.
10. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 5.
11. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 6.
12. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 10-11.
13. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,”10.
14. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 10.
15. BCICS, UBC Department of Extension, “Educational Program, Sept 1939-March 1940,” 10.

Eryk Martin, BCICS Masters Student