My cooperative experience spans 48 years and multiple sectors including housing, insurance, credit, investment, overseas development and funeral services. On the ICA global board since 2017, I chair the Cooperative Identity Advisory Group. I am Vice Chair of Cooperatives and Mutuals Canada, the apex body of the Canadian cooperative movement; Vice President and Risk Committee chair of Co-operators, a Canadian cooperative insurer and investment manager; Treasurer of the Funeral Co-operative of Ottawa; and board member of the Canadian Co-operative Investment Fund. I created the Agency for Co-operative Housing and served as its CEO for 16 years before my 2021 retirement.
If re-elected, I will focus on bringing the cooperative identity consultation to a successful conclusion, ensuring the appointment of a suitable director general when Bruno Roelants steps down, and completing the present enquiry into the ICA’s membership, voting and financial arrangements. I will work to ensure that the ICA is on a sound organizational footing and that our activities speak to the movement’s evolving needs and our members’ varying and changing interests. My aim is to work with my peers to make the ICA an organization that is widely recognized, within the movement and without, as indispensable, relevant and effective.
