Pineland Co-op members ask questions and listen to answers from Morley Doerksen, president of the board of the directors, during a members information meeting regarding potential amalgamation with Lake Country Co-op. (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff).

By Aaron Schulze

Pineland Co-op Amalgamation

Talks of job security and voting arise during potential Pineland Co-op amalgamation meeting

Jan 10, 2020 | 9:24 AM

Since April 2017, both Pineland and Lake Country Co-op have had a management agreement.

Lake Country Co-op’s CEO Tim Keller would oversee Pineland Co-op’s operations while they were without a general manager.

Over time, Pineland Co-op Board President Morley Doerksen said a lack of qualified general manager candidates and how well they view their partnership with Lake Country are two reasons why the board of directors and delegates are exploring amalgamation.

“The operations are run the same they have been for the last three years,” Doerksen said. “If [we] do have a more formalized agreement, our members can have more benefits and potentially get a fair bit more equity. [Our members] would have a bigger trading area to use their membership cards. We would like to have more competitive pricing by working together.

“I know there are concerns with amalgamations of health and school divisions in the past, and this is totally different. This is more working together and growing our business; there would be no other reason to amalgamate.”

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Pineland Co-op is not new to amalgamation. In 1968, the hold Codette Co-operative Association and its Nipawin branch amalgamated with Aylsham, Ratner, Choiceland, and its Snowden branch to form Pineland Co-op.

Still, the delegates and board of directors still needed to receive input from Pineland Co-op members, and the final information meeting being held on Thursday, Jan. 9 at the Evergreen Centre in Nipawin.

Members aired questions and concerns of autonomy, jobs staying with the Nipawin and Choiceland area, if Keller would be spread too thin overlooking Pineland and Lake Country Co-op, and if a referendum would be the best way to decide yay or nay to amalgamation.

Highlights from a Pineland Co-op staff information slideshow stated no jobs would be cut due to amalgamation, 93 per cent of employees would see a pay increase, and vacation and years of service wouldn’t be lost.

However, autonomy and a potential referendum continued to be hot button issues.

“I came in quite hesitant about [amalgamation],” Spencer Maxwell, a Pineland Co-op member since 2008 told northeastNOW. “Some fears were alleviated but I still think the feeling in the room was that this needs to be put to a member vote rather than the delegates and the board taking control. Even though that’s their governance structure, it should still have some sort of a vote or survey done by the members so they can take the input and apply that into their vote. I really am not fond of losing our autonomy.”

Pineland Co-op currently has its own 21 delegate body and eight board of directors. Under amalgamation with Lake Country, the Pineland area would only have two board of directors out of eight and only six delegates out of 57.

One member expressed concerns of losing further autonomy down the road if the amalgamation proposal were to go through. Doerksen said the Pineland area would have more representation on the board than a lot of the 15 communities Lake Country Co-op conducts business in.

“A lot of the companies are run by the management end,” he said. “[The board of directors] probably take a little more credit than we deserve.”

Maxwell was glad to see Pineland Co-op’s support of local programs would stay the same, although he would like to see the board of directors’ search for their own general manager continue and hold a referendum featuring all members.

“With a referendum the process is going to move forward or not, but at least it’s going to be the members deciding,” he said. “Even if it went ahead with a referendum, and I wasn’t for the amalgamation, I would still take comfort in the fact that it was the local people that decided that as a whole membership.

“I want to thank the board and delegates for the time they’re putting in on this. It’s a lot of work and it’s a big decision, but I hope they take into account the feelings of the full membership.”

Doerksen said a referendum would be difficult to conduct with how Pineland Co-op’s bylaws are structured.

“We have 8,000 members, so it would be very complicated to do,” he said. “The key to the members is to get the information out there. You have to have an informed vote. We encouraged the people to write their thoughts on paper and we’ll look at them later and take it from there.”

The Pineland Co-op Board of Directors and delegates have yet to determine a date for their amalgamation decision.

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow