Servicing and empowering diverse Co-operative businesses in Canada’s Arctic
Arctic Co-operatives Limited is a service federation that is owned and controlled by 33 community-based Co-operative businesses that are located in Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon and Saskatchewan.
Arctic Co-operatives Limited enables these Co-ops to provide a wide range of services to their local Member-Owners that improve social and economic well being in their communities. Our federation was incorporated in 1972 to coordinate the resources, consolidate the purchasing power and provide operational and technical support to independent community based Co-ops in the Arctic.
- The Co-op System employs 1,000 people in Canada’s Arctic and paid $32.5 million in wages and benefits in 2017.
- With Co-ops working together and jointly controlling their own service federation, they earned $10.8 million in patronage from Arctic Co-operatives Limited in 2020, and an additional $400,000 from the Arctic Co-operative Development Fund.
- Co-op businesses also paid $12.8 million in patronage to more than 6,500 local Co-op Members in 2020.
The Co-op System in the Arctic is a great example of Indigenous community economic development in Canada. The 32 Co-ops are independently owned and controlled Inuit, Metis and First Nations businesses. They operate retail facilities, hotels, cable operations, construction, outfitting, arts and crafts production and property rentals.