@MEC slides from #democracy to #oligarchy -- AGM report

Mountain Equipment Corporation Cooperative held its 2013 Annual General Meeting on April 25. Unfortunately, the outreach efforts of us 600 MEC Members for a Democratic Co-op were not enough to counter the MEC board's control of information flowing to members. The board's resolution on rule changes passed by a vote of 91% to 9%. For an overview of how the vote was biased, see my article in the Vancouver Observer: "We want our co-ops back"

So in addition to last year's new power to reject director candidates from standing for election, the board can now reject any member resolution for any reason, without submitting it to member vote. The new rule changes reduce the board's accountability to members in several other ways detailed in my March 14 blog post.

Many members were shocked to see how quickly the board took advantage of its new power by rejecting 2013 director election nominee Anders Ourom. His qualifications include:

• MEC Director (1981-1986, 1988-1992)
• MEC Board Chair (1989-1991)
• President, Climbers' Access Society of B.C. (1995-2004)
• Lawyer, Advising Societies and Co-operatives (1995 - present)
• Legal Advisor, MEC Rules Revision Projects (1997-1998, 2001-2002)

Apparently the board decided that MEC members needed to be benevolently protected from having the option to vote for Anders this year. In the AGM's Reports Q&A section, I stepped up to the mike and asked this question:

"Do you think that the MEC members who voted for the board's rule change resolution last year, understood that you could and would use that power to prevent someone as well qualified as Anders Ourom from running in the board election this year?"

=> Board Chair Bill Gibson replied that yes, he thinks they understood. [I don't have a full transcript of Bill's reply -- MEC does not allow recording by attendees.]

MEC voter turnout dropped 30% in the past year alone, from 30,673 in 2012 to just 21,514 in 2013. Only 0.55% of members voted this year. Among the possible factors causing this decline, we can include:

• lack of open competition in the election -- members can only choose among candidates screened by board and its appointed committee;
• lack of an election candidate forum -- only a constrained one-to-one email process;
• lack of convenient access to independent voter information sources -- a permanent online member forum would help with this.

So in the AGM's last Q&A section, I asked:

"I'd like to ask the board if you have any response to us 600 MEC members who signed this open letter on the website democraticcoop.ca. We are asking for member democracy, including a year-round online member forum. It's good that you created an online forum on this year's resolutions. But the forum only started when voting started, which is too late for adequate discussion."

=> Chief Governance Officer Shona McGlashan replied something like they are reviewing how the resolution forum went, and will consider whether and what kind(s) of online forum(s) to have in future.

We members concerned about MEC's lack of democratic member control (Co-op Principle #2) will continue to reach out to our fellow members who may be unaware of this problem and its consequences.