Coop Santé d’Aylmer liquidates assets
Co-op reimbursements scheduled before 2019
Since the closing of the Coopérative Santé d’Aylmer (CSA), members are still waiting for the partial reimbursement of their shares.
At an extraordinary General Meeting, June 13, 2017, the Board of Directors agreed to name an assets liquidator, Jacques Gravel, to redistribute the proceeds to the Co-op’s members, although the number of members had yet to be calculated.
Many CSA members asked through the Bulletin about their investments in the co-op, and, at the time of dissolution, members simply had to fill out a reimbursement form and return it before October 31, 2017. According to former President Valérie Dufour, less than 2,000 members requested a refund.
The CSA makes it clear that members are not complaining about the Co-op itself; they are complaining about the working speed of the liquidator. The liquidator had announced he would reimburse the members within 6 to 7 months, after June 13, 2017. “I hope and desire to be able to reimburse the sums in December of this year,” said the liquidator at that time. He specified that the amount would be about $20 per person requesting a refund.
As with all Co-ops, members had to buy a share to join. At the time, each was valued at $50. Some members bought more than one share. Member Jean-Pierre Thivierge wrote a letter to the editor of the Bulletin in July 2018, stating, “This is a lot of money for services that were never rendered.”
Over a year and a half past the dissolution, no reimbursement has been given. “Since the winter of 2018, my family and I have made many follow-ups with the person responsible, by phone and by email, but we were left without answers,” wrote member Nadia St-Louis to the Bulletin’s editor. Some members say they are considering legal action.
At the same time, the food bank, the Centre Alimentaire Aylmer (CAA), says it is disappointed with the lack of progress on this file. Some individuals donated their shares to the food bank, amounting to approximately $6,000, according to the food bank’s DG, Gérard Émond.
The Coop Santé Aylmer was created in 2001 to meet the health needs of Aylmer residents. The organization had thousands of members and was located at 67 du Couvent Street, a building which the Co-op later purchased and which was an asset of the organization.
By 2017, the CSA had decided to cease operations since they were unable to recruit new doctors to replace the Co-op’s doctors who all had decided to leave to start their own clinic. The Co-op tried to survive by partnering briefly with Appletree, but this, too, did not work out. (Transl: CB)
