Moses Coady - High Tide in Antigonish

High Tide in Antigonish

The period from 1929 until World War II marked the high tide of the Antigonish Movement. For a discussion of the ideas and techniques of the movement, see the Antigonish Movement.

The leaders of the movement saw themselves as developing the full potential economic, social and cultural potential within the people of the region. “But perhaps the most important reason why the Antigonish movement was able to have a significant, lasting impact was its promotion of credit unions” which delivered microfinance. The farmers, fishers and miners who formed the backbone of the movement had little access to credit before the Great Depression, and lost what little they had as the downturn started to bite.

When the Antigonish movement looked for external allies in credit union development, it did not seek them from the movement in Quebec, where Alphonse Desjardins had founded the first credit union movement in North America three decades earlier. Instead, it looked across the border to the United States – to Roy Bergengren and Credit Union National of America. Bergengren drafted a credit union law for Nova Scotia that was ratified by the provincial legislature in 1932.

That year Coady, MacDonald and Bergengren visited the fishing village of Broad Cove, where they helped the residents form the first credit union in the Maritimes.

By 1936 Coady was increasingly traveling beyond the Maritimes to Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, where his speeches and ideas helped ignite local credit union movements.

While results were not uniform, many of Coady’s initiatives proved successful. By 1944 United Maritime Fishermen represented 70 member fishing co-ops around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. That year it sold $1.4 million in product, including $400,000 in lobsters into New England.

By 1945 there were over 400 credit unions in the Maritimes, with 70,000 members and $4.2 million in assets.