Antigonish Movement - From Nova Scotia To The World

From Nova Scotia To The World

From its start in 1928, the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University was concerned with spreading its message well beyond Nova Scotia. It was particularly concerned about the other provinces in the Maritimes.

For example, by 1936 there were 200 study clubs operating in New Brunswick, and the legislature passed a credit union law that year. Wilfred Keohan, the New Brunswick Registrar of Credit Unions, wrote in 1939 that "There can be no doubt but that the experience in Nova Scotia had a marked influence as credit union enthusiasm knows no frontiers. The crystallized demand came from such bodies as the New Brunswick Council of Labour, the Trades & Labour Council, the Farmer's and Dairyman's Association, fishermen's organizations and members of the clergy who saw in credit unions an economic regeneration of their flocks." By 1939 ten thousand members were participating in 95 credit unions (including caisses populaires) in the province.

By 1936 Coady and MacDonald were increasingly traveling beyond the Maritimes to Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, where their speeches and ideas helped ignite local credit union movements. After Nova Scotia passed a credit union law in 1932, New Brunswick and PEI were the next to pass legislation (1936). By 1939 every province in Canada had a credit union movement and a legal framework to guide it.

Bergengren wrote in 1940 that "out of the Nova Scotia experience has come a new and most valuable study club technique that will have a far reaching effect on the whole future of the credit union movement." He credited the rapid expansion of credit unions to other provinces across Canada to the Antigonish movement.

The Board of Governors of St. Francis Xavier University established The Coady International Institute to honour Moses Coady less than six months after his death. The institute has played a role in the emergence of credit unions throughout the world, especially in Africa. Since then, over 5,500 community development practitioners from over 120 countries have studied at the campus in Antigonish.