MEC can forever go fuck themselves. They broke the co-op to sell themselves to private equity and now want to wrap themselves in the flag? Never.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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They broke the co-op to sell themselves to private equity
They were already under creditor protection when the sale happened. You can blame the old board for bankrupting the co-op, but the private equity acquisition was handled by the courts
A small number of board members biased the vote to get moreof their friends onto it. The now-majority proceeded to run the co-op like a for-profit business, expanding for growth's sake, and ensuring that if (when) the co-op failed, they'd make out like bandits. They then voted to violate the charter of the company, declare themselves a for- profit corp, and sell to US investors.
Those fuckers didn't even pay out the shares to us owners. They stole the co-op from us.
And worse of all the courts did nothing about it. But the courts would be very happy with protecting shareholders of private and publicly traded companies.
Co-ops are such a socialist thing.
You say that as if it's a negative.
I read it as sarcastic - what the courts are quietly thinking.
Exactly(socialism would be great!).
Name and shame?
The entire board of directors after their political coup. From about 2009 onwards, they restructured to focus on growth growth GROWTH! That was when they started to ramp up Chinese-made products and wind down their own manufacturing, and when they started to sell bikes under their own brand name.
Poor engagement from the coop members lead to voting in an ineffective board and management that lead to the coop going bankrupt.
The “coop” did themselves in.
Former member here...
Exactly. Fuck MEC. Will never go back. Plenty of other for profit stores selling overseas made stuff anyway, if thats what i'm looking for
Unless i see some real, tangible changes back to its co-op values, i won't go back. Don't tell me about your "vision" of Made in Canada (deliberate avoidance of "product of canada"?)
And REI is following in their footsteps.
MEC is no longer a co-op? Can I get my five dollars back?
Hasn't been for a few years I believe.
More than a few
The Board / Leadership voted in by the Coop members apathetic voting turn outs bankrupted the coop, then under creditor protection the assets where sold off.
This all happened in 2020, 5 years ago. The fact you didn't notice till now sort of proves the lack of coop member engagement for really important votes before the end.
So it was my, and my ilks fault. Got it. I still fell they shafted me out of that 5 bucks though.
I was member as well so I AM your ilk, the coop had MILLIONS of members. IIRC from the last few disclosures less than 1% ever voted on anything.
I bet if you banded together even 10k worth of people to vote a certain way you could have swayed ANY of the open annual elections.
However what happened most of the time is about 5 whiny assholes showed up to AGM meetings and bitched and complained when they should have been rounding up support OUTSIDE the meetings to get people in to vote.
Haven't been back since the coop was deliberately bankrupted. No plans to.