The state apparatus and the commodification of Quebec's housing cooperatives

Abstract

The paper examines the ongoing transformation of cooperative housing programs in Quebec. It shows that changes in the internal structure of the Canadian state, at federal and provincial levels, are tending to commodity or reprivatize the forms of cooperative housing promoted by state subsidy. New types of housing cooperative, which will participate fully in the exchange processes of the capitalist housing market, are being encouraged by recent provincial programs. This suggests the demise of the relatively decommodified housing cooperative, which had developed in Quebec in the last decade. Theoretically, the capitalist state is expected to favour policies whose outcomes are more rather than less commodified. Within such general theoretical guidelines, this paper explains the precise timing of the encouragement of commodified forms of cooperative housing by the provincial state apparatus. It is argued that the recent effective withdrawal of the federal government from direct provision of social housing has exposed the fact that the Quebec government has not actively favoured decommodified forms of housing cooperative, other than when the availability of federal funds made this expedient. This is consistent with the Quebec government's support over the last two decades of cooperatives as a form of Québécois capitalist enterprise.