CASE STUDY
Fédération des Coopératives Funéraires du Québec (FCFQ)
Between resistance and conviction*

In 1942, the first funeral co-operative with the current model was established in Quebec. The project’s instigator wished to avoid “the cycle of debt that awaited [people] after the expensive burial of a loved one.” The early days of funeral co-operatives were modest; physically distant from each other, they were left to their own devices, and the idea of regrouping started to form. As early as 1974, collective steps were taken to this end, but it was not until 1987 that the Fédération des coopératives funéraires du Québec (FCFQ) was officially founded. By the 1990s a wave of multinational takeovers of the Quebec funeral sector loomed. To resist this, the FCFQ adopted an acquisition and conversion strategy for private funeral homes across the province through the creation of a $15 million development fund, as a result of an agreement with the Desjardins Group and Investissement Québec, and through the establishment of a team of professionals specializing in acquisition processes.

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*Case study research and writing by Josée Charbonneau, Katia Beaudry, and Étienne Fouquet (2021)