Entering Wedge?

Lenin advocated cooperatives as an entering wedge of socialism. Last week Saskatchewan's first socialist (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) government introduced a bill creating Saskatchewan's first Department of Cooperatives. Its job: to foster and develop cooperative enterprises.

Ex-Premier William John Patterson, Liberal, who did not know his Lenin, attacked the C.C.F. for confusing "socialism and cooperation by making them appear synonymous." Then he and his fellow Liberals voted with the C.C.F. for the new bill. This was smart politics, for nowhere in Canada are cooperatives so popular and successful as in Saskatchewan, where 1,000 societies with 250,000 members own and operate their own businesses. Among the most unusual: Regina's Funeral Cooperative Association Ltd., organized July 1, 1943 to combat the high cost of dying.

It conducted 300 funerals in its first year, distributed a 20% dividend in the first six months. To qualify for the dividend, a member had to have a death in the family.

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