Compared to the sea, the village of Saint-Malo is among the highest in Quebec. This is what this small municipality clinging to a ridge in the Appalachians proclaims to ensure its publicity. Saint-Malo prides itself on the fact that it is possible, from its heights, to see far away. To the point of having built, at the entrance to the village, on the side of the road which leads to Malvina, an observation tower. This tower gives dimension to its pretension. I went up there more than once. Even on a clear day, I didn’t see the sea.
From next month, there will no longer be an ATM in Saint-Malo. There, as elsewhere in the region, Desjardins is withdrawing them in order to maintain the upward curve of its nice surpluses.
Very close to Saint-Malo, in another valley of the Appalachians, there is a slightly larger village: Saint-Isidore. This one loses his Caisse populaire. She was housed in one of those hideous buildings that this billion-dollar financial institution built in series for decades, disregarding the appearance of the villages. Nothing is more unfortunate as institutional buildings, except perhaps the post offices erected by the federal government in the same narrow and drying functionalist spirit, without any link with the architecture of the country either.
No more ATMs in Saint-Malo. And more Caisse populaire in Saint-Isidore. Where on earth will the population, especially the elderly, have to go? You still have to be motorized to consider going elsewhere, because in these places, no public transport service anymore exists.
In 2023, Desjardins announced, once again, that it had obtained “solid results”. Thanks to its members, it reaped, once again, surpluses of several hundred million. A comfortable financial situation, which ensures it floats in the financial stratosphere, well above sea level. In this respect, Desjardins is similar to banks: it is not on the verge of sinking below the waterline. his earnings are so inflated.
A short distance from Saint-Malo, in the hollow of a valley, on the road which leads to the black forests of Vermont, is Saint-Venant-de-Paquette. This hamlet enjoys a certain reputation due to the unstoppable beauty of its small wooden church and the grandeur of the songs of Richard Séguin, its most illustrious citizen. It was in this municipality that the first Caisse populaire in a rural area was launched in 1907. Faced with populations often reduced to leading the lives of semi-poachers in order to eat, Alphonse Desjardins believed in the need to offer local economic levers, while promoting a sense of community.
When the Saint-Venant bank closed in 1974, it transferred its services to the neighboring village. The village’s spiral of decline is accelerating. The skin and bones that remain from this hamlet have long pierced the specter of death, which living people of good will kick back as best they can.
In Brompton, still in the Eastern Townships, residents mobilized last week to contest the closure of their credit union, rightly fearing for the vitality of their town.
What will happen to so many villages which today are experiencing exactly the same fate, powerless after having entrusted their money to people who leave with the fund on which their community life was built?
My grandfather was inspired by the pioneering experience of Saint-Venant to found, at the end of the war, a Caisse populaire in Cookshire-Eaton, the capital of my childhood. I imagine him turning in his grave today. I hear him, in the cemetery, next to my father, digging with his nails to reach the surface of the earth. And I see him showing up in an assembly to berate the self-proclaimed heirs of the cooperative movement, to reproach them for having lost the horizon of a collective destiny which supposes a true sense of community and fairness. Above all, I hear him say to me, on the phone, in a voice that is forever familiar to me: “Jean — he was almost the only one to call me Jean — that makes no sense! »
The Caisse de Saint-Camille-de-Lellis that my grandfather managed took the name, like so many others, of the local parish. She was a sort of extension of it. Since then, the branches have been renamed. Their new names express through the band a new cult: nature. Now is the time for the Verts-Sommets, Sources, Deux-Rivières, Fleuve et des Montagnes, Coeur-des-Vallées, etc. fund. However, the natural role of the funds is not better assured.
Between 2010 and 2026, the number of Desjardins service centers will have increased from 924 to 479. The number of counters will increase from 2,652 to 1,094. The Desjardins Movement is undoubtedly moving away from its historical base. And in many places, it hurts as much as an expression of betrayal.
Basically, what is happening with the Caisses Desjardins corresponds quite closely to the way in which we envisage the repair of the roof of the Olympic Stadium. We do not discuss the long term, the goals, the horizon. There has been repeated talk, to justify the new costs generated by this white elephant, of the need to welcome Taylor Swift and Beyoncé there in the near future. These two names alone, reduced to lines of communication, make us forget the primary dimension of this concrete colossus: physical activity, sport, the well-being of a population. At a time when hospitals are overwhelmed, cities are unaffordable and regions are abandoned, returning to the fundamentals, to the basis of what weaves a community together, could already be considered a sign of health. Is it too much to ask of our society to rise above the financial sea in which we are drowning?