It’s move that was rumoured for a long, long time, and it has finally happened: The Canadian Motorcycle Association (CMA) has joined forces with the Motorcyclists Confederation of Canada (MCC). Or at least, they’re working towards that plan.
In a December 17 announcement, the CMA and MCC said that “after extensive discussions concerning the state of motorcyclist representation on a national level in Canada, the two organizations have executed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) under which they have jointly determined that the best interests of their respective members and the motorcycling community at large can be better addressed by the creation of a single representative body.” In other words: the two largest organizations representing Canadian motorcyclists are finally working together.
Why the team-up? Because they’ve both been doing similar things, and the organizers of both groups say it’s time to reduce ongoing costs and focus on their respective strengths to more effectively and efficiently represent Canadian riders. They say this may happen via a merger between the groups, or “some other mechanism.” In other words, the deal ain’t done, and no doubt insiders in both groups will have their own ideas as to how best proceed forward. But their respective heads seem keen on the re-organization.
Ross de St. Croix, big boss of the CMA, said “We are excited to have established this first step in the amalgamation of the CMA and the MCC … Possibly there has never been a time when the diverse nature of our sport requires more careful nurturing, and we do not doubt that the most effective way to achieve that is through unified and joint efforts of all Canadian motorcyclists. We are confident that the combined efforts of our groups will produce many more positive results than we might achieve on our own, and look forward to 2025 as a year for great change.”
For his part, Dave Millier, MCC chairman, said “Combining our efforts based on our agreement will certainly create a new organization stronger and more effective than merely the sum of its parts.”
The bottom line
The CMA has been long accused of doing a poor job of representing Canadian motorcyclists in general and racers in particular. The MCC was organized in reaction to those claims, and actually made a bid to replace the CMA as the FIM’s Canadian affiliate, but with no membership by the public at large in its initial format, that would have been challenging.
In the aftermath of the 2021 attempted takeover by the MCC, both organizations pledged to work together back in 2021, but that process didn’t seem to work out. Will this 2024 attempt be different? If the leaders in both organizations are intent on it, maybe now is the right time.
50 years past due.