Finance committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. I want to thank you for this opportunity to come before the committee today to provide some comments on Bill C-37. My name is David Phillips and I'm president and the CEO of Credit Union Central of Canada. Canadian Central is a fede

Finance committee  I don't have statistics on that. What I understand is that this is seen as a good line of business for credit unions. Where they have the authority to get into it, they do so, and see this as a successful strategic direction for them.

Finance committee  It really depends on the place that credit union is situated. In some provinces, and I'm thinking particularly of B.C., there are powers conferred by the provincial government under legislation to sell insurance.

Finance committee  It does. Again, we find considerable variation in the regulation of credit unions across the country because of provincial regulation, so that each province tends to regulate a little bit differently. Of course, in Quebec--

Finance committee  Those are the two that come to mind at this point.

Finance committee  Our concern, really, is with the Cooperative Credit Associations Act. I hesitate to enter into the area of banking regulation. I think there are some important issues there. We obviously share some of those same issues, but.... I think I'll defer an answer to that direct questi

Finance committee  I think one of the issues is the restriction on commercial lending powers in the Cooperative Credit Associations Act. These are quite restrictive in comparison to the Bank Act, and certainly something that we would like to see some loosening of. There is regulatory authority in O

Finance committee  I'd be happy to. The Cooperative Credit Associations Act is in many ways a work-in-progress. This act was enacted 55 years ago by the federal Parliament. For the first 52 or 53 years there were no institutions actually incorporated under that act. My organization was continued u

Finance committee  I'll just speak to it from the perspective of the credit union system. We have established within the credit union system a surcharge-free network between credit unions. I'm a member of Alterna Savings in Toronto. I have a debit card. I'm going to be in Saskatoon tomorrow. I can

Finance committee  We think we're already pretty good competitors of the banks. And certainly if you look across the country, you'll find the credit union system is growing in membership each year, growing in assets, growing in locations, and has a pretty good market share in some of the markets. N

Finance committee  No, I don't. That's Caisses Desjardins. They have their own representation. They are not part of our system. We are really the cooperative financial system outside of Quebec. But they are good friends of ours.

Finance committee  Yes, if that change is not made to the federal statute, and for those credit unions that have that authority, that would be another disincentive to move under the federal statute. Our concern is really to develop this entity, under the federal law, as an option for credit unions

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and committee members. I want to thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee as part of your study on ATM fees. My name is David Phillips, and I'm president and CEO of Credit Union Central of Canada, commonly known as Canadian

Finance committee  I don't have much more to say than what's been said. The concerns we have are that it may have this effect: pricing would be less transparent, and it would affect the supply of ABM machines in the market and the convenience for Canadians. So we are not predisposed to support that

Finance committee  That certainly is our view, and I expect that it is the banks' view.