Bill C-455 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Competition Act and the Bank Act (reduction of administrative burden — credit unions)

This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.

Sponsor

Dan Albas  Conservative

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of June 10, 2019
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Competition Act to provide that the Commissioner of Competition need not be notified of proposed amalgamations involving only federally and provincially regulated credit unions.
It also amends the Bank Act to provide that a proposal by a member of a federal credit union to raise a matter at an annual meeting is to be signed by a minimum number of members who are entitled to vote at the meeting. Finally, it amends the Act to specify that only a federal credit union that is a distributing bank is required to provide access to its members register.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Competition ActRoutine Proceedings

June 10th, 2019 / 3:25 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-455, An Act to amend the Competition Act and the Bank Act (reduction of administrative burden—credit unions).

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola who, coincidentally, every time I stand to talk about the credit union movement in this country, are very happy with that.

As they know, Canadians benefit from a strong, competitive and vibrant financial sector. Currently, we have a challenge where federally regulated credit unions are subject to both federal and provincial regulations. This situation creates regulatory duplicity in having a second layer of often redundant administrative burden to comply with. In fact, as credit unions seek to merge and grow to better serve their members, it actually acts as an extremely costly disincentive to do so. There are also provisions in the Bank Act that create unique challenges for financial institutions that use a co-operative structure versus those of a bank. That is why the credit unions themselves, along with the Canadian Credit Union Association, have asked for many of these changes.

It is a great honour, on behalf of Canadian credit unions, to present this bill to support these requested changes, and I thank the member for Provencher, who is a small business owner and also served on a credit union in his area. We both know the value that credit unions bring to this great country, and we would ask for all members in this place to support this legislation and bills like it.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)