Thank you.
This involves the demutualization, as you know. Mutual insurance companies play a pretty important role in rural communities. When the government held consultations on the demutualization framework, they heard from Finance Canada and their own summary of the consultation said:
Concerns were expressed that demutualization could lead to consolidation, reduce competition, access to services, and weaken ties to the rural communities in which most mutual companies are based.
The committee also heard concerns that votes in demutualization proposals could be decided by just mutual policyholders and not all policyholders. Amendment Liberal-15 helps respond to these concerns by requiring that all policyholders be entitled to vote on the demutualization proposal. It also requires that any such vote take place at a meeting with a quorum of a majority of all policyholders in person or represented by proxy holders.
This amendment was requested by the Canadian association of mutual policy companies.
So there are my instructions from my colleague but it's fairly simple. If in fact demutualization is going to be taking place then it has to be all policyholders rather than just simply a restricted pool of policyholders and the fear is that mutual companies will simply disappear, particularly in rural Canada but in other places as well.