I have discussed this quite a bit with my counterpart at Credit Union Central. I will be very honest here: I am not a tax expert, and I cannot really get into the ins and outs of whether that particular ask makes sense or not. I have a sense that the Department of Finance felt that it was a long-standing anomaly, and it had to be addressed. I would say as a general principle that when you are competing for the customer's dollar.... You're right that they don't have access to the same degree of funds, but they do have themselves structured differently, and there are, I think, legitimate tax breaks for credit unions. You do have to ask yourself whether what you're doing is for the good of the customer or whether you are introducing anomalies into the system that may look good now but that will come back to bite you at some future date. I would hesitate to say yay or nay on that specific issue.
On October 27th, 2014. See this statement in context.