Thank you for your history of support for the sector as well as your membership in your local community credit union. We appreciate the shout-out.
Credit unions are collectively the largest lender to small business in Canada. We're a huge presence in that market. It's often the case, more than just on anecdotal terms, that a small business would go to one of the large banks with a business plan and strike out and go across the street to the local credit union and land financing for their venture. We're very proud of that. Our local knowledge of our members allows us to participate in a very robust manner in that market. We appreciate that, and we never take it for granted.
In terms of competition, there are so many things. I alluded in my opening remarks to the increased powers of the Competition Bureau that we have to be cognizant of and some of the potential, not only unintended but perverse, consequences of the increased powers of the Competition Bureau with regard to scrutinizing mergers and the challenges that could pose for our sector.
This perhaps could be a longer-term proposition, but we need a more streamlined regime for credit unions to go federal. Many of you will know that there's been a federal option for credit unions in place since 2014, I believe, so for a decade. Effectively, that option doesn't exist, because it takes seven to eight years and millions of dollars for a credit union to go from provincial to federal jurisdiction. It's just not realistic for 99% of our members. We need a streamlined version of that. It should take one year, not eight years. The reason so few credit unions have decided to go down that road is that it's just not an option because of the burden and the time it takes. We need to think about ways that we can reduce that burden and allow more of the current provincially regulated institutions to go federal so that they can grow beyond their own provinces, again, to be able to provide competition, to compete outside their home markets across Canada to compete with the banks.