Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting us to be part of this very important study into the current opportunities and challenges facing the cooperative sector in Canada. My name is Stephen Fitzpatrick. I'm the vice-president of corporate services and chief finan

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  From a lender's perspective as opposed to a co-op perspective, I think a lot of it relates to the same factors that make credit unions successful. They are locally owned. They are responsive to the members of their communities. They reflect the character of those communities. The

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  First of all, we do think it's a positive initiative. There are credit unions that are bursting at the seams in their local market, so having the opportunity to move into markets where they aren't as well represented now is an opportunity. As far as the level of understanding, I

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think they've sold their Ontario branches now to Meridian Credit Union—

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  —so they aren't.... Honestly, I'm not sure. I know that when they came in they purchased the branches of another credit union. I think for that arm they were operating under the Ontario rules, so they were really operating in two different regimes.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, they were.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's correct.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  In our case, the $140 billion in assets would be largely loans to members.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, for member-owned institutions, the assets are owned by the members.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  There are two entities in the credit union system: Central 1, as Mr. Wrobel referred to, and Concentra, which is based in Saskatchewan. They're both federally regulated, and they have both participated in the mortgage lending programs.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I don't have the total number.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's less.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I'm sorry, I don't mean to be flippant. No, we don't collect that kind of information.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Within individual credit unions, they would have that information. But at a national level, we don't collect compensation totals on individual credit unions. We leave that to them.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Forgive me, but is the English interpretation available?