Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and the committee, for this opportunity to share with you the credit union's systems recommendations for your pre-budget consultation process. I am especially grateful that you have done something different this year by asking to hear from on the ground prac

Finance committee  Our proposal does that and more. We estimate that in the aggregate our proposal could help credit unions make another $700 million in loans at the cost of a $66-million aggregate tax credit. In my credit union, that means another $20 million for small businesses and homeowners.

Finance committee  By our calculation, Mr. Chair, that growth credit based on 2013 numbers would be $66 million.

Finance committee  There certainly is. At the current multiple levels, Mr. Chair, that would equate to about $700 million of additional lending that would take place in communities across the country.

Finance committee  It would be lent out. That could be leveraged and lent out to communities from credit unions from coast to coast.

Finance committee  That is the way credit unions operate, Mr. Chair. What happens in our world is as retained earnings grow and capital grows in the credit union system, that money can be leveraged. The beauty of the credit union business model today is that this money doesn't end up offshore in pr

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  No, that would be credit unions in Saskatchewan.

Finance committee  It's not. To answer your first question on the amount of lending that credit unions do in Canada, we hold 18.6% of the small business market across the country. On the second question, there are varying sizes of credit unions, and what happened with the old policy was about 1

Finance committee  I don't have those numbers handy but I'm certainly happy to provide them to the committee.

Finance committee  There was no consultation with the credit union system.

Finance committee  Sure. In terms of paying more at the local credit union the first thing I would offer.... Certainly for small business, that wasn't the result of the CFIB survey. Credit unions are very competitive on prices, and I would argue that goes beyond small business into the retail mar

Finance committee  Thanks for the question. The first thing I would offer is that if you take a five-year period, that number would be somewhere between $42 million and $83 million. It was $42 million in the most recent fiscal year. The credit union business model forces us to capitalize ourselv

Finance committee  That's a very difficult question to answer. That's national data as to where that money is deployed. Certainly we could try to come up with a bit of an educated guess for the committee, but I wouldn't want to wager a guess and be wrong today. Suffice it to say, though, that whi

Finance committee  That's not correct. What happens is that the retained earnings of the credit union are left for the credit union to use. Certainly the board directs those activities, but it does put a bit of governor on how quickly, given that there's only one source for equity in a credit union