Finance committee  That's a huge issue. That's the tax issue that I mentioned in my opening remarks, which is effectively an update of the definition of “credit union” in the Income Tax Act from the 53-year-old definition that's currently on the books. That effectively, today—until, one hopes, this

Finance committee  Yes. Thanks for declaring your bias and your support of the sector. I appreciate that. Historically, individual credit unions have not been able to be direct members of Payments Canada just through its centrals, of which there are five across Canada. This bill will amend the go

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. We're supportive of the expanded membership options, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, for Payments Canada for credit unions. That's not necessarily going to be a realistic option for all provincially regulated financial institutions, but it will give a certa

Finance committee  I'll be quick. I'll just repeat what I said earlier about the nuance with regard to consolidation and mergers in the credit union sector. We need to be able to continue to consolidate to provide competition. It's a little bit counterintuitive. Usually, consolidation equals less

Finance committee  That's a multipronged question, but I appreciate it. I'll do my best to be efficient. On open banking, we've been working on this since at least 2018 under the previous minister, Bill Morneau, who launched the first process on this. We've been working and waiting since then for

Finance committee  Other jurisdictions have implemented open banking. Our reality is different in Canada with how our federation works, of course. Not every national government out there has the same federal and provincial dynamics that are an ever-present reality in Canada. Financial institutions

Finance committee  Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for inviting me to speak at this committee today. My name is Michael Hatch. I am the vice president of government relations with the Canadian Credit Union Association. Our members manage assets worth almost $600 billion, and

Declaration of Emergency committee  That's correct. We were not given any advance warning; quite the contrary, as I've already described.

Declaration of Emergency committee  I agree with everything my colleague has said, and a lot of it doesn't bear repeating because we've said it many times, but, again, when the federal government is enacting any kind of policy through the financial system such as this, it should consider and consult the entirety of

Declaration of Emergency committee  Yes.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Absolutely, yes.

Declaration of Emergency committee  There's been nothing formal that I would give such a formal name as “post-mortem” to. Again, the numbers were so small as to not merit such a study. Ten accounts across a $300-billion sector is not statistically significant. To the extent that we have ideas and recommendations,

Declaration of Emergency committee  As has been repeated a few times here this evening, I would add that more guidance, if not explicit lists, be provided by the government, as opposed to granting individual FIs, financial institutions, the latitude to determine whether or not activity reaches a threshold that meri

Declaration of Emergency committee  Yes. Again, I don't have the data in front me, but my recollection of the results of one of the surveys that we had conducted amongst our membership was that one of the accounts frozen was in fact a mortgage account. I don't have any further details on that.

Declaration of Emergency committee  That's right. That's my understanding of our experience as well. It is a HELOC, a home equity line of credit, so the person no longer has access—