Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, members of the committee, for the invitation to speak with you today. My name is Martha Durdin.
I am the president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Credit Union Association.
Joining me today is Michael Hatch, vice-president of government relations.
The CCUA represents 219 credit unions and caisses populaires outside of Quebec. Credit unions contribute nearly $7 billion to Canada's economy by providing deposit, loan and wealth management services to over 5.9 million Canadians. Collectively, credit unions and regional centrals employ nearly 30,000 people and manage over $280 billion in sector assets.
Credit unions are co-operatives. In other words, the people who bank with credit unions are the same people who own them. Being accountable to our member owners, as opposed to shareholders, results in customer service that is second to none. We consistently rank at the very top of surveys of customer satisfaction for financial services.
For rural members of this committee, it's important to note that in almost 400 communities across Canada, credit unions are the only on-the-ground providers of financial services to households and small businesses.
We worked closely with financial officials and the RCMP last month as the Emergencies Act measures were rolled out. We'd like to thank the minister and her team for keeping in regular contact with us in the heat of the crisis. We're particularly grateful to senior Finance Canada officials who provided, on short notice, an in-depth briefing to our members on the financial components of the measures. It was attended by over 600 representatives from across Canada.
We also have constructive feedback to provide on other elements of the process. In the early days of the crisis, there was the impression, not uncommon in our dealings with the federal government, that the large six banks were consulted or informed days before credit unions and other financial institutions were. Credit unions represent almost half the financial sector in some provinces, and millions of Canadian consumers. We need to be at the table in discussions with Ottawa at the same level as the federally regulated banks in all matters that directly impact our operations and our members, particularly in a time of crisis such as this.
When the measures were first announced, it was very unclear to whom the financial sanctions applied. Eventually it became clear that they were aimed at a very small list of individuals and entities. However, in the early days, there was some degree of panic among some Canadians that their accounts may be frozen due to such things as small donations to the convoy. In those important days, the government was less than clear about the intended targets of financial measures under the Emergencies Act.
Many of our members expressed this concern, and many Canadians made significant withdrawals from credit unions as a result, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and on a few occasions millions. While these withdrawals did not cause liquidity issues at all for credit unions, staff had to manage many very unhappy members. Better and much clearer communications from the government could have mitigated this.
One credit union leader wrote to us: “We had a tremendous amount of members very seriously concerned regarding the government's ability to seize accounts; it brought forward a large sense of mistrust with the government that they could just seize individuals accounts.”
The government also granted a significant level of discretion to financial institutions regarding whose accounts to freeze. This further contributed to confusion and to possibly an uneven application of the financial components of the measures. Many would have appreciated further guidance from the government on precisely which accounts would be frozen.
In the end, a relatively small number of credit union accounts were frozen. For a short period of time, our members froze a total of 10 accounts with a total value of less than half a million dollars.
We hope this feedback is helpful to the government and to the committee.
We're happy to take your questions, Mr. Chair.