Bill No. 97 - Credit Union Act. - Second Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I want to thank the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board for bringing forward this bill. We in the NDP love credit unions. They're a great thing and have been an important part of the Canadian community for over 100 years. We've got over 1059 individual credit unions and caisse populaires and we have the highest per capita membership in credit unions here in Canada.

Without getting into detail in all the reasons we love them, we recognize they are under regulation and that regulation needs to be revisited and renewed. We are particularly pleased to hear that managers of credit unions were consulted on this bill and we do look forward to more feedback and consultation when the bill goes to Law Amendments. We were particularly pleased to see both that the age was lowered for membership to allow more people to become part of credit unions, particularly students, and also that permanent residents will be able to participate more fully in these unions in their communities.

With that, we do look forward to hearing from more presenters at Law Amendments, and I'll take my seat.