Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Honourable members, thank you for inviting me to speak today. My name is Michael Hatch. I am the vice president of government relations at the Canadian Credit Union Association.

Canada's credit unions and caisses populaires manage almost $684 billion worth of assets and serve over 11 million people, so that's more than one in four Canadians. With more than 2,000 credit union locations, we are the only financial institution with a physical presence in around 350 communities in almost every part of this country. Credit unions and regional centrals employ over 30,000 individuals and provide full-service financial solutions while being fully Canadian owned.

We are pleased to appear today as part of this committee’s pre-budget hearings in advance of the 2025 federal budget.

As this committee and the government look for concrete policy options to address the cost of living challenge, there is a single word that should be constantly on your minds: competition. The most effective way the government can address high costs is to encourage competition in the sectors that impact Canadian households.

Credit unions, as most of you will know, provide some of the only real competition that exists in financial services in this country. The sector is dominated by a small number of massive banks, and we all know who they are.

Normally, mergers and consolidation are associated with decreased competition. In our sector, the opposite is true. Credit unions have been consolidating for decades, and this trend will continue. Far from reducing competition, consolidation has allowed the credit union sector to continue to provide the only competition that exists for the large banks.

This year’s budget has increased the merger scrutiny powers of the Competition Bureau. It is our hope that a more robust merger review process will not hinder the further consolidation that will be required in the years to come in the credit union sector. Early evidence from the bureau suggests that its enhanced powers will pose a challenge to the continued consolidation that needs to take place in our sector if we are going to be able to continue providing, again, the only competition that exists for Canadians' wallets.

We urge members of this committee and all parliamentarians to pursue a legislative regime that allows credit union consolidation to continue, as this is consistent, as I mentioned, with enhanced competition in Canadian financial services.

Far too often, policy coming out of Ottawa towards our sector takes into account the needs, scale and structure of the large banks. This has had very negative impacts on the credit union sector over the years. The most recent example of this—and I'd be happy to get into more detail in the Q and A—is the recently announced carbon rebate. There will be $2.5 billion—that's serious dollars—going out in the next month couple of months to 600,000 small businesses across Canada. The co-operative sector—credit unions included—is completely excluded from this program, even though including us in it would have zero cost and would not impact the payments to those 600,000 businesses in a material way. This is an easy problem to solve. We urge this committee to address this inequity at the earliest possible opportunity, ideally in next year's budget, or even possibly in the fall economic statement to come.

There are many other examples, which I would be happy to discuss in the Q and A period, but I know we're pressed for time, and I want to give the floor to my fellow witnesses. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.