Manitoba credit union amendment law goes into effect

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This article was published 04/06/2024 (842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires Amendment Act, which modernizes some governance features for those financial institutions in Manitoba, received royal assent this week.

The legislation streamlines a few administrative and governance issues for credit unions in the province, boasting some 730,00 members and $43 billion in assets.

Among other items, it gives individual credit unions the ability to terminate membership of a member if that person were to harass or abuse staff, without having to go the credit union’s board to take such action.

However, “Such instances (of harassment) would be very rare. The member can appeal the termination to the board, but the credit union would not have to take it to the board first,” said Jim Harris, manager of strategic communications for Credit Union Central of Manitoba (the trade association for the province’s credit unions).

The act tightens up some privacy issues, removing the ability of credit union members to be able to request to see the register of members at a meeting.

It also gives credit unions the ability to pre-clear bylaw reviews with the registrar, ensuring they will pass rather than have members pass something only to have it later rejected by the registrar.

The legislation also simplifies nominations from the floor that are now sometimes done electronically in virtual meeting settings.

Curtis Wennberg, chief executive officer of CUCM, said: “These amendments to the act are necessary to modernize governance practices, while maintaining the values of co-operative democracy which are so important to credit union members.”