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 * map_caption             = Interactive map outlining St. Joseph Island

By the mid-1960s, the city boasted a large and vibrant Italian-Canadian community. The 10,000 residents of Italian origin, concentrated largely in the western part of the city, equaled 12 per cent of the city's population; proportionally the most sizable concentration in the country.





Canada has a large and sophisticated credit union movement that offers a full range of banking services and is a leading innovator in the financial services industry. More than 44 per cent of economically-active Canadians is a member of at least one credit union or caisse populaire (people's banks), accounting for one of the highest per-capita memberships in the world. The origins of credit unions in North America can be traced to financial cooperatives founded to meet the needs of religious and cultural groups beginning in the 1850s, decades before confederation.

Today, Canada's credit unions operate under provincial or federal charters.

While credit unions operate in every province, credit union membership is highest in Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia.

Credit unions in North America's credit union Canadian credit unions trace their roots to the early 1900s with the first caisse populaire, formed by Alphonse Desjardins, in Levis, Quebec.

History
Credit unions began in Canada at the start of the 20th century. In 1897 Alphonse Desjardins, a French-language parliamentary stenographer at the House of Commons, became increasingly concerned with the problem of usury and undertook three years of careful research and correspondence with the founders of cooperative savings and credit movements in Europe. On December 6, 1900 Desjardins and his wife, Dorimène Roy Desjardins, co-founded the first Caisse d'épargne Desjardins in Lévis and opened for business the following month. Later renamed Caisses populaires Desjardins (and today Desjardins Group), the organization was a forerunner of current North American credit unions.

Desjardins' experiment spread into Ontario in 1908 with the formation of the Ottawa Civil Service Savings and Loan Society (today Alterna Savings).

Legislation
Responsibility for the incorporation and regulation of credit unions resides primarily at the provincial and territorial level in Canada. Credit union legislation exists in every province of Canada but does not currently exist in the three northern territories. While legislation was adopted under the federal Bank Act in 2012 to allow for the creation of federal credit unions, no credit union currently operates under this legislation.

Credit unions and caisses populaires operate in every province of Canada. In Quebec, caisses populaires are required to be formally federated with the Caisses Populaires Desjardins.

Provincially regulated credit unions
As of September 30, 2014, there were 696 credit unions or caisses populaires operating in Canada.

Outside Quebec
As of September 30, 2014 there were 352 independently operated credit unions and caisses populaires operating in the nine provinces outside of Quebec.

The largest of these include Vancity, Coast Capital Savings, Servus Credit Union, Meridian Credit Union, First West Credit Union, Conexus Credit Union, Steinbach Credit Union, Assiniboine Credit Union, Cambrian Credit Union and Affinity Credit Union.

315 of these credit unions and caisses populaires were affiliated through a provincial or regional credit union central to Credit Union Central of Canada, the national trade association. These credit unions operated 1,746 branches across the country with 5.3 million members and $168.4 billion in assets.

Within Quebec
Within Quebec there are 344 caisses that are formally federated with the Caisses Populaires Desjardins as of September 30, 2014.

In 2012, Desjardins served nearly 5.6 million members from 897 locations, with $196.7 billion in assets.

Deposit Insurance
Credit unions in Canada are insured by provincially established institutions.


 * Alberta – Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation
 * British Columbia – Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corporation
 * Manitoba – Deposit Guarantee Corporation of Manitoba
 * New Brunswick Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corporation
 * Newfoundland and Labrador – Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation
 * Nova Scotia Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corporation
 * Ontario – Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario
 * Prince Edward Island – Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corporation
 * Saskatchewan – Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation

Credit union firsts in Canada
Credit unions have a history of innovation in Canadian financial services. Here are some of the products and services that credit unions, individually or together, were first to market:

1901: First loans based on a borrower's character 1933: First payroll deduction service for deposits and loan payments 1959: First open mortgages in Canada 1961: First financial institutions to lend to women in their own names (i.e. without a male co-signer) 1967: First to offer daily interest savings 1977: First full-service automated teller machines 1980: First home equity line of credit 1982: First debit card service 1986: First ethically screened mutual funds 1988: First registered education plans 1995: First fully functional on-line banking service 1996: First branchless bank (Citizens Bank, a subsidiary of Vancity Credit Union) 2013: First mobile cheque deposit app 2014: First social impact bond publicly launched in Canada 2014: First financial institution to offer an alternative to payday lenders 2016: First socially responsible GICs in Canada 2016: First to offer mobile pay in Canada

History
The work to create a national trade association for credit unions in Canada traces the development of several different organizations with differing ownership and mandates beginning in the 1940s.

For most of the first half of the 1900s, the credit union system developed at the provincial level, with neither a national finance facility or a national trade association supporting its growth. However, by the early-1950s active members of the credit union movement succeeded in creating both a national liquidity fund and a distinctly Canadian credit union organization.

Canadian Federation of Credit Unions
Beginning in 1908 and accelerating in the 1930s, credit unions were incorporated provincially in small communities and rural areas of the Maritimes, Ontario, the Prairies and British Columbia, while in Quebec, a federated caisse populaire network developed very differently from the rest of the country.

The first attempt to create a national association of credit unions took place at the Quebec Congress of the Co-operative Union of Canada in 1943. While these talks failed to make progress, efforts two years later proved more successful. The Canadian Federation of Credit Unions was created in 1945 to “compile statistics on Canadian credit unions; to assist in lobbying for more effective credit union legislation; to assist in education programs on behalf of credit unions; [and] to encourage [provincial credit union] Leagues to affiliate with provincial sections of the Co-operative Union of Canada.”

Canadian Section of Credit Union National Association and the National Association of Canadian Credit Unions
A short time later, the Canadian Federation of Credit Unions became the Canadian Section of the US-based Credit Union National Association (CUNA), continuing to serve the purpose of providing a discussion forum and lobby group for the credit union system at a national level. In the years that followed, this organization, which had evolved out of the cross-border collaboration that had developed the credit union movement in English-speaking North America, competed for trade association functions with the National Association of Canadian Credit Unions which was founded in 1958.

National finance facility
In response to the growth of credit unions in communities across Canada, centrals began to be created in the 1930s at the provincial level to provide liquidity, risk management and shared services.

Following years of preparatory work by the provincial centrals and the Co-operative Union of Canada to create a “central of centrals” at the federal level, in 1953 the Canadian Co-operative Credit Society (CCCS) was incorporated by a special act of Parliament. It was created to provide a national financial intermediary at the federal level to support a growing credit union system. For the first few years after its creation, these functions were seldom used.

However, increased sophistication in Canada’s payments system and liquidity demands during the mid-1970s led to increased reliance on the CCCS. In 1977, reflecting “a desire within the Canadian co-operative movement to create a true national liquidity pool”, CCCS was restructured to include nine (up from five) provincial centrals. The increased capitalization that resulted from this, as well as an increasing interest in credit unions from federal policy makers led to CCCS becoming a formidable national organization. As historian Ian MacPherson notes:

"By the late seventies, CCCS was responsible for lobbying with the federal government. It was increasingly more active in providing liquidity for the national system. It was negotiating loans from co-operative banks in Europe and the United States. Thus, for a few years in the late 1970s, 25 years after it had been organized, credit union and co-operative leaders from across the country were giving CCCS the attention it deserved."

In 1978, CCCS formally merged with the National Association of Canadian Credit Unions bringing together the finance facility and trade association functions.

In 1993 the Canadian Co-operative Credit Society was renamed Credit Union Central of Canada.

Transformation and wind-up
In 2010, Credit Union Central of Canada began the process of replacing or transferring its regulated responsibilities as a finance facility in order to focus on its activities as a national trade association. .

This transformation was formalized at the end of 2015 with the formal wind-up of the Central and the transfer of its remaining assets and responsibilities to the newly created Canadian Credit Union Association.

Structure and membership
CCUA is a cooperative incorporated under the Canada Cooperatives Act.

CCUA operates from offices in Toronto and Ottawa. The main office in downtown Toronto provides communications and conference services as well as the CUSOURCE Credit Union Knowledge Network, the national learning facility for the credit union system. The Ottawa office provides government relations and advocacy at the federal level, as well as research and policy analysis on credit union issues.

While it operates as Canadian Credit Union Association and L’Association canadienne des coopératives financières in French, it is incorporated under the names Canadian Credit Union Association Cooperative and l'Association canadienne des coopératives d'épargne et de crédit in French.