There’s still time to meet with your Member of Parliament this summer (if you haven't already, that is).

All summer, CU Nation advocates just like you have been holding in-riding meetings with their MPs.  These casual “Hike the Hill at Home” meetings are a great opportunity to share your credit union difference and build this important relationship.

MPs will be in their ridings for the next five weeks before they go back to Ottawa on Sept. 17th.  That’s plenty of time for you to meet with yours and make a connection.

It’s a lot of fun and we’re here to make it easy too.  Just send us an email and we’ll send you a customized Hike the Hill at Home Meeting Scheduling Kit followed by briefing material and a step-by-step how-to guide.

If you’ve got questions, we can answer those too.

CU Nation advocates have grabbed on to the Hike the Hill at Home and are turning it into a success.  Our advocates have been meeting with MPs to talk about ideas to help the regulatory burden, improve complementarity with Farm Credit Canada, as well as sharing the difference that their credit union makes in their community every day. 

With more meetings in the works across the country, here’s a peek at some of the MPs the CU Nation has met with so far:

• July 12: Teachers Plus Credit Union met with Geoff Regan (Halifax West)
• July 31: Servus Credit Union met with agriculture committee member Brian Storseth (Westlock-St. Paul)
• August 9: Servus Credit Union met with Laurie Hawn (Edmonton Centre)
• August 10: Caisse populaire de Clare met with Greg Kerr (West Nova)

If you haven’t met with your MP yet, what are you waiting for?  Register now.

House of Commons committees rarely meet in the summer.  But this July MPs invited credit unions and co-operatives to Ottawa to explain how we do what we do as part of a special study of the co-operative business model.

Among the credit union grassroots witnesses MPs heard from were Nigel Mohammed of Assiniboine Credit Union, Robert Marshall of Mountain View Credit Union, John Lahey of Alterna Savings and Rob Malli of Vancity Credit Union.  Dale Ward of Credit Union Central of Manitoba, Stephen Fitzpatrick of Canadian Central and Jodie Stark of Concentra Financial also spoke to the committee.

MPs will issue a report on their study in mid-September.