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MARGAREE CENTRE, N.S. —

Jeannette Gallant was furious and frustrated upon receiving a letter from her local credit union in April.

The 70-year-old lifelong believer in the co-operative movement was informed that her branch — the Margaree branch of the East Coast Credit Union — would be closing effective July 26.

She didn’t think it was real.

“When we got that letter in the mail, we were just totally dumbfounded, shocked,” Gallant said.

“It’s just not right.”

With about $770 million in assets and 41,700 members at 23 branches scattered across mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, the East Coast Credit Union said the decision to consolidate the Margaree branch with an upgraded Inverness branch 35 kilometres away, was a case of managing dollars and cents.

A proposal floated recently by an ad-hoc committee of members from the Margaree Area Development Association and the Margaree Co-Op has been deemed not viable by East Coast Credit Union president and CEO Ken Shea.

The pitch, as laid out by ad-hoc committee member Brian Peters, was for the Margaree Co-Op to finance an addition to its building large enough to hold a couple of credit union employees. The space would be leased to the credit union over a set period of time, he said.

“We take co-op philosophy very seriously. Part of that is to help stimulate and protect other co-ops and the credit union is certainly part of our fold,” Peters said. “It’s definitely a benefit to the co-op business because it means people will not have to leave our community in order to do their banking, in which case they may do their shopping.”

However, Shea sees it differently.

He said it’s about ensuring the “long-term sustainability and success” of the East Coast Credit Union.

There could be alternative proposals for those who do not want to use online banking like East Margaree resident Gallant.

Shea said setting up an automatic teller machine, or ATM, is one idea. Another is having a mobile credit union employee who would visit area residents by appointment.

But the idea of setting up a new brick-and-mortar presence attached to the Margaree Co-Op won’t work, he said.

“The proposal … is replacing what we already have. We already have a building. We have a branch set up there and we don’t believe that in its current form it’s sustainable into the future.”

Shea said research has pointed to a membership that prefers online and mobile phone banking, noting the volume of transactions in branches have “dramatically decreased over the last three to five years” and he expects that to continue.

There are more than 1,000 people who are members of the Margaree branch.

Peters, spokesman for the ad-hoc committee, said he’s firm in his belief there’s enough business to keep the branch open.

“Bureaucracies always like to oversimplify. It just makes it a lot easier to manage. Unfortunately, credit unions are structured differently in that it’s the members that are owners, not a bunch of shareholders that look at the operation as a for-profit enterprise,” he said.

“We look at it as more like service to the community.”

This is an undated photo of an annual credit union meeting in Margaree in the mid-1960s. From left, Margaree Credit Union president Gerard Chiasson, local parish priest Gerald Rodgers and secretary Pat Miller. CONTRIBUTED/SIMON LEBLANC

The credit union in Margaree opened in 1936. The community is the birthplace of the co-operative movement in Atlantic Canada, founded by Fr. Jimmy Tompkins and Fr. Moses Coady.

As a child, Gallant remembered each Friday she would visit the credit union to deposit five cents she carried in a little brown envelope.

“And this is how we were taught to save money when we got older, not that it worked for me,” she said with a laugh.

Now she must consider her options. Despite owning a computer, she refuses to use any form of online or telephone banking, saying it's a trust issue for her.

Gallant and her husband have become familiar with the monthly routine of receiving their old age security payments and then paying their bills at the credit union, only a two-minute drive away.

Neither she nor her husband Leo Paul Gallant travel distances in the winter. The impending closure has indeed become a problem she’d rather not deal with.

But it’s not just her, she said.

“There’s a whole whack of seniors down here. They’re going to have to be hiring cars to go to the credit union in Inverness or Cheticamp. And with their old age it’s not going to be easy.

“You’re not going to hire a car for less than $20 or $30 to go do your banking. That’s coming out of your cheque at the end of the month.”

She’s hoping her credit union does get a last-minute reprieve.

“Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed.”

chris.shannon@cbpost.com

Twitter: @cbpost_chris