No more banking on Campobello
Published Saturday June 27th, 2009
Support Dozens of people show up at co-op parking lot to express their displeasure with closure
CAMPOBELLO ISLAND - A party showed up Friday for the final day of business at the Charlotte County Credit Union's branch on Campobello Island.
While tellers dealt with customers lined up at the wickets, staff from the credit union's head office in St. Stephen and the Credit Union Central's Risk Management Agency went through the books in a back office.
In the parking lot outside the Campobello Co-operative Building, 60 or more people gathered to show they're upset at the credit union's decision's to pull out of the island.
With the credit union gone, the 1,000 people who live on this Canadian island off the coast of Maine will have to show their passports coming and going to visit a branch bank in St. Stephen.
"It's going to be hard," said fisherman Curtis Malloch, a candidate for the Progressive Conservative nomination in Charlotte-Campobello.
"We're hoping the banking committee will keep pushing every opportunity there is," said Janet Cline, Chairman of Campobello Island Co-operative.
The committee has been talking with the National Bank about the possibility of offering banking services of some form on Campobello Island, but it remains just a possibility at this point.
"A satellite office would be ideal," Cline said, eating with friends at the Sweet Time Bakery restaurant.
"It's still a lot of talk. I think there is a lot of negotiating to do," Hicks said in a separate interview, speaking of the possibility of the National Bank.
Losing the credit union means that the Campobello Co-operative loses one of three tenants in its building. The Rexall pharmacy and ValuFoods are the other two.
Some other financial institution might set up a comprehensive automatic teller machine that can take deposits as well as dispense cash, with staff visiting the island once or twice a week, Hicks suggested.
This would leave the space in the co-operative building available for another business - maybe a call centre or a Dollar Store, Cline and others at the restaurant suggested.
As it stands, Campobello Island has one full service grocery store, two convenience stores and a pharmacy. One must show a passport to buy gasoline in Lubec, Maine, across the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Bridge.
"We are probably the only community in Canada that has to have a passport to do their banking," Campobello Island resident Trudy Brinton, sitting at the same restaurant table with Cline, said.
With the credit union gone, the banking issue moves to the top of the Campobello Island Wellness Committee's agenda.
However, the committee will still press its other priorities, including year-round ferry service to the New Brunswick mainland and forming a municipal government, Hicks said.
People in this community thought they solved their banking problems when the credit union came to the island eight years ago, filling the breach left when the Bank of Nova Scotia left.
The rally on the last day of business does little to change the reality, but it allowed the community to make its feeling plain.
"We just couldn't let it go by with nothing happening," Hicks said.
The credit union claims it lost money on Campobello Island because residents still went to banks in St. Stephen to borrow money. Island residents countered that they got their loans in St. Stephen after their credit union turned them down.
Campobello Island residents do not blame the seven local employees, now laid off, for the decision to shut down the credit union branch.
A group of Campobello Island women showed this with a final gesture. They came at the end of regular business hours and presented each of them a red rose.
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