Hey, I wonder if they will help me also...because I have been laid off from a local mill since march with probably no hope for return.

Not to knock Integris and the leadership they've shown that's mentioned above, but when it's said they'll "delay payments for up to four months" will the interest foregone on those payments be added on to the total "cost" of the loan?

Will it be "compounded" by the non-collection of principal and interest for that four month period? Or, are they really showing community leadership here, and are actually deferring the payments without any further cost to the borrower later on?

While, in my opinion, Credit Unions are generally much preferred administrators of the "community's credit" in comparison to the large chartered Banks, they are also "businesses" with ongoing costs and obligations to their member/shareholders.

And, like the large Banks, they seem to operate under the same assumption that the "credit" they create and administrate "belongs" to them, and NOT to the "community" from which it really originates. Even though the "them" in their case may be much closer to that "community" through their local member/shareholders who have a vested interest in that community.

It can't really be said that this assumption they, or the big Banks, hold in regards to the "ownership" of credit is at all justified, yet the public does nothing to dissuade them of the idea.

It might be remembered, though it probably has now been forgotten, that at the time of another "disaster", this time an extended period of drought coupled with a meltdown of grain markets in the Alberta of the early 1930's, the Banks often showed a similar seemingly generous spirit.

They often 'allowed' farmers who could no longer meet their mortgage payments to remain on their farms, rather than foreclosing and dispossessing them.

But, as it turned out later, not out of a genuine generosity or the "milk of human kindness", or a willingness on their part to "share the pain" of loss of income the farmer was facing.

But because they would be foreclosing on assets that were, at that point, essentially seriously devalued and in many cases, all but worthless. And there would be a "cost", to them, of having to assume ownership of those farms through their upkeep, security, taxes, etc.

So they let the payments go unpaid. Not for four months, but for several years. But they didn't "forget" about the principal and interest on them. And the unpaid portion of each month's interest was added to the principal, and drew interest on the interest, month after month, year after year.

When the drought eased, and grain prices made farming viable again, many farmers were facing a debt nearly twice the size of the amount they'd originally borrowed.

And now, besides the risk of foreclosure and loss of a farm kept up by them that was once again worth something, the debt obligation continued for any unpaid portion of it left after such a foreclosure and forced sale. If they worked elsewhere, they could have their wages garnisheed. The only way out for many was bankruptcy, which incurred greater hardships then than are incurred now so far as both loss of possessions and being 'stigmatised' were concerned.

While we can all applaud Integris for their leadership at a time of hardship, and realise that they, too, do have costs and obligations that must be met, is it not time that we looked into the larger issue here? That issue is the actual OWNERSHIP of "credit", and how it could, and should, be genuinely used to SERVE the community from which it arises.

Thank you, socred, for your very thoughtful and insightful comments. It is comforting to know that there is someone out there who sees the big picture. We do not know if the gestures from the credit union are altruistic, or self serving, in the sense of good publicity I mean.
Either way, their offer still helps their customers, at least the former NCP employees.
Are they offering the same deal to everybody else who has been laid off and not found work right away?
metalman.

Yes, they offered it to Winton Global
employees, who if anyone is keeping track will add another 350 workers to the list of displaced forest industry workers in
another 4 weeks. Tough times ahead, wait
until pulp prices fall....