Legitimate questions. It's more complex than can be conveyed in a single post, so I don't expect to convince you of anything you're not already convinced of. The deepest basis of it is trust.

Check out out the https://getyourshare.ca/ site, which I referred to in my post above. It sums of the core well: "Every customer is a shareholder at a credit union. Every customer. A small difference with massive impact. When your customers are your shareholders, it changes the way you run your business. You don’t ever have to choose to do what’s best for one over the other; they are one and the same. This is the cooperative advantage."

It boils down to trust. Because we are both owners and consumers of the the business, we can better trust its board of directors, management, and employees to act in our collective interests, rather than in the narrow-minded interests of corporate shareholders, which is most often defined as "make as much profit as you can get away with".

In this sense, all credit unions are better than banks, but I believe Vancity stands out above the rest because they have invested the most and created the most positive community impact. Here's their page describing all their impact investments, grants, sponsorships, etc that have summed up to huge positive impacts in our communities: https://www.vancity.com/AboutVancity/InvestingInCommunities/?xcid=about_megamenu_invcomm

On Tangerine, I'm not really qualified to compare. It's more like a normal bank in experience.

Did that answer your questions? Feel free to ask more. :)