Mr. Speaker, I vehemently disagree with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.
In his speech he indicated that the bill on financial institutions had been debated and was pretty close to moving forward. Those words mean they are not sure what they should be doing on tied selling. That is the clause members of the Reform Party are most concerned about. It is the clause that is potentially extremely dangerous for consumers if the bill is allowed to go through without clear definition and for competitors in the financial world.
The bill affects the four pillars of the financial industry: trust companies, insurance companies, investment dealers and the banks. By far the most powerful institution of those four are the banks.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance should know it is the job of government to protect those who cannot protect themselves, to protect against monopolies and to protect against unfair intrusion into competitive areas where single suppliers of a service are not held at a disadvantage.
I submit that clause 45 deletes the current section in the act that prevents tied selling. Subsection 459.1(1) reads:
A bank shall not impose undue pressure on, or coerce, a person to obtain a product or service from a particular person, including the bank and any of its affiliates, as a condition for obtaining a loan from the bank.
That makes sense. I agree with that. It is the clause that basically says that no tied selling, no coercion and no undue pressure on the consumer. It protects other institutions that offer insurance and investments and the bank does not have the advantage.
Then it goes to clauses 2 and 3 which my colleague from the Okanagan wants deleted. I support that amendment. Section 459.1(2) confuses things more. It reads:
For greater certainty, a bank may offer to make a loan to a person on more favourable terms or conditions than the bank would otherwise offer to a borrower, where the more favourable terms and conditions are offered on the condition that the person obtain another product or service from any particular person.
If that does not give the banks unfair advantage, these people do not know what they are talking about. The bill is advocating volume discount. I have five products. You are coming to me for a mortgage. I approve your mortgage, but I say: "Listen, I can give you a better rate on the mortgage if you buy an RRSP. I will give you an even better rate if you buy insurance on your house". Those are three products. But wait a second. A trust company cannot provide all of those products. Insurance companies cannot provide all of those services. Investment dealers cannot provide mortgages. That is unfair.
Mr. Speaker, you are giving me a sign, but I believe the agreement made by the House leaders was that we would be given two ten-minute speeches on this today and that would be it. That is what the parliamentary secretary to the House leader told us. I believe that the Bloc agreed to that, as did the Reform Party. I thought I had five more minutes.