Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate in the House today on financial sector reform. I want to indicate to the House that I have a time sharing arrangement with my colleague, the hon. member for Windsor—St. Clair.
Bill C-8 is really a reincarnation of a bill that was introduced in the last parliament and died on the order paper following second reading. It purports to implement 57 measures contained in the June 1999 finance policy paper entitled “Reforming Canada's Financial Services Sector—A Framework for the Future”.
The paper was the finance minister's response to an extensive and expensive two year consultation by the MacKay task force on reforming Canada's financial services sector. The consultation culminated in the fall of 1998 with a report entitled “Change, Challenge and Opportunity”. There was a subsequent response by the Standing Committee on Finance.
One of the positive aspects of this bill is that it expands the access to the payments system, which is one of our long held positions in the NDP. This is a measure that increases competition by allowing insurance companies to offer chequing and saving accounts and helps credit unions compete by allowing the creation of a single national entity—