Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Compton—Stanstead hit the nail right on the head. It is right there in black and white in the OECD report entitled “Financial Literacy and Consumer Protection: Overlooked Aspects of the Crisis”: “...consumers have low levels of financial literacy and often overestimate their skills, knowledge and awareness when it comes to credit products.” That sums up the situation nicely.
Consumers are being asked to be their own doctor and their own neurosurgeon. Average consumers cannot be expected to make informed decisions about such complex subjects. It is up to the government to implement measures that restrain financial institutions and prevent them from developing products that, though innovative, are impossible to understand and can trap people, such as subprime mortgages.