Public Accounts committee  I do not share that view. The very strong capitalization of Canadian financial institutions allowed them to get through the economic crisis and come out on the other side in a position of much greater strength than their international competitors.

Public Accounts committee  Yes indeed, the government stated in Budget 2010 that it was concerned by the issue of mortgage penalties, partly because there is no industry-wide consistency. Disclosure also varies from institution to institution because different institutions use different methods. So it is quite complicated for consumers to find their way around.

Public Accounts committee  I would just point out that, during the crisis, the financing costs that the institutions had to pay went up significantly.

Public Accounts committee  The measures that the government took were temporary. I think that, as of now, they have all expired. I would add that all the measures were put into place on a commercial basis. In other words, financial institutions got no advantage in terms of interest rates or costs. They paid for the support they got.

Public Accounts committee  As you may know, we put in place a wide range of extraordinary measures during the financial crisis to help the financial sector through the crisis and to assure ourselves that Canadian companies have access to capital so that they can continue to operate and to grow. All those measures were contained in the 2009 budget.

Finance committee  The FISC has a legislated membership. And you're correct, it doesn't include CMHC, but the SAC committee, which is not a legislated membership, has the flexibility to invite different parties depending on the agenda, the issues that may arise, and the economic circumstance that we might find ourselves in.

Finance committee  Canada already has well-established coordination mechanisms between the financial sector agencies. When we spoke actually last week, as you know, there is already a legislated committee, FISC, that is chaired by the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and brings together all of the financial sector agencies.

Finance committee  The key inaccuracy there is that the act does not create a new third-party dispute-resolution system. There are already some bodies that do that in the private sector. And the issue, as I said, is having some uniformity of service for the institutions, regardless of which body they decide to affiliate themselves with.

Finance committee  I'll just try to clarify the nature of these amendments, and my colleague can jump in if she wants to. We're not proposing to set up a new agency through these amendments. Banks are currently required to be members of a third-party dispute-resolution mechanism. Over time it has happened that different banks are members of different third-party outside dispute-resolution mechanisms that have different features and that offer different levels of service, if you will.

Finance committee  My area of expertise is financial sector regulations, so I do not feel that I am in a position to comment on whether there is or is not a housing bubble in Canada. It would simply be beyond my area of expertise.

Finance committee  I'm not aware of any such direction.

Finance committee  The amendments to the Bank Act in respect of dispute resolution mechanisms stem directly from an announcement that was made in Budget 2010, so it makes sense that it would be in a budget implementation act. You're correct that we recently launched, in September, the next five-year review of the financial institution statutes.

Finance committee  The Department of Finance follows international developments very closely. As the Minister of Finance says, we already have in place in Canada a system that works very effectively. Adding to what the minister said earlier today, I would also mention that there is already what's called the “senior advisory committee” as well, which is composed of the same membership as the FISC but is chaired by the deputy minister of finance.

Finance committee  And the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.

Finance committee  The agencies, as I said, follow very closely what's going on internationally. Of course, we look to see if there's anything that can be learned from the experiences. As the minister mentioned, our starting point was fundamentally different from that of the United States, the U.K., and a number of other countries.