Mr. Speaker, despite a certain level of enthusiasm, financial literacy does not necessarily seem the most exciting of subjects. That being said, it is still an extremely important subject. It is important for young people who are beginning to save their money and to understand what is involved in investing and having money, and it is important for retired seniors who must manage their pensions and a significantly lower income now that they are no longer working and are taking their well-deserved retirement.
Following consultations and a study, the government introduced Bill C-28, a bill that would create the position of a leader who would be responsible for the development of financial literacy for Canadians.
Initially, we opposed this bill for the reasons I will set out. However, we will support it at third reading for the reasons that I am also going to take this opportunity to explain.
First of all, we kept up our opposition for a number of reasons. The first point, and it is not the least of them, is that the position would not necessarily be bilingual. As a matter of fact, my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent recently put forward a first-rate bill. She has done an outstanding job on this issue. However, even though the incumbent of the position would not be an officer of Parliament, it is necessary that he or she be bilingual. This person will have to interact with people from all linguistic communities, including those in Quebec, where there is a high concentration of people whose mother tongue is French, in New Brunswick, in Eastern Ontario and elsewhere. We must be able to allow people to learn financial literacy skills in the official language of their choice. This is a very important point.
We put forward an amendment to this effect in committee and, unfortunately, it was rejected by the government. Nevertheless, we want to support the bill now because it is a very good start, but we regret that this position, which should have a mandatory bilingual designation, does not. This is a very simple, but a very important, requirement.
The second point, which led to a certain degree of consternation among our members and caused us great concern, is the fact that the people who studied this issue recommended that a board be set up to engage in consultations with the financial literacy leader. The board would be made up of people representing a variety of sectors, such as the financial education sector, unions, financial institutions and so on. The board would engage in consultations with the financial literacy leader and create a system to consult people from all walks of life. This is very important when speaking of financial literacy.
Despite the important role played by financial institutions, when teaching financial literacy to Canadians, it is important not to do so in a way that will benefit only the financial institutions. Financial literacy must consider the diverse realities of individuals and various sectors, such as the unions, and the importance of pensions, for instance. When we talk about financial institutions, there is the size of the investment. When we talk about the people who are in a position to educate Canadians and so on, I think it is very important to have a board involved.
Now we are told, following the committee study, that it is not necessary that the board be established as part of the bill. Just the same, we are concerned about the political will that currently exists on this issue.
I think that the board should be established in the bill. We would require this. Why should we wait? Why should we just hope that the board will be established? I think that if we could include the establishment of the board in the bill, we would already be ahead of the game. We are very concerned about this, but not enough to oppose the passage of the bill. I think we will be taking a big step in the right direction in order to establish a position for beginning Canadians' financial literacy education.
These are the reasons why we were opposed to the bill, but we also believe that we are heading in the right direction. We are comfortable with giving it our support at the moment, but we will continue to push for improvements in the measures in the bill. Now that I have an opportunity to talk about financial literacy and Bill C-28, it would be unfortunate if I missed my chance to explain how this affects the people in my riding.
First of all, I am going to refer to a resident in my riding who works for a financial institution and with whom I often have an opportunity to chat. He has become a very good friend. His name is Jacques Rémy and he is the general manager of the Caisse populaire Desjardins in Beloeil–Mont-Saint-Hilaire. When I sat down with him in my riding one Saturday evening for supper, I had a chance to discuss various problems faced by the residents with regard to their pensions, their retirement and their investments.
One of the major problems at the moment is debt. Many residents are going deeper and deeper into debt. It may not necessarily be the fault of the individual, but there is not enough financial literacy. I do not want to lay the blame on Canadians, but these days, there are so many opportunities to invest, to contribute to savings plans, and to use several credit cards with all the rewards they offer, and all this may be quite difficult to manage. Considering that the cost of living is going up, just like everything else, it can be very easy to wind up in debt, and this has become a very serious problem. As I said, I had a chance to talk about this with Mr. Rémy, who is the general manager of a financial institution, and he is seeing this more and more often.
For instance, in a riding like mine, there is a great deal of hidden poverty. We are a suburb, there are beautiful houses, people sometimes have two or three cars in their driveway, but this does not necessarily mean that they do not have problems with debt that could lead to poverty. As the representative for these people, I think it is so important to promote financial literacy in every way we can, and this is an idea or a value that I share with my colleagues. This is why we are going to support this positive first step, while bearing in mind the extremely important fact that we have to continue improving the measures and the systems already in place.
There is another anecdote involving financial literacy that I would like to tell. Every year, a seniors fair is held in Chambly. This is a very interesting and important event in our community. The agencies serving seniors get together with members of both the National Assembly of Quebec and Parliament in Ottawa. We and the agencies can set up booths where we distribute brochures and give out other types of information, and there are presentations given by community stakeholders.
Last year, when I attended the fair for the first time—I went this year, too—there was an extremely interesting presentation on financial literacy. It focused on, as I said at the beginning of my speech, the best way to manage our pensions, our RRSPs and all the financial resources we have, the money we save and for which we work very hard over the years.
In the case of our seniors, this is well-deserved financial support. Promoting financial literacy and helping our seniors by ensuring that they are able to use the educational tools we can offer them as a government and as representatives is a worthwhile undertaking. Often when we speak of financial literacy, it comes down to explaining how important it is.
When we speak about financial literacy, one of the traps we often fall into is thinking that people are to blame, that they are not educated and not able to manage their money. I cannot emphasize enough that this is absolutely not the issue we are discussing here today. The problem is that people feel overwhelmed by the various investment options available to them.
Seniors often face this problem. They frequently receive telephone calls at home from people offering different types of services. As an aside, these calls are often not legitimate. This is a big problem. It is one of the reasons why we are supporting the government's bill to impose harsher penalties on people who commit crimes against seniors.
That being said, there are many new measures that allow people to invest and to retire relatively easily. It is really important for seniors to be able to rely on someone. That someone could be the person in the position we are creating today, or when the bill is voted on, of course.
This is a troubling issue that also applies to young people. I have spoken about seniors, I have talked about their experience, but there are also young people who are beginning their working lives, who are beginning to learn what it means to have an income and money to spend.
When you are young—I have enough experience to talk about it and to say that we have all been there—you eventually reach a point in your life where you have some independence and you have money to spend for the first time. Once you reach that point, you want to know how to get the most for your money, how to spoil yourself a little, if you can, and also how to make sensible and responsible decisions.
Here again, I am repeating myself, but it is so important to underscore it: I am not trying to say that young people are not able to make sensible decisions or be responsible, but the point is that more and more frequently credit cards are being offered to very young people. When you are very young, you try to learn how to invest in an RRSP, how to invest in that famous retirement pyramid, which consists of RRSPs as well as contributions to a retirement plan. When you reach this point in your life, it is very important to have meaningful support from the government and from various agencies, which will be possible with the creation of a new position with the mandate of promoting financial literacy.
I have been talking about this issue for several minutes now. It is interesting because this shows that financial literacy can mean different things to different people. From my comments, it is clear that this can mean different things to different people of all ages.
We in the NDP firmly believe that a concrete definition of the term “financial literacy” is needed. When a position is created whose mandate is to promote financial literacy and educate citizens, it is crucial that we have a clear definition, as was the case with the infamous “net benefit”. Thus, once greater clarification and precision are brought to the definition, then we can have a leader, someone who is responsible for and able to properly manage the file.
In the past, the lack of a clear definition was one of the reasons we had decided to oppose the bill. However, the pluses outweigh the minuses at this point. Although we would like to see more clarification at this stage, we hope to achieve that in the coming months and years, as this matter evolves. We do still have this concern, and it is very important that it be raised here today.
While I am on the topic of our change in position on this bill, I would also like to explain the other reason we reached this conclusion; it was because of the work done in committee, particularly by our party's consumer protection critic. Financial literacy is extremely important for the protection of consumers, and the hon. member for Sudbury has done an excellent job on this. He meticulously explained to us that when the Standing Committee on Finance began examining this bill and this issue, many witnesses called for the same things that the NDP has been calling for. They had the same concerns and raised the same points that I just mentioned in my speech.
Looking at the work done in committee, it is clear that the witnesses were able to explain to the members the importance of moving forward by taking this first step.
After hearing this testimony, we think it would be a big mistake not to support this first step in the right direction. This testimony also allowed us to confirm the problems with this bill.
This is a good opportunity to emphasize the committee work and the importance of inviting expert witnesses from different backgrounds. Various testimony was given by a diverse group of witnesses, including economists, people representing financial institutions and people representing unions. In my opinion, bringing all these people together to have a serious discussion about something that affects us all, without allowing the discussion to focus too much on one topic and not enough on another, allows us to have a clear view of the overall picture.
Another thing that is very important in all this is ensuring that everyone's interest is served. Last fall and this past spring, we debated a bill whose number escapes me, unfortunately, that would implement another retirement savings account much like an RRSP. When we were discussing this bill, many concerns were raised about the various existing retirement accounts and plans.
We do not want to fall into the same trap. Far too often, people have watched the companies they worked for declare bankruptcy and have ended up losing their pension. We do not want the retirement plans and pensions of people who have worked so hard for so long to be tied to the fate of a company that mismanages its investments and ends up going under. In 2008, at the height of the last recession, this type of situation happened at an alarming rate in the U.S.
That is why we should make financial literacy more of a priority. Doing so would help us start a conversation on these retirement plans, on RRSPs and on all the measures available to us as individuals and workers, regardless of where we work. This allows us to recognize the risks of these measures, so that we may proceed safely. There is nothing worse than working for years, investing and contributing to various retirement plans only to lose that money because of bad decisions made by people at the head of various companies.
That is why we want to be very careful. It is very important to educate Canadians so they have the tools they need to make good decisions about their investments and for their retirement.
I would like to talk about my own experience. As I mentioned earlier, retirement may seem very far away for young people of a certain age who are just starting to work, to have some money and to have these kinds of opportunities. People in their twenties do not think about their pension, but I believe that it is very important to start thinking about it. I always say that pensions are very important to our seniors and those who retire, but they are also important to our young people. We have to realize this and set aside our preconceived ideas about this affecting one group of people more than another or only affecting people of a certain age.
This is an extremely important matter, and I cannot stress that enough. For that reason, we support this bill and we will continue to improve these measures and work on this, so that Canadians can make good investments and have adequate financial security.
