Mr. Speaker, as a former city councillor, I was the first one in the province of Ontario to take on payday loans. I heard the hon. member mention the predatory practice of payday loan. At that point in time, it was a provincial Liberal government that was paying lip service to any kind of meaningful reform, yet in this budget, the remedies the Liberals have for payday loans are once again lip service.
The Liberals would go to the industry and ask it to lower the rates, while the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has Bill C-213, a bill that is ready to go. It is a real, meaningful bill that would include amending the Criminal Code to lower the maximum legal interest rate from 60% to 30% and that would include the calculation of the interest rate within the overall charges for these payday loans.
Why is it that, when the Liberal government has the power and the opportunity and the willing partners in the NDP to make true reforms to the predatory usury and the loan sharking that are payday loans, it refuses to do it? Is it because the past association president was Stan Keyes, the former Liberal?