Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. Thank you for giving me this opportunity as a citizen to share my fears with you, my fears about Bill C-37 and its repercussions on consumer protection.
First of all, I would like to explain how I myself went through the existing complaints processing system. To make a long story short, after an issue with the CIBC, I filed a complaint on October 4, 2005, in accordance with the steps described on the CIBC website. Their internal process took me as far as the CIBC ombudsman's office, who told me that he could do nothing for me.
In the meantime, I had notified both the President and Vice-President of the CIBC that I had identified failures to comply with the code of conduct and compliance, under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The initial idea was to notify the persons in question so that they could intervene. There was failure to comply with the code of conduct, but obviously that is my opinion.
Since nothing was happening, on December 2, I finally demanded that my file be transferred to the OBSI, the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments. The OBSI did not acknowledge receiving my file until December 21. On January 24, the OBSI notified me that he would investigate. Between December 21 and January 24, I was given no information at all. The OBSI conducted his investigation. On receiving the OBSI's draft recommendation, which included an investigation report, I contacted Mr. McCaughey, the President of the CIBC, once again to tell him that there was now evidence that my allegations were well-founded. I asked him what he planned to do. Mr. McCaughey answered, and I quote: "I regret to tell you that you have used all the available complaints management resources. This is the last answer you will receive on the issue."
At that point, I had no choice: either I had to accept the OBSI's recommendation, or declare personal bankruptcy and start again from scratch. The company was already bankrupt. At present, no regulations have come into play with the CIBC. During the entire affair, which has been going on since October 4, 2005, I have been keenly interested in the concept of self-regulation. Basically, voluntary codes are codes of self-regulation.
Allow me to summarize what I have discovered. In the McGill Law Journal, Marc Lacoursière, an attorney and professor at the Université Laval Faculty of Law, said, and I quote:
Financial institutions, which have become involved in the formulation of these principles...
These principles are the code of conduct.
...seem to shirk off their responsibilities rather easily. In view of the banking transactions that occur overseas, the theory of self-regulation is difficult to impose. Any foreign bank that provides banking services over the Internet, with no physical link to Canada can easily circumvent the Banking Act and its numerous limitations [...] since there is no way to enforce the legislation, foreign banks may well not be interested in complying with the organization's guidelines.
Mr. Lacoursière also refers to another European study carried out with a view to implementing ombudsman systems in the EU. The study was conducted by Lex Fori, an international law firm. It concludes:
Among instruments of "soft law..."
Since self-regulation is considered a form of soft law...
...some give better results than others. One of those is co-regulation, in the broader sense, which implies the involvement of public authorities in addition to the involvement of professionals and consumers. By contrast, self-regulation has shown itself, with a few notable exceptions, to be the most frequently disappointing instrument insofar as it is frequently no more than a list of good intentions.
That is the conclusion. Those studies are not new. And as a consumer, I can conclude that the conduct of banks has been reported to authorities for a long time now, but that the banks do not seem very interested in protecting consumers.
The Minister of Finance, during the second debate—