This clause, as you know, is about mergers of a relatively small nature in comparison to the big banks, for any institutions with an equity of less than $8 billion. Some may argue that this is insignificant in terms of Parliament, and I would argue that in fact any time we're dealing with mergers of financial institutions it's important for Parliament to be involved.
We know from all the testimony that banking concerns and access to financial institutions are of major concern to Canadians. We know that there are a growing number of problems around access and around fair treatment, and fundamental to all of this is sufficient competition in the market. So we're recommending that no matter the size, Parliament needs to have some oversight and overview in terms of mergers.
So we are suggesting that this would be an appropriate role for Parliament, and I hope that committee members would find their way clear to supporting me on this.