Finance Committee on May 8th, 2007

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Chair, I propose an amendment. I am going to read it and explain it, and then I am going to read again, before giving it to the clerk. Under this amendment, the final sentence of the motion would read as follows:

That the committee request that this information be delivered confidentially to the competition commissioner by September 1, 2007, and that he then provide the committee with the cumulative data gathered for the industry.

The purpose of this amendment is somewhat connected to the intervention I made during the committee hearings on this subject. I do not think that we need figures by bank. This is not really relevant; we do not want to know the status of competition among the banks.

As parliamentarians, however, we would like to have an overview of the state of the industry, and know what the averages are within it. Then we could consider the relevance of other stages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

I'll ask the clerk to translate the amendment for those of you who want a repeat.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Elizabeth Kingston]

The amendment is that the committee request that this information be forwarded in a confidential fashion to the Commissioner of Competition prior to September 1, 2007, and that the Commissioner of Competition subsequently send to the committee the cumulative information as regrouped by industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Is there any discussion on the motion?

Mr. Thibault, do you want to speak to the amendment to the motion?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I want to speak to the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We're only on the amendment now. Do you want to speak to the amendment?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I have a question about the ability of the Competition Bureau to be able to do this within its mandate. If staff could please address that, it would help.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Mr. St-Cyr, would you like to respond to that inquiry by Madam Wasylycia-Leis?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

He is going to be asked. I did not catch how to translate the word “ability,” but someone just has to add up the figures, and that is not very complicated. We simply want this to be done by someone independent. I imagine that, once he is asked to do this addition and tell us the average, he will happily agree to it.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Are you saying that it doesn't matter where, as long as there's an independent analysis of it?

My question to the research staff is on the role of the Competition Bureau in this matter. Is that the logical place for it to go? I don't mind supporting this if I--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

I think that's a fair question. I'd like to make a friendly suggestion to Mr. St-Cyr that may address this and move the discussion forward, I hope.

Mr. St-Cyr, we don't know if the Competition Bureau would release any information, having received it, or if they could. Without a study of the legislation governing their practices, we can't be sure we would get any information. Perhaps you could add the words “if possible” to your motion. It would say that this information be forwarded, if possible.

We can't compel them, obviously, by a motion of our committee, to violate any of their rules. We should acknowledge that they may not be able, having obtained the information from the banks, to forward it without violating certain aspects of their mandate. So could we simply add the words “if possible” to the motion?

Are you in agreement with that?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We're back to the amendment.

Madam Wasylycia-Leis, continue.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I appreciate the clarification, but obviously if we gut my original motion to say this, we are left with nothing, except maybe the possibility that the Competition Bureau might possibly share with us some information. We have no certainty about that. This committee then abdicates its responsibility.

I would hope that the Bloc has a friendly amendment to their friendly amendment, which would say that failing that, this committee then—

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

We'll see.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

If it's a wait-and-see attitude on the part of the Bloc, and this is the best they can do to respond to groups like Action Réseau Consommateur, which is very definitive—

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Okay, you've made your point and you're past it now.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

—then I certainly don't think this is worthwhile.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Now, Mr. Crête, to the amendment.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I am ready to vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

D'accord.

All in favour of the amendment?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Can we have a recorded vote?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

A recorded vote has been requested. A recorded vote, please.

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 3)

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We will go back to the main motion. Is there any further discussion?

Mr. Thibault.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I'd just like to say briefly that I can't support this motion. I have a problem that we're singling out one sector of the financial institutions. We don't talk about the credit unions or the white labels, for one thing.

But my main point is about what we've heard here at the committee when we heard the Competition Bureau talk about taking their initial look at it and how they then permitted the white labels and got the industry to be competitive. I think it resolved the problems that were there at the time.

The two remaining questions I have I don't think are the work of the committee. First, is there true competitive behaviour? The Competition Bureau can handle that. I don't think we have to go through the figures of the banks and the other financial institutions. The second is the question of the captive markets--universities, airports, and all those questions--and from the information we've had, the banks weren't overly participating in that one; it was the white labels.

So for those reasons, I won't support it.