Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for appearing here today in this most interesting discussion.
I have a question to which I would like a comment or response from each organization.
I know, Ms. Hughes Anthony, you represent the Canadian Bankers Association, so I'm going to refer to a conversation that you and I had some time back, when I shared with you that we were hearing from a lot of concerned constituents, who are also your customers—or customers of the credit unions and banks, I should say. They were concerned about credit card fees, as well as issues with debit cards coming forward.
I'm quite sure you do your job well, and I'm quite sure you go back to your membership, so I had suggested it would certainly be helpful if all of the players in this, the issuers through to the banks—all of those involved in a credit card transaction—sat down and worked this out. I said that because our constituents were complaining to us, enough that we were going to have to do something about it. I suggested to you at the time that if we ended up having to regulate it, if all of the players in this business didn't get together and fix this problem, you'd probably not like the regulations we would have to put in place.
We're still trying to avoid that. We've put in what we think are some realistic regulations. The comments from Australia are that they're prepared to step back now from regulating direct interchange fees if the industry shows it can take steps to increase competition.
How was that message received when you shared it with your membership?
I would like a comment from everyone on this. Why can't we get this competition worked out, so it is fair to everybody: fair to the retailer, fair to the customer, and fair to the providers involved in the whole process?