Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With all due respect, Monsieur Paillé, I'm not sure what planet you've been living on through this recession, but there's not a dollar of Canadian taxpayers' money that's gone into any bank, so why would we punish them? The fundamental question in my mind is, do you not realize there's only one taxpayer in this country, and that would be you and me, who would pay higher bank fees, because it's quite easy to pass that on? We know that this tax would not end up just with the bank. Next time you or I go in for a loan, or the services that are charged on our transactions, we'd see them increase. So I'm not sure why we would even consider this.
We've said the Government of Canada is not supporting this, and I think we have strong support. I'm quite confident we have strong support across the country, and not just from the banking sector but from those people who understand finances, who are very proud of.... Accolades to the Liberals. The Liberals made sure we kept regulations, good regulations, in place that kept our banks strong, made them strong. Now, to penalize them for greed in other countries, to be very blunt, is not fair to our banks. Our banks are to a point where they've moved up the ladder in international stature. We have some of the strongest banks in the world that are now able to invest outside the country, and this sort of thing is pretty short-sighted.
We had no failures. We required no bailouts in this country. Yet you're suggesting that we should penalize them for their good stature and their hard work. We co-chaired the G-20 to argue against this sort of thing, and here, under your suggestion, we're going to be studying it in a committee. We need to be reducing taxes, and that's why we've said that. This would be the last thing we'd want to do, increase taxes.
Then again, as for your final comment, consideration of possible beneficiaries, who gets to choose where this money goes? The government already takes too much of our money in taxes; we don't need the government taking more. It will come out of my pocket and yours. It's inevitable if this ever happened.
We will be voting against this, Mr. Chair.