Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dear committee members, first of all, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity given to us to appear before you as part of the pre-budget consultations of the Standing Committee on Finance.
The Desjardins Group is the largest cooperative financial force in Canada. We are a financial institution with over $188 billion in assets and we have over 6 million members across Canada. We are also the only financial institution present in 58 per cent of Quebec's municipalities, and this makes us a very significant component in Canada's economic life.
As part of these consultations, I'd also like to draw your attention to a something particular. The UN recently declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives. In fact, early this week, the United Nations officially announced the launch of this year. As a cooperative, Desjardins believes it is extremely important to expand this sort of business model, which is an opportunity for greater participation by individuals and also for a better distribution of wealth.
As for budget forecasts, our comments are going to be very high-level and economic in nature. In light of the time available to us, they will be brief.
First of all, the world economic situation is particularly difficult and is also very fragile. We talk about almost extreme volatility. Nevertheless, Canada is all and all in a very enviable situation. The Desjardins Group therefore believes the budget should stay the course.
That said, we would like to draw particular attention to three recommendations. The first one is on infrastructure. It's no secret to anyone that Canadian infrastructure is in poor shape and is wearing out more or less throughout the country. A little earlier, reference was also made to the rather problematic case of Champlain Bridge. While the economic recovery plan of the Government of Canada allowed some catching-up to take place, it remains that this is an ongoing problem and that the government should focus on this problem by providing adequate funding for the modernization and maintenance of infrastructure, so that at the very least we don't waste the catching-up going on now.
The Desjardins Group is also of the opinion that the government should maintain transfers to the provinces, for both other levels of government and individuals. We're thinking particularly of individuals where transfers for employment insurance and old age security benefits are concerned. These are people who are especially vulnerable. Some of them live below the poverty line and these payments, especially in the state of the current economy, should in our opinion be maintained
Finally, the last matter I'd like to raise is household debt. This has been discussed repeatedly in the past year. We're talking about mortgage debt and also consumer debt. Since 2008, the government acted three times to change measures pertaining to mortgage credit, which in our opinion, was an excellent thing. Now the situation, even though it's relatively stable, still remains fragile. In our opinion, the government must be very vigilant, particularly with regard to mortgage debt, since a rise in interest rates, which is not expected in the very near future but nevertheless seems to us inevitable, could put many Canadian households in difficult economic situations.
As far as consumer credit is concerned, we think that this should also be paid particular attention by the government. We've observed fairly fast growth in debt, even though assets are also increasing.
In closing, I mention the example of Desjardins, which has raised its minimum payments on credit cards from 3 per cent to 5 per cent, which seems to us to be an appropriate measure. We need to send a clear signal to taxpayers and especially consumers. The message is as follows: consumer financing is not long-term financing.
On that, I yield the floor.
Thank you.