Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm Frank Swedlove, the president of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. I have with me today Frank Zinatelli, who is the CLHIA's general counsel.
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association accounts for 99% of the life and health insurance in force in Canada.
The Canadian life and health insurance industry provides products such as individual and group life insurance, disability insurance, supplementary health insurance, and individual and group annuities including RRSPs, RRIFs, TFSAs, and pension plans.
Overall, the industry protects more than 26 million Canadians and over 45 million people internationally.
Mr. Chairman, we welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee today as you review this important bill. The industry is very supportive of the bill and urges that it be passed in a timely manner.
Following up on the Minister of Finance's September 2010 request for input on the scheduled review of legislation governing federally regulated financial institutions, for us—and I've already been quoted on this by the minister today—Bill S-5 represents a welcome fine-tuning of the various financial institutions' statutes. The bill contains provisions to promote financial stability, to fine-tune a consumer protection framework, to reduce administrative burden, and add regulatory flexibility.
With respect to the first of these objectives, we are pleased to see the amendment to the Winding-up and Restructuring Act, which changes the priority status of segregated fund policies in insolvency situations and will facilitate timely transfers of policies.
As for consumer protection, the bill improves the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act and gives the government increased regulatory powers in this area.
As for the third objective, which is improving the efficiency of the legislative and regulatory framework, the life and health insurance industry particularly supports certain technical but useful proposals.
For example, amendments would be made to the Insurance Companies Act as follows: to reduce administrative burden from fairly regulated insurance companies offering adjustable policies in foreign jurisdictions by removing duplicative disclosure requirements; to allow a segregated fund to invest in an insurance company through a mutual fund that the insurance company controls, provided the shares of the company are part of a recognized market index; to provide federal financial institutions with enhanced flexibility to issue shares to foreign institutions owned by foreign governments; and future adjustments on the limits on transfers to shareholders from participating policy accounts will be facilitated by adding regulatory flexibility.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the industry strongly supports the provisions of Bill S-5 that are relevant to the life and health insurance industry, and it is willing to assist in whatever way it can in ensuring the bill's timely passage.
Thank you very much.