Mr. Whyte, thank you for being here today. I've had the opportunity of meeting with your members from coast to coast to coast when we're talking about merchant fees. They are exasperated with the amount of money they're having to spend every month, to the tune of $20,000 in some cases. This summer the Competition Tribunal made a ruling on some of the anti-competitive practices that we've seen from Visa, MasterCard, and Amex. They've punted that back to the House of Commons because we as parliamentarians will need to make a decision on that.
When we're talking about job creation and investing in your community, it is our small and medium-sized business owners and restaurant owners who do that in our communities. When you're hearing that they are having to spend $20,000 just to accept credit cards when that could actually be hiring more people, isn't it time that Parliament acted?
I would like to know two things. Do you think the voluntary code right now that we have should become mandatory? Should we be looking in this budget at ensuring there is some mechanism now that we address the issues which the Competition Tribunal punted back to Parliament?