Finance Committee on Feb. 5th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Richards, and then Mr. Kmiec.

[Blake Richards]

I have some questions. On the idea of studying something like this, there are obviously lots of implications and different directions that it could go in. It would certainly be useful.

Currently the government has this panel or working group that is supposedly studying this, but there seems not to be a lot of information out there about what that panel is doing. It seems as though those who have an interest can't even get any information about what's happening with that and where it's headed.

Mr. Sorbara, I'm curious about whether you have any indication as to how this would fit into that. Would we be inviting the members of that working group to give us a sense as to what they're doing and how that would feed into what we're doing, and how what we're doing would feed into what they're doing? Also, would we be looking to have the minister come and give us some sense as to where the government is looking to go or what its plans are for this working group? Obviously, if we're going to be studying something, it shouldn't be in isolation. We should try to make sure that it's leading somewhere and there's a purpose to it.

At this point, outside of doing a study, I'm not sure where this leads to.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Blake, thank you for raising that point. Independent of the consultation, I think it's important for the Standing Committee on Finance to have a view on open banking and its impact within financial services and for Canadian consumers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Francesco, when would you see this concluding, or would there be an interim report? If this is in place in other areas, we certainly need to understand what's going on.

Do you see a deadline?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Looking at our calendar and this year's spring session, I believe it would be realistic to have a report done, say, by sometime in April.

The subcommittee can—because we're here for only one week in March.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you.

I'm going to work backwards from some of the things you said so I can address some of them and share some more concerns.

With regard to the synchronizing example of people going around shopping, you can already do that today at ratehub.ca. Not that I'm endorsing what they do, but you can find a ton of publicly available mortgage information that gives you an estimate of what you can borrow and what your principal is. It uses some type of engine to scrape that information from publicly available information off banking websites. It posts it there. It's really easy for you to see. So you can already do a lot of pre-shopping.

If we're looking at that, it's been going on since the Internet was born. Hopefully we're not going to do that. It just seems like a waste of the committee's time. There are really interesting subjects, like the stress test, that we could take a look at. If that's what we're going to do, I don't think that's worth our time.

If it's about open banking—we were just chatting a bit on this side about it—we could talk about bankers' hours and how the hours available at your local branch are usually not what you actually need. A brick and mortar style of financial services is going out the window, whereas most of us do most of our banking on these devices. I always say that young people are the most savvy when it comes to their banking needs. They can compare really quickly and they know what type of financial services are available. If we're doing that, then I also don't think it's worth our time, because I think the vast majority of the market has done it itself.

I also think that what you've talked about should lead to the last section here, section c, being changed. It reads, “what steps, if any, the Government should take to implement an open banking system”. You said that the U.K. has already done so and that we should perhaps visit it. I'll address that in a moment. Really, it should then say something like, “whether the federal government should implement an open banking system” and leave a binary choice of yes or no. It could be the committee's decision whether or not to recommend it.

You said we could hold three or four meetings in Ottawa. I'd like to hear you talk about how many meetings you would then expect to be outside of Ottawa, how many travel meetings we would have, because going all the way to the U.K.... I would then ask whether that would be post or pre-Brexit.

Then there is Brussels, as well. I'm desperately trying to help the Minister of Finance balance the budget. I'd love to help him out just a little bit more by taking less in per diems. Every dollar helps. If we could all put some money into the kitty, I'm sure Minister Morneau would greatly appreciate it.

I would not want to see us travel overseas. We have video conferencing available; we could just use that.

If it's three or four meetings, that should be in the motion as well. Give some thought right now to making some amendments to the language in the motion. Again, we should move it towards a very clear yes or no on whether we should do an open banking system.

Then, mention in the motion the report, and look at the calendar as to how many meetings there are. Also, look at how we would do this. England itself, that type of trip would take a week, because of the delays coming back and forth.

If you look at the calendar, we have one week in March and then we'll have to deal with the budget implementation act. There will probably be two portions, the ways and means motions, and all of the other things this committee has to deal with, which then takes away our ability to look at other motions that could be moved before the committee to study such things as, as I mentioned, the stress test. There's the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It would be great to get an update from the government on where it's at on the share purchases and whether there have been any developments on Canadian corporations receiving some type of contract from the AIIB.

I think the motion needs further amending so that it's clear what we're trying to achieve and that in it, we commit to the number of meetings, the report, and the recommendations, and we're clear about what we're going to tell or ask the government to do afterwards.

Again, if Brussels is to be part of it too, then three or four meetings would come very quickly. We'd have to set them up and decide on a witness list.

We've talked about some of the general concerns about open banking as a subject area, but I also think that the motion itself needs a few amendments. If you'd be open to amending it to give that clarity and committing ourselves to telling the government yes or no, then I think that would be perfectly reasonable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have Mr. Fergus and Mr. Julian, and there's another committee meeting that will start in this room in two minutes.

Mr. Fergus, we'll let you start and then I will have a suggestion.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'll be very brief, Mr. Chair. I'd like to call the question.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I have a point of order on that, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

If there's ongoing debate, we have to let the debate continue. What I was going to suggest, and then I'll go to your point of order, is that based on the discussion, if Mr. Sorbara could refine the motion somewhat to clarify the number days and travel and deadlines, then we could deal with it at the next meeting. We're going to have time, I understand, if that suggestion flies.

Mr. Poilievre, do you have a point of order?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes. My point of order is to ask whether or not I'm on the speaking list and will have an opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

There's another committee coming in here now, so my suggestion is that Mr. Sorbara refine the motion somewhat and put it to us at the next meeting. You'll be put on the list at that time.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Are we agreed?

The meeting is adjourned.