Good afternoon, Mr. Campbell. Thank you for joining us. At our last meeting, we began a discussion that we could unfortunately not finish. So I will put some questions to you that I felt were rather important.
On either side of the political spectrum, there are many people who are worried by such legislation because they draw parallels with what happened in Cyprus, where small depositors' money was seized and used to bail out failing banks or financial institutions.
I know that's not what the bill provides for, and I want to use your presence to reassure our audience. However, I am worried by the fact that the bill does not establish a definition of what constitutes a long-term debt that would be converted into shares when a bank is failing. That will only be defined through the regulations, but regulations can be amended, since Parliament is sovereign, as Mr. Champagne said, and since the executive makes that decision within a sovereign Parliament.
Could you explain to us the mechanism through which a bank would be bailed out, and explain what that implies, especially in terms of converting certain elements into shares? What safeguards are there to prevent a government from amending regulations in order to use, for instance, clients' deposits?