Division 5 of part 4 deals with the recapitalization of the banking system. It is a group of provisions that is extremely important and delicate. It would change the way in which our banking institutions would be protected if any serious problems were to undermine their viability.
We are not opposed to a solution like recapitalization. However, I find it extremely problematic that this committee has not conducted an in-depth study of the consequences of the provisions in this division of the bill, given that they cover more than twenty pages or so and are very technical in nature.
As members of the Standing Committee on Finance, our responsibility is to hold the government to account for the provisions that it is making, whether they are good or whether they need more discussion. Our responsibility is to conduct a thorough study of measures that are going to be very important for our economy in the years to come. We are about to make major changes to the lifelines we give to our banking institutions and we are doing so with a minimum of debate and a dearth of questions. Such behaviour should lead us to reflect on the role of this committee. We must keep in mind its basic function, that of requiring the government to account for its proposals. That has not been done.
A government official, Mr. Campbell, came to answer a few questions about the consequences of these provisions. I would like to thank him for that, because he provided us with useful answers.
However, did anyone from a financial institution testify before the committee? Did we hear from external analysts who have studied these provisions? We could have heard the views of OECD or IMF representatives. We could have spoken to all of them.
I can tell you that Canadians from my constituency and some from outside it are worried. I do not necessarily share those concerns, but they are worried because they have seen the abuses that bank recapitalization measures can cause. The most common example is Cyprus, where amounts deposited in savings accounts were seized in order to recapitalize the banks. That is not what is in this bill, I admit, but the concern exists, and we did not have the opportunity to study this issue in depth.
Once again, some of these provisions are not in the bill, but they will be included in the regulations to come and those regulations can be changed at any time by the government, by the Governor in Council. It would have been important to make sure that safeguards are in place.We have had no guarantees in that regard.
I can tell you that this division of the bill on bank recapitalization is one of the most significant and complex that I have ever seen in more than four years on the Standing Committee on Finance. But the study it has been given is extremely superficial.
I do not know what else to say to make committee members realize the importance of the work that we have to do for our public finances and for the Canadian economy. Dealing so casually with something so crucial and so technical leads me to question the legitimacy and the effectiveness of the committee's functions.
For those reasons, even though we are not opposed to the provisions that the government is proposing, we cannot support this approach. The government should have introduced this part of the bill as a separate bill. Then it could have been closely studied. That was not the case.