Finance Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2016

[Ray Foley]

I think a comment would be that physicians, when those comments were made during the election, to a large extent didn't believe that they applied to doctors because it's not normally part of the orbit. When we became aware that this might, and then it did, involve physicians, there was a significant level of concern. That concern continues. Some of the turbulence that I referred to happening at provincial levels, it has the effect of causing physicians, who are highly mobile, to consider whether they should stay in this country or they should leave. There's an immediate advantage for 30% or more to go to the U.S.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Let me tell you, if Mr. Trump carries through with his reductions to personal income tax rates, in terms of that wee little bit extra that this government said they're going to squeeze out of the high-income earners, they're going to get nothing out of the high-income earners because they're all going to be crossing the border to work, including a whole bunch of health care professionals.

I'll leave it at that because I have a question over here.

Mr. Lawford, you represent the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, where you spoke on behalf of consumers. Then, Ms. Goulard, you represent the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. When I heard the two presentations.... Who's representing consumers here? Because quite frankly they couldn't have been more opposite, unless my hearing is going.

I'd like each one of you to maybe give me, as a layman, an example or two of, in your particular case, Mr. Lawford, how this is going to make it worse, and in Ms. Goulard's case, how it's going to make it better.

[John Lawford]

Sure. There are some minor things that do make it worse. One of them is that there's a deemed delivery rule in this thing now that says that once a bank mails you something, five days later it's deemed that you've received it.

Well, you might not have received it, so that's a weird little one, but the larger issue is that if there is a change such that provinces are shaken out of dealing with banking.... You have a regime in Quebec where you can't exclude liability, yet banks' terms and conditions often exclude liability for many things, so that will be lost to consumers as well.

It's not that we don't want to have a national, federal level playing field and consistent rules for everybody across the country. The trouble is that the level that's being offered in this bill is too low. It could have been higher because we expected a financial consumer code and that's not what we got. We got something quite a bit less.

[Brigitte Goulard]

We are the regulator for the financial institutions. We are not a consumer advocate. We look after consumer interests. I think that's the distinction between Mr. Lawford and ourselves.

We believe that this is going to be very good for consumers, and I'll give you just two examples. One is broad and the other one is very specific. One specific example is that one of the ways we disclose information to consumers is through information boxes. If you open your credit card application, you will find on the cover an information box that includes information such as the interest rate that's going to be applied, and other relevant information. One of the things that this government has done, that the bill has done, has to do with the information boxes. They will now be required for a much broader set of products and services so that consumers have an easier way to find the information when they are purchasing products from banks. That's very specific, and there are a number of very specific examples.

A much broader example of how this will be good for consumers involves the new principles. The legislation now includes five principles that will direct the banks in terms of how they need to conduct themselves with consumers. That means broader access to products, and the banks must treat consumers and the public fairly. A couple of times Mr. Lawford referred to Ireland and how well it treats its customers. Ireland is one of the countries that we will be looking at because they already have a principle-based approach, so perhaps the approach that Mr. Lawford is referring to is the approach that we will now be adopting in Canada, which is a principle-based approach.

We will be implementing these requirements, and we have spent quite a bit of time examining what's going to be required of us. I can say that it's much broader than what Mr. Lawford is perhaps referring to, because we see there are very small changes that have been made that will have a significant impact, we think, on consumers' interests. We are looking forward to implementing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you both.

Robert, do you have a quick couple of questions? We're a little over time but it's my fault. We let it go over on a number of questions.

Go ahead.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I was shortchanged, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You were.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you very much for coming. I have a few quick questions for Monsieur Campbell.

I was just wondering if you had any information on how many bank accounts were actually refused to Canadians.

[Terry Campbell]

I don't have those specific numbers but I can tell you, in the reverse, that depending on the specific survey, between 96% and 99% of Canadians have a bank account, an account with a financial institution. The vast majority do. There are some provisions in the legislation where for fraudulent purposes accounts can be denied, and so on, but the vast majority are covered.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Okay. I was just wondering how many banks are found on reserves, especially on first nations reserves or in rural areas, and I need that broken down.

[Terry Campbell]

I don't have that specific number. I can get that number to you. I do know that banks take a lot of care of both the employment side and on sponsorships and education.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Here's another question you could get back to me about. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about, or send us the information about, what you believe low-cost or no-cost actually means, and how many people that would apply to. That is information I'd be interested in receiving for the entire committee—

[Terry Campbell]

Yes.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

—at some later date. I won't have time to get that on the record.

[Terry Campbell]

I would be happy to follow up.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Then I'd just like to point out one final thing. In my riding, for instance, I have an awful lot of homeless people, and it's very difficult for them to open a bank account. In the 2007 report from Toronto, 60% of homeless people do not have bank accounts. It's very hard for them to get ID, so where do they start? I was reading the documents in the bill, and it's very good. Access to basic banking services is in proposed new division 3, and it lists all the things that you can get. But if you're a homeless person with no ID, you essentially can't get a bank account, and if you can't get a bank account, you can't have direct deposit for your social assistance or your welfare cheques. You can't gain access to other government services. It becomes another barrier.

What I would encourage is for more banks to do as the Bank of Montreal is doing. It works with a clinic in Nova Scotia, the ID clinic, to help get ID to people. The Bank of Montreal there in that one town, in Halifax, gives $25 into each bank account in order to get more people accessing these services, so it's a great thing the bank is doing. I encourage more large banks, which enjoy the monopoly here in Canada, to continue to try to get more people into the banking system so that it's not 96%, but 100% with access.

[Terry Campbell]

That's a fair point.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

If you could, please provide the information that Mr. Ouellette asked for.

I have to come back to the radiologists for a minute. In layman's terms, you have Dr. A, you have Dr. B, and you have Dr. C. Could they currently operate in a situation where they would have the availability of the small business tax deduction?

[Ray Foley]

Yes, if they were operating as sole physicians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

If they were operating as a sole physician, then they would have that tax deduction available.

[Ray Foley]

Correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

But if they combined all their operations into one, they'd only have the one—

[Ray Foley]

That's right; they share it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

—for the corporation as a whole.