Perfect, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure it was included.
My experience as a customer of one of the big banks is that every time I go into different branches, I'm always being told, “Oh, why don't you buy the unlimited thing? What are you going to do with this balance in your account? You should invest it in mutual funds.”
That's all well and good because banks are profit driven. I want to say that we're not picking on the banks here. We're saying that at a certain point they're taking advantage of vulnerable Canadians who do not have the financial literacy to make these decisions.
Banking happens on a weekly basis. Let's say you come from my riding in Brampton East where the classic bank model still exists in which people do their banking in person. Then, TD goes over and above—that's an example of one of the banks—and they hire people who speak fluently in Punjabi and Hindi and Cantonese and Mandarin. They can speak directly to seniors or new immigrants who are working really hard, and they open accounts in these institutions. Because of where they come from, they don't trust that their money is going to be deposited at a machine or by doing it online, so they come and hand over the cash to see it being deposited into their bank. I feel that those are the types of customers who are vulnerable to deceptive sales practices and we need to do a better job of protecting them.
Further, when it comes to protecting consumers, something that I find completely unbelievable is the fact that with advisor spelled with an “o”, and adviser spelled with an “e”, one is a regulated title, and one is an unregulated title, yet banks use them both. If you know about this, why hasn't that been put to a stop right away?