Thank you.
Hello, Mr. Giroux.
First of all, like my colleague from Joliette, I salute you for staying so busy lately. Well done.
You recently talked about measures for stimulating the economy when the time comes for a reboot. Last week, a question was asked by Mr. Littler, who was appearing before the committee as a representative of the Retail Council of Canada. Mr. Littler has been advocating a certain measure for years, over a number of Parliaments. We asked Mr. Morneau the same question, but we didn't get an answer. It's about the interchange fees that retailers have to pay for every transaction. As we know, because of COVID-19, people are mostly using credit cards. The use of cash is way down.
I was wondering if we should imitate Europe or Australia and cap the fee at 0.3% per transaction, instead of the current rate of 1.5%. In reality, the rate is around 2% and sometimes even goes up to 2.5% in certain situations. That eats directly into retailers' bottom line. Wouldn't capping these rates at 0.3%, as is being done elsewhere, stimulate an economic recovery, among other things? It would mean a lot more money in these retailers' pockets, but also more tax to pay because they would be making higher profits.
Has this measure previously been studied by your office? This is a long-standing request. Would it be advisable to implement such a measure here in Quebec and Canada?