Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to the three witnesses, and thank you for being with us today. I would also like to thank them for their presentations and the answers they are giving us.
I'm going to start by quoting from the document “Consultation on Fighting Predatory Lending by Lowering the Criminal Rate of Interest”, which has to do with the proposed changes to criminal interest rates. The document was published in 2022 by the Department of Finance.
I'm going to read from that report. I will then put two questions to the representatives of the two organizations and ask them for their reactions.
Here's a quote from that report:
The rate was not established with the intent of being a financial consumer protection measure to combat the growth of high-interest loans; rather, the provision was meant to deter loan-sharking and other predatory practices where lenders offer credit at high interest rates and employ intimidation, violence, or threats of violence to enforce repayment. A fixed interest rate of 60 per cent was included in the offence to provide a level of certainty; an objective standard was expected to be easier to prove, rather than the prosecution having to prove that there was violence or intimidation associated with the loan.
My first question is this.
Has the offence been successful in prosecuting or reducing the occurrence of coercive practices in enforcing repayment of these types of loans?