Finance Committee on April 13th, 2026

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

What's the number?

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Mr. Kelly, that's your time.

[Jennifer Withington]

The number of people—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

What is the dollar amount?

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you. We can continue in the next round.

Next we have Mr. Sawatzky for five minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

Over the past several years, the federal government has taken steps to strengthen consumer protection frameworks, including enhanced oversight of financial institutions and expanded tools for consumer awareness. At the same time, we recognize that many Canadians continue to face pressures from high borrowing costs and cost of living challenges.

In this context, could you speak to how effective current consumer protection measures have been in supporting Canadians with debt obligations?

[Frank Lofranco, Deputy Commissioner, Supervision and Enforcement, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada]

In 2022, a financial consumer protection framework was put in place that introduced 60 new or enhanced measures for consumer protection. Some of the new measures are quite meaningful and consequential to consumers' achieving positive financial outcomes and are relevant to the conversation around debt.

I'll offer an example: a new provision in relation to the obligation for banks to offer products that are appropriate for the financial circumstances of consumers, that meet their financial needs and that can lead to positive outcomes.

In the context of supervision, we supervise on a risk basis, paying attention to the issues that are most likely to cause financial harm or to the institutions themselves that are high risk. In this, I would say there is a bell curve. We always get some banks that are performing quite well in relation to the compliance, others that need incentives and guidance, and still others in which non-compliance occurs. Our work is very much focused on ensuring that issues of non-compliance are dealt with.

By way of results, the commissioner mentioned in her opening remarks that in the past year, more than $100 million in remediation has gone to consumers who were harmed by some level of non-compliance. Over the last year as well, we've issued more than 400 enforcement actions, all of which required corrective action on the parts of the institutions to remediate the problems and remediate consumers if necessary. We govern our work by way of various action plans and compliance agreements when there's a need to put corrective measures in place that deserve a bit more time.

Ultimately, the protections that consumers benefit from can enable positive outcomes and protect them from financial harm. It's highly dependent on the compliance of institutions; hence, we play an active role in supervising their compliance with those obligations.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you.

Do you see any opportunities to further strengthen protections in general?

[Manon Bombardier]

You may be aware that the Department of Finance is putting things in place with the budget announcements and Bill C‑15. A number of measures in there improve protection for consumers and reduce fees, for instance, so we're involved in reviewing the fees of the banks in Canada, and we hope this will inform some next steps in terms of policy measures to further improve the financial well-being of Canadians.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I would add that there are other measures—for instance, the fraud strategy—that will allow us to monitor both prevention and detection measures that institutions take to prevent fraud against consumers. Fraud is a huge risk to consumers' financial well-being that is growing in scale and sophistication every day. The initiative will also be multi-dimensional. It will not just be in the financial sector, but it will also involve the telcos and multi-dimensional prevention and protection measures.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you. That's good to hear. This topic has come up a few times with scam texts and collaboration with telcos.

Financial literacy was brought up. I wanted to see if you could provide some context on the younger generation and how they're dealing with financial literacy. Are there any kinds of gaps you'd identify that could be addressed to ensure that younger generations are being more financially literate?

[Manon Bombardier]

As part of our research, we look at young women in particular. We've worked with ChatterHigh, an application that exists. We've worked with universities to put in place an intervention amongst young women to improve their financial literacy and improve their behaviours towards saving more money. With this experimentation, we've shown that with simple nudges to help them achieve and put in place the right behaviours at the right time, they can improve their financial well-being. We're doing experiments like this. We did another one with credit card debt in which 35% of the participants reduced their debt.

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you, Ms. Bombardier. That's time.

Next we have Mr. Garon for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll continue with you, Commissioner Miller.

I myself organized a screening of the fraud prevention information campaign organized by the entire financial system, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and your office, if I am not mistaken, to raise awareness of fraud issues throughout the telecommunications, law enforcement and financial sectors. I think this is a wonderful initiative, and I commend the entire system for it.

Furthermore, I have stated both publicly and privately to the Canadian Bankers Association that at some point, banks will need to shoulder a greater share of the burden of fraud liability, similar to what has been done, for example, in the United Kingdom. It seems to me that whenever we discuss fraud with bankers, they keep telling us that everyone is to blame except the bank, where, ultimately, the money is stolen.

I would like to know if you agree that placing a greater share of the financial burden of fraud on the banks might encourage them to invest more in prevention and in their systems, thereby significantly reducing fraud. In the United Kingdom, for example, there has been talk of an 80% reduction in fraud.

I would like to know if you think this could be a way to reduce fraud.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Thank you.

In my opinion, research is the way forward. I need to know what investments they're making right now to prevent fraud and protect themselves against it. We don't really have the resources to look into what they're doing in detail, so—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I understand, but our time is running out.

Don't you think that making the banks shoulder a larger share of the burden would encourage them to invest more beyond the research you're doing? Don't you think it would be an incentive?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

For fraud prevention and deterrence, what has shown to be effective is transparency. One thing we need to know is what the banks are actually doing. If they're not doing enough, then we can, as regulators, require them to do it.

One thing that I will be doing is providing a report to the Minister of Finance on this annually in order to make very transparent what investments are being made across the sector so that banks can show what they're doing to prevent fraud and what responsibility they are taking. You are right: There is responsibility that the banks should take relative to fraud.

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you, Ms. Miller.

That concludes this round.

This is our last round. First up, we have Ms. Cobena for five minutes.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Commissioner Miller, in your opening statements you mentioned that approximately 40% of Canadians reported that their debt had increased in 2025. Could you expand on this?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I think my colleagues from Statistics Canada are best placed to expand on it.

We found this because we have a monthly well-being monitor. We ask them fundamental questions about their financial resilience and their financial wellness. We get data like this, but we don't unpack it the way our colleagues at StatsCan do.

Would you like me to pass it to them?

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Sure.

[Jennifer Withington]

I'll start.

Yes, the debt has gone up. Part of this is from rising interest rates. It's been primarily in the form of mortgage debt, whereas Canadians have generally been decreasing their non-mortgage debt.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

The statistic is that nearly two-thirds say they're carrying non-mortgage debt. Out of the people who are taking on debt, what is driving that debt if it's not mortgage?

[Jennifer Withington]

To clarify, it is mortgage debt that they're taking on. The non-mortgage debt has gone down. They may still have non-mortgage debt, but it has been at a lower rate.

[Matthew Hoffarth]

I'll just clarify. We measure values of debt. We don't necessarily measure which households have a certain type of debt. I think that's the challenge.

Debt is a nominal idea. It tends to increase over time, given inflation and what's going on in the economy. This is why we like ratios. We look at leverage ratios for debt to income. That's where we see that debt to income for the lowest income quintile has gone up whereas other income quintiles have seen their debt-to-income ratio decline over the last five years or so.

We are seeing a disconnect when you break it down further instead of just looking at the big picture.