Government Operations Committee on Oct. 21st, 2016

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Professor?

[Prof. David Camfield]

I would agree.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Sauer?

[Dave Sauer]

I would agree as well. I think the big problem we have when we're dealing with people who don't already have enough money, who are economically suppressed, is that having a payday lender in there just continues that cycle of poverty. We have an opportunity here to actually break cycles of poverty and then move forward. If that's what we want to see....

I agree with brother Rebeck that it could be a Canada-wide thing, with a balancing out and so forth. Yes, there might be high revenue here, but it might be low there. I really want to emphasize that point. You can get people out of poverty on this. Paying 400% interest on your paycheque when your paycheque is already only at minimum wage is insane. All you're doing is keeping that cycle going by allowing them to go in there.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Sosa?

[Carlos Sosa]

Obviously I think that it should definitely be Canada-wide. Many areas where the disability community lives are in inner-city communities the banks have left, and you see these payday loan companies come in, and they're making profits, and there's a case—

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I have a quick question; I'm going to stop you.

Postal banking was successful until 1968, until the bank lobbies came. What makes you think the lobby group is not going to stop postal banking?

[Dave Sauer]

They'll try. Of course they're going to try. This is a revenue stream. They were even against expanding the Canada Pension Plan because it would cut into their RRSP and mutual funds. Of course they're going to try to fight back against this. Frankly, they owe that to their shareholders, but we're accountable to our membership, and you're accountable to the citizens of Canada. It's about balancing whose interests are more important. The banks are making billions of dollars in profits every year.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

If you have any additional information, I'm sure you can pass it on to the chair, because my time is up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all participants for taking the time out of your very busy days to be with us today. As Madam Ratansi has already stated, if you have additional information you wish to provide to the committee for our benefit and our deliberations, I would suggest you do so through the chair.

On a personal note, Professor Camfield, as chair I was very interested in your comments in your paper about the critique you had of the proposed regulatory body. The first thing that struck me, hearkening back a number of years in Saskatchewan, was the government of the day establishing and creating the health district board concept, ostensibly to give better control to local residents about the health services being delivered in their areas, but the consequences, whether intended or unintended, are that it almost absolves the government of any responsibility for the delivery of health care services. Whether they run deficits or have service delivery problems, the health district boards bear the brunt of the criticism, rather than the government. As we all know, the provincial governments are constitutionally required to deliver health care services.

I would be very much interested in hearing a little more in-depth critique of why the regulatory body as being proposed by the task force may not be in the best interests of Canadians. Obviously it's your choice to do so if you wish, sir.

[Prof. David Camfield]

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm not looking for comment, because we're out of time, but if you care to produce additional information, I would certainly appreciate that.

Once again, thank you all. It was fascinating testimony.

The meeting is adjourned.