Thank you, Madam Chair.
It's an interesting meeting and an important one. There are important positions for everybody to get out, and I do appreciate that.
I want to say, though, that I've been a little surprised by this bill in the sense that we've had so much concern exercised on the banks. I've been lobbied. When Manley tried to change the banks under the Paul Martin regime, we had endless streams of banks and the banking association coming to us and saying that they had to be more like the American banks or they'd be swallowed up and that they couldn't compete. Then later on, the word was that they saved Canada, despite getting massive bailouts during the economic downturn under the Harper regime to get their creditors.... Most recently, during the pandemic, they got significant action immediately from the government. In fact, the first act by the government was to protect the banks and some of their nefarious loans, which have actually made them vulnerable in many respects.
I'd like to spend the rest of my time not on the concern exercised on the banks, but on some workers' issues, because I believe workers do deserve some restitution.
My good friend Scott Duvall from Hamilton has a bill, Bill C-259, which is similar to yours, Madam Gill. I want to thank you for your hard work on the bill and for bringing it to committee. One of the differences is that his bill calls for not allowing a judge to suspend the benefits of employees at a time of bankruptcy, under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.
Can you talk a bit about why your bill doesn't include that aspect? What are the benefits or negatives of not having that in there? Unfortunately, sometimes pensioners are swizzled during the process too. That's really what the proposed section tries to eliminate.