Industry Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

[Jay Dorey]

With respect to Visa, the costs do fluctuate a little bit. With respect to the card issuers, the banks that are issuing those amounts, I would say they do. You know, the cost to refund a transaction that has been counterfeit or fraudulent for a $100 transaction is $100. That same transaction, if it's $10,000—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

But the loss is 1.6%. Generally, bank losses overall, across a bank, are less than 100 basis points and sometimes less than 50. A loss of 1.6% is not huge. In fact, the Business Development Bank of Canada's loan losses are over 2%, and they still make half a billion dollars in profit a year. This is a very profitable business, and the expenses don't go up exponentially.

For Visa specifically, just to summarize, if I understand correctly what you said to my colleague Mr. Patzer, you were putting the cybersecurity business here because of reasons other than $50 million—because of the talent pool, because of technology, because of the universities.

[Balinder Ahluwalia]

It was certainly part of the thought process.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Nobody else was offering you money anywhere else, so you were coming here anyway, you said. The $50 million you took, like the $18 million Loblaws took for fridges, seemed to just be free money for you. You were coming here anyway, and it made no difference.

[Balinder Ahluwalia]

We're very proud of everything we've—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I know you're proud of it. You must be proud of taking the $50 million of taxpayer money when people are in record numbers lining up at food banks.

With that said, Mr. Chair, I'd like to seek unanimous consent on this issue. I'll move it as a formal motion for a vote, if necessary, but I hope we can get unanimous consent. I believe this may have been sent to the clerk. Maybe it could be circulated.

The motion is as follows:

That the committee order the production of all documents, emails, memos and any materials related to the Liberal government's $50 million handout to Mastercard, including all communications between ISED, PCO and PMO with Mastercard regarding the grant; and the Committee report to the House to express its concern regarding the value for money for taxpayers on the nearly $50 million in taxpayer dollars given to Mastercard by the Trudeau Liberal government.

I believe that's been sent to the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

You are very hopeful to think that we can get unanimous consent, five minutes before we adjourn a meeting of this committee, on such a motion.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I appreciate your optimism.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It's just a straightforward document production motion. I'm sure everyone—

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Has it been sent in both official languages?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

The clerk will circulate it to members for them to take a look at it.

I don't think it would be fair not to give members some time to consider it duly.

I'm looking at the other members.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Is there unanimous consent?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

It can be debated now. Otherwise, Mr. Perkins, I would suggest that we come back to it at our next meeting.

What I suggest, Mr. Perkins, is that you moved it on the floor—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay. I'll formally move it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

It's okay because it's on the topic. However, I would suggest that we bring it up at the start of the next meeting so that members have time to review it, and we can then debate it, if you so decide.

Is that okay with all members? We'll get back to it, but technically, considering there is a motion on the floor, we probably should just adjourn the meeting at this point. We're at the end of our time.

However, I know Mr. McKay had one question, so if members permit, I'd allow Mr. McKay to ask his question.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Congratulations, Mr. Perkins, on the nice try.

I don't usually sit on this committee, but it just so happens that my Visa is due today. The money has been moved out of my bank account, but it has not been moved to credit my Visa card. I dare say, because I've watched this happen a few times, that the money kind of sits somewhere for about 24 or 48 hours and then ultimately gets credited.

It used to be that they would ding me with interest until I yelled and screamed and jumped up and down, and then they stopped doing it.

Here's my scenario. If I were at my credit limit, I would not be able to conduct a transaction and that would be a detriment to me, even though I'd paid off my credit card. At least, the money had been taken out of my bank account.

To Visa and to the bank, I have a feeling that somebody's making money out of this and it's not me. I don't quite understand the interchange or exchange between the bank and Visa and how that affects a consumer like me, but somehow or other, the money's out of there but the bank still has the money. Visa doesn't have the money. The bank has my money for free overnight or sometimes a lot longer than overnight, and I don't get any compensation for that.

It seems to me that's true of literally millions of transactions.

In the 25 seconds you have left, I'd be curious about how you explain that to consumers, who—like me—are regularly and routinely paying off their account on time.

[Darren Hannah]

Let me answer it in 20 seconds or less, apparently.

There are two things. First, as you rightly pointed out, you get credit for payment on the day you paid it, irrespective of how long it takes to go between your bank and the bank of card issuance. With respect to the mechanics of actually expediting it, that is very much what we're working towards with the real-time rail and real-time payments movement, so that the payment can move literally in seconds from one institution to another institution.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

What I don't understand is why that doesn't now move in seconds. If I pay a transaction at my grocery store with a debit card, it's like that.

Because it's held-up money, who is making money on this interchange?

[Darren Hannah]

I can't speak to interchange, but I can tell you right now, regarding the first part you're talking about, what you're observing is authorization. There's real-time authorization, but the money moves between institutions over the payment system and right now, unfortunately, that tends to happen overnight.

We are working to resolve that through the real-time rail project with Payments Canada. I'm sure you've probably heard something about that, but if not, certainly there's more that could be discussed.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Okay. I'll let it go there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. McKay.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for participating in today's meeting and for taking part in this exercise.

Thanks as well to our colleagues.

Good evening to you all.

The meeting is adjourned.