I'm not criticizing the approach. I'm trying to understand it. You're talking about the Flaherty period. I know that you were involved in preparing the code of conduct for the credit and debit card industry in Canada. By the way, I think that it's a fine piece of work. However, the world has changed.
Let me give you an example. The arrival of financial technology worries me when it comes to this type of code. Think of car repairs. There used to be a code of conduct among the major manufacturers and a type of open system for diagnostics. Then new electric vehicle manufacturers, such as Tesla, came into the picture. The system changed. These new manufacturers said that they wanted to enter the market, but that they weren't interested in the code of conduct. This broke the system.
A Stripe representative spoke to the committee. He basically told us that he wasn't interested in the code of conduct for the credit and debit card industry in Canada. However, it isn't just Stripe. There's also the association of financial technology companies, which includes many small businesses. This isn't Visa, Mastercard, American Express or a handful of others. The representative told the committee that, if the government did one thing or another, its members would pay themselves back in another way. He also told us that the association wasn't interested in the code, that it wouldn't comply with the code and that it would work around the code. He said that directly to us.
Doesn't this show the need to reconsider the approach that you've been using for a number of years? Perhaps we should consider regulations, as requested by all the other associations.