Industry Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

As part of your mandate, you are also responsible for educating, as you said. The $5 million, is that allocated towards financial literacy?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Yes, it's the financial literacy efforts.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

You've received over 9,000 complaints, of which only 283 were something that was relevant and in your bailiwick. Would that not demonstrate that maybe in terms of educating the general public on the role of the FCAC and what their rights are, this needs to be amplified a little bit? I'll be honest with you. I don't know if most people know what they would need to do if they had a problem with their banking or their financial institution. Could you explain a little more?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I'm going to give this to Jason and Supriya, who handle the strategy for financial education.

The one thing I would say is just to remind the committee that there is not just what we do to put out information. I know you're all referring to what's on our website, but remember that all the materials that we produce and all of the educational components are shared with 18 networks that have about 500 agencies, which are specifically targeted at financial literacy in the community, at different levels. I've heard you speak about seniors and about youth and about the disenfranchised, the poor or whatever. Those are all agencies that have targeted audiences, and they scale or amplify all the messages that we put out.

Our role is really to be a reliable source of accurate information and to obviously promulgate it as widely as we can, but to also allow others to scale and amplify the message. It's never just about FCAC.

Anyway, that having been said, that's the context.

I thought, Jason, you might want to speak to the strategy.

[Jason Bouzanis]

I'll just add one comment, and then I'll pass it to my colleague as well.

It's incredibly important to us that Canadians are aware that they have the right to file a complaint with their bank. That's why we have a consumer information centre. Its principal role is to provide information to consumers. We take that role very seriously. Even if the complaint is not related to something that FCAC directly oversees, we want to be able to provide them with information to help navigate the complaint-handling process.

I should mention that we've just reached a milestone in Canada, in that we now have one external complaints body. That actually came into effect on November 1. Previously, there were two, so this is a significant advancement, from our perspective, in consumer protection. This will further simplify and clarify the complaint-handling process for Canadians. After they've gone through their bank's process, if they're unhappy with the result, they can escalate it to an external complaints body. FCAC also oversees their work as well.

We've just had a consumer awareness campaign with the external complaints body in the lead-up to November 1 to promote information on complaint handling, so that's something we definitely make an effort to promote and encourage. I know that even within the context of our national strategy, we talk about the importance of people being aware of their rights and consumer protection.

I'm not sure if you would like to add anything, Supriya.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

If you want to share, Mrs. Romanado, you're more than welcome, or you can go for your last question if you want to.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I would like to allow her to answer the question.

[Dr. Supriya Syal]

Thank you very much, indeed.

I'll say about the complaints piece that, on our website, we do detail how a consumer can, in fact, deal with a complaint: where they need to go, when to talk to their bank, and how the process works through the escalation. This information is provided on our website and through materials we share. That is just to address that point.

In the national strategy context, yes, as the commissioner was saying, it's just—

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I just want to stop you there. I understand it's on your website—I just read it—but if people don't know you exist and they don't know what you do, they're not going to be able to go on your website and look and see how the complaints are settled.

My point is that it seems very distant. I don't feel it's proactive in terms of outreach to the general public to say, “Look, if you're not happy with your bank or the fees that you're being charged, this is what you need to do.” You're depending on people to come looking for you, but if they don't know you exist, how would they know that?

[Dr. Supriya Syal]

That's a great point. We're not, in fact, depending on people. As we said, we work with 500 organizations across the country through which we promulgate and disseminate this material as well. For instance, advancing access to financial help is a key piece that we're working on with a number of different organizations in the country, and that includes teaching people how to access help, whom to complain to and where to go, so it is a proactive piece.

I would also say, in the context of the national strategy, that it is structured so that it is a distributed responsibility across the ecosystem. To your point, we are well aware that we are one organization of 250 people and we will not, in fact, be able to reach the 30 million adults in this country, so we do need to work with other ecosystem stakeholders to do it.

The last point, if I may, is your piece about whether there is a need for more financial literacy and more awareness. Absolutely, there is a need for more financial literacy, and this is why we carry out these programs. The committee might be interested to know that among OECD countries, we are in the top five in financial literacy.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I want to make one point. There are 338—soon to be 343—members of Parliament, and I am pretty sure that not every single member of Parliament would know you exist. Some do, and some don't, and they represent all of Canada. I would recommend that perhaps you reach out to members of Parliament to make sure they know you exist, and perhaps they can help share information with the citizens they represent. I'll be honest with you; I don't feel there's a lot of proactive outreach to the general public.

I'm done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Thank you. I will take that away as a to-do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I would add that a good chunk of younger Canadians are much more likely to go on Reddit to find the information that is probably available on your website.

On that note, I will now turn it over to MP Perkins, who has a motion, I believe.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would agree with what MP Romanado said. I think it would be useful for our constituency offices to know that, because if people have gone through the process with the banking ombudsperson, we wouldn't have any idea that that's not the last gasp.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'd like to resume debate on a previous motion I presented regarding Stripe. Members will recall that I moved a motion that said the following:

Given Stripe's unknown profit margins and its refusal to comply with the government's interchange fee reduction plan, the committee order the production of all Stripe board meeting minutes related to the Government of Canada's announcement to reduce credit card fees, balance sheets, cash-flow statements, and income statements since March 2021, broken down by Canada and Stripe's global operations.

If I put that forward, we could probably deal with it quickly, unless there's a lot of debate, and have a vote to produce these documents.

Stripe has not been the most co-operative witness, as we know from the letter that was sent in regard to the study, but I won't go there this time, because I think the chair is going to reach out again. We have a House of Commons order asking for specific people to appear, and we would expect those people to appear.

In the interim, I would like to resume this and hopefully get to a vote, because it will be very important in this study to have this information, since this is one of the companies that are refusing to comply with the government's initiative to reduce interchange fees. It speaks to the voluntary nature of some of these things and how that voluntary nature doesn't always work.

I'll leave it there for now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Colleagues, you've all seen this motion before, because we started to debate it at some point in an earlier meeting.

Mr. Savard‑Tremblay, you have the floor.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Is it possible to move an amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

It's always possible to move an amendment.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

That's great.

It will be sent to you in writing in both official languages in the next few minutes. I will read it to you in French.

Instead of a period after “Stripe's global operations”, I propose adding a comma and the following:

provided that such documents shall only be available for consultation at the Clerk's office by Committee members only, during a week designated by the Committee no later than 30 days following receipt of the documents, under the supervision of the Clerk, and that no mobile electronic or personal recording devices of any kind shall be permitted in the room, and that no notes taken during consultation shall leave the room.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Savard‑Tremblay.

I don't know if you have any comments on the amendment.

Colleagues, you've all understood that it's the classic in camera motion for production of documents that Mr. Savard-Tremblay is proposing to add to the motion. This is the amendment that's currently on the table.

Mr. Savard‑Tremblay, do you have anything else to say?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

No, because the amendment speaks for itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

That's great.

Is there any discussion on Mr. Savard‑Tremblay's amendment?

Mr. Turnbull, the floor is yours.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I just want to be clear, because I was struggling to hear when we were talking about this.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you're adding that the documents essentially would only be viewable in camera and that no information could be shared outside of the committee, if I understood correctly. Is that right?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Yes. I move that the documents be available for consultation by committee members only at the clerk's office during a week designated by the committee no later than 30 days following receipt of the documents, under the supervision of the clerk, and that no electronic devices of any kind shall be permitted and that no notes shall leave the room.

If you need time to read it, it will be sent to you soon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Turnbull, from what I understand of the motion, it's not saying that MPs cannot talk about it; it's saying that they can take notes. Usually it's implied, when it's in camera, that you can't talk about the content of what you've seen, like for the Volkswagen contracts. Maybe the text of the motion would be important to read on that point.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I guess that's what I was struggling with, to marry what Mr. Savard-Tremblay was adding to this motion.