Industry Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Did you respond to any of them?

[Frank Lofranco]

Where banks are concerned, and they report on their reportable complaints—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Can you table that? What I'd like to receive, and I think the committee would benefit from receiving, is this: Of the 27,323 complaints that were mentioned in this, how many received a response and under what circumstances? Can you please table that information with the committee?

[Frank Lofranco]

Absolutely.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay, that's great.

In preparing for this meeting.... That's basically the report that we have from your committee. There are a lot of platitudes and whatnot, but there's not a lot of information. When a complaint goes into the system, what comes out of it?

My question would be this: What would you say that you do here in regard to keeping people safe?

[Frank Lofranco]

Would you like me to answer that?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What do you do here?

[Frank Lofranco]

By way of our mandate, we have three key functions—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

But what have you actually done? This committee has heard some fairly atrocious behaviour on behalf of credit card companies and banks in the course of this study. We pay your salaries and those of your staff per your act, which was created in 2001, to ostensibly protect consumers from this behaviour, yet I don't have a lot of evidence that you actually respond to these complaints.

What is your value proposition?

[Frank Lofranco]

By way of example, I'll speak to our enforcement function to demonstrate part of the value we offer.

Through our enforcement function, we undertake hundreds of investigations a year. They translate into hundreds of notices of breaches being issued, including—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

And then what happens?

[Frank Lofranco]

—some notices of violation. Through that work, all breaches we identify are subject to remediation, and they are remediated by the bank.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What would be a high-profile example we could point to for success in terms of the continued value proposition of your agency?

[Frank Lofranco]

Those that are publishable are on our website.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I would like you to tell me. You're here.

[Frank Lofranco]

I would say that, over the course of the last two years, the penalties issued to financial institutions have been in the millions, and the redress—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

When you say “millions”, is that like one or two?

[Frank Lofranco]

Ten is the max, but there are also millions of dollars—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay. What is a high-profile case you could point to that would give us some assurance that your agency is materially helping to address some of the problems that have come up in the course of this committee study?

[Frank Lofranco]

By way of a case, I would like the opportunity to look back at our website to see what we've posted. I know there are some in play that I cannot speak to.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Does one come to mind for you in your role? Nothing?

[Frank Lofranco]

I can tell you that—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What's on the top of your CV in terms of a success?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I will just intercede here for a moment, and then I will pass the floor to Jason, because I would like him to talk a little bit as the person who runs the client centre.

However, when we are concerned about complaints or statistics showing, for instance, that there might be a large number of defaults on mortgages expected because people may have gotten in over their heads, we have put in place the mortgage guidelines, which is a very active and very specific thing to protect consumers in order to ensure that any catastrophic outcomes could be prevented.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'll just close with this and perhaps phrase my question differently: We are looking for solutions to protect consumers from abusive behaviour by Canada's financial institutions. Ostensibly, per this act, your agency is supposed to be helping us in that role. What are you doing? I've asked for a success. That should be a fairly easy question to answer.