Mr. Speaker, I realize that the member for Trois Rivières is talking about the Small Businesses Loans Act. We all agree that the Small Businesses Loans Act has done a terrific job. When in opposition many of us proposed amendments. I have to say that the Conservative government of the day, believe it or not, listened to some of our amendments and the Small Businesses Loans Act is working right now.
The problem of course is with the government float of $4 billion put on that Small Businesses Loans Act. Right now it seems the float program has been so successful that the float is tapped. Therefore the member from the Bloc is asking whether or not I would recommend that we expand the float. This decision of course is ultimately the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.
I say to members opposite that I do not share the pessimism on the loan loss on the Small Businesses Loans Act. I think the loan loss will be much lower than the pessimists predict. The pessimists predict it is going to cost the treasury about $100 million. I do not share that pessimism. The economy is coming back. No doubt there will be some loan loss but I think it will be considerably lower. Of course that spin about the loan loss provision is causing people to get nervous about the float. In fairness the committee said that we would look at it in the next 60 to 90 days.
A far more aggressive thing for us to do is to make sure that the banks start picking up some of that slack in the small business area which the Small Businesses Loans Act picked up over the last year and a half. In other words now that the banks realize the Small Businesses Loans Act did its job and they have had time to rethink they can pick up the slack. As the member for Spadina has often mentioned in committee and in the House, and Mr. Hellyer supports his view, we should give some specific targets for loans to small business. If we started pushing the idea that a percentage of the portfolio in the banks should go toward small business then maybe we would not need to augment the float under the Small Businesses Loans Act.