Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. He raises a good point.
The Federal Business Development Bank right now is doing some work in the area of assisting women in business. I cited the example that we had in the riding. They provide this service for any member of Parliament who would like to have a town hall meeting to assist women who want to start their own business. The Federal Business Development Bank will assist any member of Parliament who wants to take on that initiative.
Their counsellor assistance for small enterprise is a good program, but the problem is that it has limited resources. Even though the counsellor assistance for small enterprise charges the business approximately $40 an hour to operate, it costs approximately $80 an hour to manage this particular section of the Federal Business Development Bank. With the budget constraints, that program which is so vital is really restricted in terms of its ability to serve the needs of small enterprise.
I believe, and I think this deals directly with the member's question, that the Federal Business Development Bank's role has been too restricted. I know that there are many members of that bank who would like to be full-fledged competitors of the major financial institutions in he country. We are certainly going to listen to them in the industry committee over the next 60 days.
Whether it be the Federal Business Development Bank, mutual funds, pension funds, le Fonds de solidarité, any funds that can assist women in business, small business in general, any
funds that can compete with the traditional financial institutions in this country, I would support amending the legislation in a way that would allow them to compete with the banks.