Mr. Speaker, we may have to stray again from the narrowness of the debate on the motion to amend the clause regarding security. Getting back to the motion before us, we must recognize that we need some rules or guidelines by which security may be varied as the loan is reduced. As the hon. member mentioned, it is only prudent after a loan has been reduced by a reasonable amount that we may want to release some of the security taken to grant the loan such as the person's house, car, equipment, office building and everything else.
These types of comments are appropriate to ensure that the financing of small businesses, if they want to raise additional capital at a later date, can be accommodated without being ground down by inappropriate rules and regulations when the loans have been reduced in an orderly fashion.
Speaking in a wider context on the bill, I mention again that I still do not think the point got across to hon. members opposite. They talk about the treasury's involvement as a catalyst for small business lending; about not wanting to put the treasury at too much risk but nonetheless having a role to play; and about the banks perhaps getting off too easy because of the Small Business Loans Act.
I reiterate that the bill will turn the Small Business Loans Act into a no cost service by the government. That strikes me as being strange. I cannot really understand the logic of it. The amendments to the act will require that borrowers carry the cost. Borrowers will have to pay a fee to the banks. The banks will take the fee and pass it on to the government. The government will take the money it has collected and reimburse the banks for what they have lost. That is the end of the line.
Who is left with the tab? The borrowers, the guys who are trying to create jobs, will be left holding the bill to subsidize those that tried but failed, to subsidize the banks that made a wrong decision and to let the government off the hook so that it can say what a wonderful service it is providing in that $12 billion of loans to small business have been guaranteed. Who is paying? It is not the government. It is a tax on successful small business borrowers who have had to pay an administrative fee in addition to interest to subsidize banks and let the government off the hook.
As I said before, and I will say it again, a dollar in the hands of an investor, a businessman or a consumer is far better spent than a dollar channelled through a bureaucrat. I cannot think of any greater illustration of the bill. It has been designed to fulfil the process we are absolutely opposed to. It will channel the money through a bureaucrat and back to the private sector at no cost to the government. Who ends up paying the bill? It is the private sector. The small businessman is being asked to carry an additional loan in the name of allowing the government to take credit for providing something it is not providing.
I am fully in favour of helping small business. I had an accounting business before I became a politician. I served small business people in my community. I was a fan and still am a fan of small businesses. They are the generators of employment. They are the innovators, the creators and the people who see a niche, develop it and make money. They are the ones who are the driving force of the economy, the ones we depend upon to employ people so that taxes can be paid. They are the people who have given us our standard of living and our prosperity.
Again they are being loaded down with another tax so the government can take credit for helping small business. Small businesses certainly need a hand. They need to be motivated as much as possible. We have to encourage lower taxation and encourage them to meet the new challenges because they are the ones who ultimately accept the risk. They are the ones who lose their life savings, their houses, their businesses and their investments; they lose everything. They are the ones who are prepared to put their financial lives on the line. Many do and unfortunately many fail.
As I have also said before and will say again, the cost of eliminating failure is equal to the price of success. We cannot have a success story without having some failures. Our challenge is to try to reduce the failures but we will never eliminate them.
If the government thinks by churning money through its books the system will be made better, I suggest we have a new method of rethinking how we are to motivate society, to live up to the challenges of the 21st century, to live up to the global economy, to market Canadian expertise and talent around the world and to generate an increased gross domestic product which will allow us to come to terms with our debt and our deficit.
These are the challenges we should be addressing, not the idea of smoke and mirrors through the SBLA.