Madam Speaker, it may be the first time since I have been a member of this House that we have actually been critical of name changes. Usually, this is a mere technicality. A name will be changed to make it a little more modern or more precise, but in this case, when we see the Federal Business Development Bank being renamed as the Business Development Bank of Canada, it is clearly all part of this vast strategy of a federal government that has decided, in its wisdom, that it is going to run the show.
I would put this on a par with the agreement on internal trade in Canada, where again, a bill is being used to let the federal government penalize the provinces that do not comply with the agreement by cutting funding in their social programs, and I am referring to Bill C-76, where in any case it wants to intervene in sectors that are not its responsibility. In the case of the bank, which is going to be the Business Development Bank of Canada, if the House ever passes this bill, personally, I think the name is rather pretentious.
Canada has quite a few financial institutions that are involved in development. There are other banking institutions that may be involved in a positive and occasionally in a negative way in development and which are very much part of the process. There cannot be just one business development bank of Canada, unless there is more than meets the eye here.
I am also somewhat amazed at the direction in which this bill is going. During the first few months I was in the House, I was a member of the industry committee. At the time, members from Ontario were looking for ways to make the banks more sensitive to the problems of small entrepreneurs. They were interested to see what Quebec had in the way of institutions that provide complementary financing. I am thinking for instance of the Centre d'aide aux entreprises, the Mouvement Desjardins, the FTQ Fonds de solidarité-the CNTU is about to develop a similar fund.
It was clear Ontario had had a difficult time during the last recession and there was this feeling of hostility towards the banks.
Now with this bill, this feeling seems to have disappeared. Does it mean that the bank lobby was successful? Does the fact that they contribute very generously to the Liberal Party of Canada make a difference? I do not know for sure, but there is something strange going on here.
This decision also seems to be part of a broader strategy I would like to explain very briefly. When the Liberals came to power, there was a network referred to as business development centres. It was decided to amalgamate these with the community futures committees. Now that these two bodies have been amalgamated, they are attached directly to the Federal Office of Regional Development.
Therefore, the whole community development element set up by the community futures committees will, in my opinion, lead to the systematic and progressive dropping of the community development mandate over the next few months, since the transfer to the FORD takes place on September 30.
There was already one regional office per administrative region, but the Federal Office of Regional Development will try through the Business Development Bank of Canada to set up a network of branch offices to catch bigger service points across Canada in the web.
What is particularly sad is that two networks are being set up in parallel, one beside the other. Neither Quebec nor Canada has the means to pay for a double network. A choice has to be made. Quebecers will have the opportunity this fall to decide once and for all who they want to serve them.
Do they want Canadian banks-like the Royal Bank, for example? Is this the network we want to look after our interests in the future? Or do we want a network that belongs to us much more and that is under our complete control? We must not forget that Quebec has found itself in a very bad situation in relation to the federal government on a number of occasions in the past.
What about the time they wanted to limit the number of CN shares that could be purchased. Each time Quebec capital tried to get in, it was foiled. This seems to be very much the approach of the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Another rather paradoxical element in the current bill is that the government, which claims to be in favour of a free market environment, is directly infringing on the Mouvement Desjardins, among others, and the banking institutions. All of a sudden, the government takes a step backward and decides that there will be an additional competitor.
Just what is this complementary loan? It is not very clear and we are not sure of the result which will be achieved. How will it be integrated into the Canadian banking system? One can understand the concerns of those who already corner the market.
Before changing the mandate of an agency such as the Federal Business Development Bank, we must take a close look and see if we can afford more duplication. I doubt that there is a single Quebecer or Canadian who thinks so.
If the federal government dismisses the solutions which will avoid such duplication and wants first and foremost to ensure its presence in every province and in every sector when there are already other stakeholders involved, it will only follow the pattern set a long time ago, particularly during the Trudeau years. Remember the sign war, when the federal and Quebec would each claim to have made the largest contribution to a given project.
There was some kind of blackmail going on at that time, which we all paid for in a way. Today, answers are sought much more in terms of guidelines and comprehensive solutions. In that regard, this bill will not solve anything as it only increases duplication. What is happening here is the same thing that happened to the Federal Office of Regional Development a while ago. The FORD's mission was changed by taking away the resources that allowed it to play an active role in the Quebec economy, while at the same time increasing the number of service points, when services were already available from the Quebec ministries of tourism as well as Industry, Commerce and Technology.
That is what happened to the FORD. The same thing is now happening to the Federal Business Development Bank, and I think this is a bad move on the part of the government. It reflects the old belief that Ottawa provides, that it has the answer to whatever problems the people of Quebec, British Columbia, the maritimes and elsewhere may have, when the fact of the matter is that tools are already in place in many regions.
Therefore, the federal government should review its bill to make sure that it will not result in the interference that the implementation of the Business Development Bank of Canada Act will bring about.