Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to elaborate for a few moments-not delay the business of the House-on the remarks just made by the hon. parliamentary secretary.
Most people in Canada do not really understand what happens when they write a cheque and send it to an uncle a few provinces away, how the bank gets the money and how it is transferred. It is all done on what one could compare to a super highway that connects all the banks, dealers and others who have access to it. The debits and credits flow back and forth at the speed of electronic signals.
The arrangements which guide the traffic on this highway have to be updated periodically in light of technological innovations, changing economics and the development of new instruments, development of problems like bankruptcy and so on. These developments are taking place in the rest of the world and if Canada wants to be competitive it has to do the same thing.
Essentially, we set rules and standards for the vehicles that are travelling that road. We set traffic signs that guide whatever is going on. It is quite clear that at the end of such a highway the business which takes place in no way is influenced by the rules guiding the traffic on the highway. The entire system is like a public good, it has to be protected.
The Bloc is proposing that the setting of the rules which increase the efficiency of that highway and the flow of information back and forth is an interference with national sovereignty and an encroachment on the rights of provincial governments. I do not think this is correct. It is like having one highway stretching across the country. The culture developing at either end is not impeded by having a highway that functions efficiently and safely.
In the same way I believe the financial institutions that are developing in each province have the opportunity to maintain the
local characteristic to be regulated and to be encouraged. That is up to the provincial government. This bill does not deal with these issues and I would be the first to argue against any encroachment by the federal government on provincial rights with respect to what is going on in the financial sector at the access points on this highway for clearing financial obligations within Canada.
Therefore, the Reform Party opposes these amendments and will vote accordingly when the vote comes up.