Mr. Speaker, I would also like to speak about the three amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois. We know that Bill C-15 before us today, even if it is not a major bill like others tabled in the House, still brings many amendments to the whole series of existing acts, as my colleague said earlier.
Even though we have no objection in principle to this bill, which actually aims to increase regulation of financial services in Canada, we have a lot of concerns and the amendments we introduced today reflect precisely these concerns.
This bill is not a reform of the legislation governing financial institutions. This reform will come later on, because, as we know, a white book is in the makings. We believe the bill before us today is actually a step forward. It prepares the ground for the control of securities in Canada.
What are the amendments we are proposing? My colleague has read some of them and I will repeat them in a few words. The first amendment proposes to delete the words "securities" in a text. By deleting this word, we are taking "securities" out of federal jurisdiction. We believe that this is strictly a provincial jurisdiction and that the act, as it presently stands, should apply to everything else but not directly to securities.
The second amendment, which we have added, aims at excluding from federal guidelines institutions already participating in securities clearing houses. What purpose would it serve? Duplication, of course. This already exists in provinces.
The third amendment limits the federal government's regulatory power to the settlement of payments and not to the institutions involved. As my hon. colleague pointed out, we want it limited to the management of systemic risk and not used for other considerations.
Why exactly did we table these motions? I will go over some of the arguments so it will be very clear, given that the text is highly technical. A Canadian clearing system is currently being developed, set up and implemented and will eventually come under the control of the Bank of Canada.
This is part of our concern, as Quebec is already involved in this sector through the Commission québécoise des valeurs mobilières and the Inspecteur général des institutions financières, like the other provinces. Schedule I of Bill C-15 will create costly new duplication, by subjecting Quebec financial institutions to orders and directives from the Bank of Canada.
Bill C-15 uses the pretext-it is quite common for pretexts to be used, and I will come back to this at the end-of systemic risk control to allow Ottawa to meddle in this area. The governor of the Bank of Canada acknowledged, last June 20, that this risk was no longer a problem because of tighter control over the large value transfer system. In addition, under clause 6 in Schedule I, which will implement a Canadian clearing system, the Governor of the Bank of Canada retains the right to issue directives not only to clearing houses, but also to participating financial institutions, regardless of their charter. Thus, Bill C-15 will enable the governor to issue orders and directives to institutions such as the Fiducie Desjardins.
Secondly, they are using this bill to amend the prerogatives of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and the Winding-up Act. Bill C-15 also gives more powers to the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, and, as we have pointed out since our arrival here, in almost all federal bills, power is being concentrated more in the hands of those who have it-be they ministers or the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.
Expanding the prerogatives of the federal Superintendent of Financial Institutions will mean costly duplication and inefficiency.
Indeed, in Quebec the inspecteur général des institutions financières already exercises some control over chartered banks, which means that the new powers given to the federal superintendent will overlap existing powers at the provincial level. This overlap is costly for the Quebec taxpayers-as we are well aware, since it is constantly being raised in the House-and for the Quebec chartered banks faced with insolvency problems.
Bill C-15 may lead to contradictory signals from provincial and federal authorities-this too has been pointed out ever since we came to this House. In this respect, let us remember that competition between governments will never be cost effective for the public. As for manpower training-an issue on which all stakeholders in Quebec have clearly been in agreement for a very long time, and which is not yet resolved-at least $250 million a year is wasted on this. The extension of the prerogatives of the superintendent may also lead to legal wrangling between Ottawa and Quebec, while the financial institutions facing problems and the people who have invested money will be forgotten.
In summary, if this bill does not take into account the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois, there will definitely be-and I repeat the two or three points I made-overlap with provincial jurisdiction-and even the federalists in Quebec recommend that the Government of Canada not do this-costly duplication and overlap, and the system will, of course, be less efficient.
We can only lament the fact that, in most bills introduced in the House, we are always led to condemn the same things. The government uses all kinds of means to try to centralize ever more. All kinds of reasons are raised-market globalization, systemic risks, international competition. Technological inventiveness was just raised as a reason, implying that, for technological reasons, we will now have to centralize ever more. It is extremely sad to see that, at a time when the government claims publicly it is possible to reach settlements with provinces, it is doing exactly the opposite in the legislation. In Ottawa, greater centralization is the order of the day.
In conclusion, I want to reply to my hon. colleague from the Reform Party, who said that this highway being constructed must be more closely regulated and further centralized, and that, at both ends of that highway, culture will not be affected. Culture starts with the full control of all the economic levers. If Quebec gives up that much each time a bill is passed in the House, if there are no tools to protect Quebec's traditional positions, even within the constitutional limits, culture will eventually disappear.