Mr. Speaker, I have heard Reform members one after the other talking about co-insurance. The reality is that depositors are not interested in co-insurance, just the financial institutions. The reason is that co-insurance would require depositors to have knowledge of the credit worthiness of the institutions in which they are depositing their money.
That sounds fair and reasonable. But the reality is that the ability to understand a balance sheet, et cetera, is not well understood by some members of the public. I know this because my wife runs a financial company which sells GICs and uses a deposit insurance corporation for that reason. The average investor or depositor simply does not have that skill. If we brought in co-insurance, the reality is that those people would simply make their deposits with larger institutions and we would end competition in the financial sector.
Co-insurance is not something that is specifically desired by the average person, only by the large financial institutions. I would suggest that is who the member is speaking for. He is not speaking for the average Canadian who would not understand the concept of co-insurance and which would probably prevent them from making deposits.
The member also went on to say how co-insurance exists in a number of other countries and in Europe. He failed to mention that in United States the insurance is $100,000 per deposit, not $60,000. I only say this because the Reform Party is constantly saying how we should be like the United States, yet in this case the member decided not to use that example.
I would simply ask the member, can he not see that co-insurance is not something which is supported by the average Canadian?