Mr. Speaker, on November 18 I posed a question regarding the actions taken by the Toronto-Dominion Bank. On October 31 at the stroke of midnight, Halloween night, the computers at the Toronto-Dominion Bank whirled and downloaded every piece of personal information it has on each and every customer.
This information went to the Toronto-Dominion mortgage corporation, securities corporation and insurance corporations and it went free of charge. The only way a TD customer could avoid their own information from being sent was if, and only if, first they read the eight-page brochure that was sent by the TD to all of its customers in June of this year.
Second, they would have to understand just what was being proposed in this brochure and the implications of that.
Third, they would have to phone or write to their Toronto-Dominion Bank and tell them, no, they did not want these separate corporations to have this information.
This is what is called negative option marketing; that is, placing the onus on the consumer to read, understand and respond to a demand that favours only the Toronto-Dominion Bank. This is a bold faced attempt by the Toronto-Dominion Bank to take advantage of its customers. It is also a gross invasion of privacy because there is no consent.
Is it any wonder or surprise that Canadians have no faith, in fact despise the banks and bankers of this country when they actively and purposely take advantage of the little people, the average consumer, the average TD Bank customer?
I know that the parliamentary secretary is going to say that the Canadian Banking Association has a privacy code approved by the Canadian Standards Association. However, I would suggest that we are not talking about wrenches or screwdrivers and how good they are. We are talking about the details of a person's personal financial life, what they own and what they owe. This is a privacy code—and we have to remember this—made by the banks for the banks and enforceable only by the banks. The only entity it helps is the Toronto-Dominion Bank.
What does this mean? It means that consumers of the Toronto-Dominion Bank can at least expect more and more annoying junk mail. It means more and more annoying phone calls at lunch and dinner for the telemarketer trying to sell TD insurance or some other TD product over the phone.
However, what it really means—and the parliamentary secretary does not want to mention this—is that when someone goes into the TD Bank for a loan, that bank or loans manager is going to take out a hammer and that hammer is going to be something like this: the Toronto-Dominion Bank will approve the loan if—and this is a big if—you, the customer, will move your registered retirement savings plan or your car insurance or your home mortgage. There are endless possibilities here.
This is what is called tied selling and it is based on an intimate knowledge of the customer across a very broad segment of their personal financial details.
It is obvious that Canadians need more protection from big banks. Big banks do not need more power. The Canadian Standards Association cannot protect Canadians from the banks. Only the government can and the government should be passing legislation to prohibit this gross invasion of privacy.