Mr. Speaker, I too am shocked with the support the hon. member for Qu'Appelle has given to the big banks. It is terrible that the NDP has not only turned its backs on the Regina manifesto's clarion call to nationalize the banks, this party of markets and competition, but now it wants banks to populate small town Saskatchewan. The member wants all the big banks to go into small prairie villages.
I grew up in the little town of Wilcox, Saskatchewan, with a population of 220 on the Sioux line between Drinkwater and Yellow Grass. When the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce shut down three decades ago, a local credit union emerged. It was a local co-operative bank established by the farmers and workers in that area.
That member does not like it because he would rather have the millionaires from the Bank of Commerce running the banking business in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. I say shame on the hon. member standing up for his friends with the big banks. I will point out he did suggest in his remarks that the Reform Party was friendly with the big money people on Bay Street.
The Reform Party more than any other party, with the exception of our socialist friends, relies more on the contributions of individual donors than corporate donors. Three dollars to one is what we get in terms of individual contributions to corporate contributions. There is a good reason the NDP does not get any business contributions. It is because businesses know it is not in the best interest of Canadian workers to support its kind of monopolistic policies.
Could the hon. member comment on what happened to their policy to nationalize the banks? Even Ed Broadbent used to talk about nationalizing one of them. Did that just sort of flitter away with their other socialist principles?