Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.
Everyone knows that the reason the Liberals, the Reform and the Conservatives support the bank merger is because the Liberals, for example, received on average between the two banks, the Montreal and Royal, $150,000 in political contributions, in the last year available to us where we have the records that are public. That is $150,000 from two individual companies to support the Liberals.
The oil companies that support the Reform Party give substantial contributions. Imperial Oil and Shell give substantial contributions to both the Liberals and the Reform. Each of those big companies give the Reform Party about $50,000 or $45,000, depending on the year. Pan Canadian also makes substantial contributions. This should not surprise anybody because lo and behold, all the legislation that we have seen the Reform and the Liberals support has been to reward these particular companies.
The other sector that seems to get rewarded for their generous contributions to both parties is the pharmaceutical industry. Bill C-91 provides monopoly protection for 20 years to the pharmaceutical industry, to charge whatever they want for prescription drugs. Lo and behold, those huge corporations financially support substantially the Liberals, the Reform and the Conservatives Parties.
The Reform and the Conservative Parties get substantial contributions from the banks, the oil companies and the pharmaceuticals. Guess what? In all the legislation, we have a specific bill for the pharmaceuticals that gives them monopoly protection. I wonder what effect the Competition Act, Bill C-20, that we are debating today in this House, will have on Bill C-91? I bet it will not have any affect. It will actually ensure that Bill C-91 is there forever.
Whether it is the banks, the oil companies or the pharmaceuticals, who tend to be gouging consumers and defending only their shareholders outside of Canada rather than Canadian consumers, they are the ones who are always getting the benefit of legislation from these three parties that happen to embrace this legislation with both arms.