Madam Speaker, I would first like to say that I support Bill C-289 moved by my friend, the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. There may be some details on which I disagree, but this is normal.
It is very important to refer this bill to a committee of the House to have a debate on the future of the banking system in our country.
Similar legislation exists in the United States. It is not something very radical. In the United States, just south of the border, there is very similar legislation. For this reason, I am in favour of this bill before us this afternoon.
The time has come when we should start treating more seriously private members' initiatives in the House in terms of referring them to committee more often; giving our committees more power and independence so that a committee of the House can actually initiate legislation; reforming our political parliamentary system to make it more democratic and more independent from the executive, the government; and making parliament more meaningful to the people of the country. I think that is a very non-partisan statement.
I come from Saskatchewan where our party has been in power for the most part of the last 50 years. I know there and in every other province that too much power resides with the executive. There is not enough independence for ordinary members of parliament who are elected to express their point of view and initiate legislation that is useful to people of any province or any country.
The time has come where members on all sides of the House, all five parties, will have to band together to make sure we get some meaningful reforms to make parliament more acceptable.
When I look at the cynicism out there today I see it is increasing. When we look at the turnout in the last election we see that it is going down. People are more and more turned off by the political process. If we could somehow make debates like this one more meaningful, it would serve a great purpose for Canadian people.
One of the great exercises in democracy that I hope will occur in the next six months will be to allow the opinion of the people of the country to be expressed about the bank mergers and the future of financial institutions.
The Minister of Finance, probably in November, will make a decision on whether or not he will allow the merger of the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal along with the merger of the CIBC and the Toronto-Dominion Bank.
As I travel around the country there is a great amount of concern about megabanks being expressed by a broad spectrum of the Canadian population that support all parties in the House. It does not only come from certain groups in society. It comes, for example, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that represents 89,000 small and medium businesses. It recently did a survey which shows around 75% of its members are in opposition to these megamergers.
That should tell us something. Small business is the real motor of our economy. It employs people. It talks to the public. It has a good sense of what the public wants.
We in parliament should find a way to make sure that point of view is heard by and expressed to the government. We should be saying to John Cleghorn, Matthew Barrett and the other presidents of the banks that they will not hold parliament to ransom by making their announcement well ahead time and expecting us to rubber stamp the merger of these four great Canadian banks into two.
That will not be the case just because the stock market has reacted and bank stocks have gone up by $19 billion since January in anticipation of our being trained seals. We will not necessarily react that way. Parliament should express the will of the people.
Big is not necessarily better. We can look at the big Japanese banks that are having trouble today. These two megabanks which are now four Canadian banks represent assets of over $900 billion compared to the budget of the Government of Canada in the $120 billion to $150 billion range. We are talking about two huge sumo wrestler type banks.
They do not want to merge to be a better service to the Canadian people. It is the bank workers, the customers and the communities which have built those banks and made them profitable that will be devastated by these mergers.
The banks want to merge for one reason and that reason is greed. Those bank presidents have seen their stock options increase by approximately $100 million since January. In the CIBC and the TD alone the nine major officers of those two banks have seen their stock options increase by $142 million since January. No wonder they want the mergers to proceed. It is good for the big fat bankers, but is it good for Canadians?
Experts are saying that approximately 20% of the people who work for those banks will be laid off. They will lose their jobs. Approximately 30,000 Canadians will lose their jobs. That is a population of a small city. That is why parliament has to stand up and say no and represent the Canadian people on this issue.
Those four banks have about 5,000 branches, many of which will close throughout rural Canada and in city centres. This will result in a lack of service for the Canadian people. There is also the issue of corporate concentration. Our banking sector already is the most concentrated banking sector of any country in the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development.
When we go from five big banks to two megabanks we will see about 70% of the banking assets in the hands of two banks. In the United States it would take approximately 100 banks to make 70% of the banking assets of that country.
This should be a great worry to Canadian people in terms of service, bank service charges, interest on loans, service to the small business community, farmers and ordinary people. These mergers will not be in the interest of the people of the country. They are in the interest of Mr. Cleghorn, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Baillie and Mr. Flood, the presidents, CEOs and banking executives of these four big banks.
Those banks have been made very profitable. They have made over $7 billion in profits in the last year, and they have done that in Canada. They do not have to get bigger to be more profitable.
Even my Liberal friend from Winnipeg is embarrassed about the power of these big banks. He knows the electorate in his riding is very concerned about the layoffs that will ensue, the lack of competition and the branches that will close throughout Manitoba. In Lynn Lake, Manitoba, there was only one bank which is the Toronto-Dominion Bank and it has closed. It is a community without a bank. This is happening right across the country.
I hope we take advantage of this debate to focus once again on the power of these banks and to say at the very least that Canadian banks should be forced to reinvest in their local communities the money they take from depositors in their local communities. This is happening now in the United States of America.
There is nothing radical about it. It is happening in the United States. Let us make sure it happens here. The banks are here to serve the Canadian people, not to fatten the pockets of John Cleghorn, Al Ford and the other big bank CEOs.
I will do whatever I can as a member of parliament to help channel public opinion against these big mergers. They are not in the Canadian interest and I say to John Cleghorn “Don't take parliament for granted. We are not trained seals. We are not a rubber stamp. You can't blackmail the Parliament of Canada”. Parliament is supreme in terms of making up its mind whether or not these mergers go ahead. We reflect the Canadian people. We will make sure they say no.
There was a survey in the Regina Leader Post about two weeks ago. It was a survey and not a poll. The question was “Do you think if these big banks merge you will get better service or worse service?” Over 2,000 people called the Leader Post and 93% said the service would be worse and 7% said the service would be better.
This is another reason we as members of parliament should say that it is not in the public interest, not in the interest of Canada, that these mergers go ahead. That is one of the reasons I support the bill of the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve.