Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve for putting forward this piece of legislation, which I have read. I echo the comments of my colleague in the NDP that it is very refreshing to speak to issues that are important to us as individual members of parliament.
I share some sympathy with the member who submitted this bill that it is not votable. I find that to be unfortunate. I wish that all private members' legislation, bills or motions, were votable in this House. I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of my own that were not votable, although they were very important issues. They are very necessary issues for individual members of parliament, not only for their own constituencies but for the constituency we all serve, the constituency of Canada.
I was confused as I read the bill because it did not speak a lot about the bank mergers. I respect the hon. member in the NDP for his opinion on a number of issues. He has conviction and he is certainly very dedicated to his cause. However, I am not prepared to stand here and not speak to the legislation, and I certainly will not bank bash, which was the soap box given to the hon. member with respect to this piece of legislation.
I will try to home in on what the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve is trying to put forward. As I understand it, this bill would amend the Bank Act and the Statistics Act to promote equity in community reinvestment. It is not a bill that talks about bank mergers and the operations of banking institutions and how the Americans are either better or worse than us. What it talks about is a very important issue to all of us, in particular the smaller communities which have banking institutions. Moneys are taken from those communities, whether in deposits, in RRSP contributions, in mutual funds or in other investment vehicles to be invested in other areas, most of them being the major financial centres, the larger centres in eastern Canada.
I understand the theory and practicalities of economy. Let us be serious about it, perhaps a little more serious than the NDP member who spoke, who may not quite understand all of the mechanics of international and national economies.
I believe very seriously that in my own community the banking institutions are good corporate citizens. They become a part of our community, but they have a job that has to be done. That job is obviously to make a profit, which the NDP member would see slightly as a dirty word. I see it as an opportunity for corporations to reinvest in themselves and to help those same employees the member suggested would be impacted by the mergers. They are and have always been good corporate citizens in my community. They are certainly there when necessary to help the community in any number of fashions.
We first talked about reinvestment in the community. The banking institution is there to help people like members of the House to maintain the standard of living they have developed over the past number years in their families. They allow us to purchase our residences, to purchase our vehicles, to purchase things for our leisure activities and to purchase the education that is vital for our families.
They reinvest in the community with respect to commercial and industrial reinvestment. We have heard constantly about small and medium size enterprises, the backbone of the Canadian economy. In most cases the small and medium size enterprises depend an awful lot on the same financial institutions we speak about in this legislation. That is not in all cases because mistakes are made and everything is not perfect in this world. However, in most cases those small and medium size enterprises are assisted by the banking industry, which is good, not bad. This legislation also speaks to those good things. I am very pleased about that.
The legislation also calls for more transparency in the banking institutions. It suggests that the banks should tell us how many dollars are being taken from our communities and how many are being reinvested.
That is as far as it should go. I do not think there should be a quota system. I do not believe there should be legislation saying that if dollar one goes out then dollar one must come in. That changes the whole dynamics of what we realize as being a Canadian economy built on a banking system which is probably second to none in the world.
The PC Party believes in promoting equity in community reinvestment and in strengthening the corporate citizenship of the banks in those communities. However, the measures that Bill C-289 would take to ensure equity are ambiguous and a bit unclear. Under Bill C-289 banks in different regions would be held at different standards. Only those banks in a district with higher unemployment than the national average would be subject to this bill and the accountability that it would bring.
I would suggest that the bill should be applicable to all electoral districts, not just to a selected few. Currently the legislation is not equally applicable to all banks. Judging a bank in Cape Breton differently than one in Medicine Hat is not a solution that will promote community reinvestment.
Government intervention in the lending sector is not the solution to job creation. Lowering payroll taxes and tax relief should be the first steps in promoting job creation.
However, Bill C-289 does propose a very productive step forward in promoting accountability in the banking industry that is very positive. It is a step for which I congratulate the member. But the accountability brought forward by Bill C-289 should not be restricted just to electoral districts with unemployment rates greater than the national average. That same accountability and transparency should be throughout all electoral districts. There should not be any criteria with respect to unemployment rates. It should be applied to all banks across the country.
Currently the Canadian Bankers Association distributes business credit statistics outlining recent credit extended to small and medium size businesses. In fact, the banking sector undertook this practice even before crown corporations began to publish similar reports.
The bill rightfully pushes the level of accountability and transparency further than the current reporting practices of the banking sector. The proposal under section 522.06 where banks would have to analyse their operations systems, rules and practices in order to determine their position relative to community reinvestment is positive.
However, the bill admits that the government would be hard-pressed to apply specific measures to certain banks which did not comply with the bill's intention. Nowhere in the bill is there any mention of how the minister could impose greater lending practices on institutions that do not meet the ambiguous and undefined criteria for community reinvestment.
The PC Party is in favour of having a report published and publicly accessible outlining the commitment the banking sector has made toward community reinvestment. At this point in time we believe that simply publishing this information would ensure greater public accountability in the banking sector. If the numbers are there the public then has the opportunity to make its own decision as to whether sufficient dollars are being reinvested into the community from that one institution and whether the public should in fact support that institution in their community.
If this bill is meant to promote accountability in the banking sector, then yearly reports are the first step in this process. However, if this bill is meant to strengthen job creation in underdeveloped employment regions of Canada, the government should not confuse the issue with accountability in the banking sector. They are two separate issue. I appreciate the fact that we should have transparency in accounting in the system because then we do have a choice, but for the institutions to put that money back into a region simply because of a high unemployment rate is not the way to do it. There are other ways.
Instead of intervening in private enterprise the government should offer small and medium size businesses in Canada the tools to expand and promote job creation on their own. I touched on that earlier by suggesting that the government should help regional development with respect to taxation, which is the major impediment of any regional development, and provide the opportunity to develop those industries.
Offering Canadians tax relief and cutting employment insurance premiums are the first steps the government should undertake to assist regions with high unemployment.
I thank the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve for putting the bill forward.