Madam Speaker, I want to say at the outset what a joy it is to be participating in the debate today which has been made possible by my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle. I had the pleasure to second this bill. In a sense, I am a co-sponsor with my colleague.
It is interesting to listen to the debate and the commonality. Every speaker on this topic speaks against the currency speculators. Everybody is against those who make their living by speculating on currency. I have not heard anybody yet say that they are in love with the currency speculators, that currency speculators are somehow helpful, that currency speculators have done anything good for the economy, or that they are doing anything good for society generally.
We are in complete agreement that currency speculators who sit up 24 hours a day in some parts of the world are causing problems, causing havoc to the attempts of sovereign nations to develop their economies.
While listening to the previous speaker, I could not help but think of our debate around gun control. Some people say that gun control will not stop all murder. Therefore, why do we have gun control?
No one said that it would stop all murder and that it was either one or the other. We have gun control in our country to attempt to reduce the rate of murder. I think we have been successful.
On balance, we can argue about whether this gun control initiative is appropriate or another control is appropriate, but the fact that we are not all packing sidearms like they are in Texas makes this place a better place to live, a safer place to live. The fact that everyone packs sidearms in Texas makes it a terrible place to live.
When we talk about currency speculators, let us agree that it is worth the effort to try to control these characters. No one can make a convincing case that this is good for anybody other than currency speculators and some of their bosses.
When we look at the media and listen to some of our colleagues we hear a financial elite who just do not want any kind of meddling in their marketplace. They want to have carte blanche freedom to do whatever they want. If that results in countries being devastated, like we have seen as a result of currency speculators, so be it. We even came close in our own country just a few months ago when we watched our dollar collapse day after day. In August last year our currency collapsed day after day, hour after hour, simply because speculators were speculating on our currency. It had nothing to do with the state of our economy. But it caused problems. It caused uncertainty in the marketplace. A lot of investors and consumers were concerned about making important investments or consuming the items or services they wished.
A long comes an idea. Is it a perfect idea? My friend from Regina—Qu'Appelle says:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should show leadership and enact a tax on financial transactions in concert with the international community...
In other words, if the international community is in support of this, then this will proceed. We cannot do it unilaterally. We do not want to do it unilaterally. We want to show leadership. The world is calling out for leadership.
I am pleased to say that our Minister of Finance a few months ago was completely against this idea. Now the Minister of Finance says that he is open to these ideas. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance says that he thinks there is merit in this. That is why I am puzzled by some of my friends in the Liberal Party who are against this initiative. If the Minister of Finance thinks it is a good idea and if the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance thinks it is a good idea, why are those Liberals across the way bad-mouthing this concept?
That is what they are doing. But it is a free country and I appreciate that they have a right to say unusual and perhaps uninformed things.
Let us look at what we are talking about. We are talking about a form of the Tobin tax. In 1972 James Tobin, Nobel Prize economist, first proposed the idea of a tax on foreign exchange transactions. This has now been updated. The most recent suggestion is that this would be a tax as low as .1% of transactions in order not to swamp the normal commission charges and so on. It is fair to say that the first $10,000 would be exempt.
We are not talking about the person buying a Canada Savings Bond. We are not talking about a person buying a car. We are talking about people who are currency speculators.
There would be another charge, but the reality is that it would only be with the support of the international community.
If the international community was in support of some form of a Tobin tax, why would Canada not be in support of it? I listened to the leader of Germany the other day. He is in favour of some form of a Tobin tax.
I returned not long ago from the Asia-Pacific parliamentary forum. Twenty-two nations from around the Pacific came together. This was a major item. Unanimously they agreed that some form of a Tobin tax was appropriate for their countries. Yet some of my friends in the Liberal Party bad-mouth this concept. They are bad-mouthing the leadership of Asia-Pacific. What are these people thinking?
I know that some of my friends are here as voices of the financial elite of the country. I can understand why they would not support this legislation. However, most people representing constituents in the House of Commons would say “Show me a constituent in this country who would vote against the idea of a Tobin tax”. If I went to Calgary today and said “Do you folks in Calgary like the idea of some form of control on international currency speculators?”, I bet there would not be a single Calgarian who would stand and say they would not want this kind of tax.