Mr. Speaker, I thought my friend actually answered his own question when he said what changes are being made to benefit foreign banks.
That is what the whole act is about. There are 141 pages of ways and means to permit, encourage and enable foreign banks to access the Canadian capital market. That is what this is all about. In other words, it removes the barriers that presently exist against foreign banks. If that is not helping foreign banks I do not know what is. We are saying we are now open for business for foreign banks to come in and cream off the top of the market. That is what this is all about.
My friend reminded me of something that I forgot to say in my speech, the Liberal task force on bank mergers. I will ask this rhetorical question. Did the Minister of Finance have the courtesy to ask the members of the House of Commons who represent all the people of Canada, not just those who support Liberals but people who support the Reform Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservative and the New Democratic Party, to seek the views of Canadians as to whether the banks should merge? No. He asked some of his backbenchers to keep him out of trouble. It must get awfully boring sitting there bleating all the time. Rather than bleat for the next few weeks they can go out, travel around and then he will tell them what to say in the end.
I use that again as an example of the Minister of Finance and the government abusing this place. They do not ask MPs to do something. They ask a bunch of Liberal flacks in the back row to do something. That is not the way it is supposed to work.