Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the hon. member for Chambly and notary in a former life, for his question. His question falls, it seems to me, half-way between wholly financial concerns and his endless thirst, which I acknowledge, for social justice.
That said, the hon. member for Chambly is right. I could never produce for the hon. members any examples of hypocrisy off the top of my head that would equal the actions of the Minister of Finance, because I do not know of any. The fact is that our colleague from Hyacinthe—Bagot could be more accurate than I.
I believe that in the last budget we raised the matter of $180 million in taxes the banks had to pay from 1994 on. We were not all that comfortable with the idea that it was necessary to lighten the fiscal burden of the banks because we acknowledge their right to make money. They operate within a highly protected environment under the Bank Act and schedule 1. Thus there is no true competition in the banking sector. There will perhaps be more in future but that has certainly not been the case in the past.
In conclusion, in order to provide my colleague with an accurate answer, I do not believe there is any interconnection. From my examination and understanding of the community reinvestment act, it is my belief that its objective is definitively to provide better access to credit to all communities in the United States and that we must not look for connections with income tax and other tax matters. They are, in my understanding, totally independent of each other.