Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Winnipeg Centre on his speech. I could not have done better myself and I really mean that.
I also want to share with him some information which came my way this summer. It was really heart-rending to get calls from farmers who were in danger of losing their land and of having their mortgages pulled. It was very heart-rending and difficult to deal with but not nearly as difficult as what they face.
Second, the hon. member mentioned the banks walking away from the administration of student loans. I can tell him that just recently the chartered bank which had been doing that work in Saskatchewan gave notice that it will no longer do it because it is not profitable enough.
My colleague mentioned that the banks have been given many benefits. In some ways they are almost treated like an extension of the crown. However, they have a corporate and social responsibility on the other hand from which they often walk away.
I want to ask my colleague about the Community Reinvestment Act. The New Democratic Party had that in its 1997 platform because it was very clear to us that many people who really needed loans, as my colleague said, could not get them because the banks were not prepared to lend to them.
Could he elucidate and give us a bit more detail on what I believe to be the wisdom of that kind of legislation?