I recognize that in a sea of ambition over there she may represent a thimble full of principle. Her roots are in Hants county, Nova Scotia. She and I share similar roots. I guess that is where her sudden regaining of the good common sense of people from the Hants shore prevails here today. It is great to have her support on my position on this very important piece of legislation.
Further, the legislation and the government's position and perspective in dealing with this very important financial services sector ignores the seven million Canadians who are shareholders in the Canadian banks. The overwhelming majority of adults in Canada today in one way or another, either through their pension funds, unions or mutual funds or through direct investment, have an ownership in one or more Canadian banks.
The government is not only denying Canadian bank consumers and the financial services sector consumers the opportunity for sustainably competitive services, it is also shackling investors in Canadian financial services entities with a regulatory burden that is unacceptable.
The government says that it is very important that we regulate and ensure there is a low cost account provided to Canadians, and force the banks to provide services to Canadians regardless of income.
In theory nobody would argue with what the government is trying to achieve in that sense. If the government is going to actually embrace this from an ideological perspective, the logical corollary of this argument would be that the next step for the government would be to regulate the food companies. That is Loblaws, Sobey's, et cetera, should have to introduce a new low cost food provision service to Canadian consumers regardless of income.
In other words, because of the fact that the government is forcing Canadian financial services institutions to provide services to Canadians regardless of their ability to pay, it is only logical to expect the next step will be that the government is going to be forcing Canadian grocery distributors and stores to provide food to Canadians regardless of their ability to pay. Surely food or the availability of food is more important to individual Canadians than simply the ability to obtain financial services.
Shelter is very important too. I would fully expect that the government is going to be introducing legislation in the coming months to force real estate developers to provide free apartments to people, regardless of income, because clearly the government determines that that is in its best interest based on this legislation, if we look at it from a logical perspective.
If we are going to go along this route and abdicate any free market principles that we may still have left, perhaps we should start at the top with a crown agency. Canada Post should be giving away free stamps to people if they do not happen to have the amount of money required to buy a package of stamps.
Clearly the government is going in the wrong direction on this piece of legislation in many areas from the regulatory perspective.
That being the case we recognize some of the positive elements of this legislation, including the ability for greater flexibility in the financial services sector and greater opportunities for our Canadian financial services players to compete and grow. We would like to see those opportunities for jobs to be created and for shareholder value to grow for Canadians. We would like to see more of those opportunities.
Unfortunately the government in this hodgepodge legislation, this buffet style of picking and choosing from those comprehensive reports like the MacKay report and focusing on the politically palatable while ignoring any long term consistency or vision from an industrial strategy perspective for the country, is giving us a piece of legislation that we will be supporting with pinched nose.
I know the Minister of Justice agrees with me on this. I know she as well would like to see a more competitive, stronger financial services sector in the 21st century, and not one shackled by the Liberal incompetence in this very important part of the Canadian economy.