The member for Prince Albert is talking about his favourite constituent David Orchard . I understand the member for Prince Albert received a lot of political lessons years ago from Mr. David Orchard, but those are stories I will tell at another time. I know he is very close to Mr. Orchard and part of the movement to unite the so-called right in the country.
I am getting a bit distracted on this because the member for Prince Albert was not part of this great fight against bank mergers, even though the Alliance is supposed to be a great populace party that speaks for the ordinary people, but it was not there.
We had a national campaign and we fought against the mergers of these big banks. The member for Winnipeg Centre and the member for Churchill were part of that campaign. After eight or nine months, the minister of finance, who is now the private member for LaSalle—Émard, finally said, no, that these bank mergers were not in the public interest.
Since then, we have had some committee studies and committee reports. We had a study by the Senate banking committee and then of course the House of Commons committee report, which I am moving concurrence in today.
The interesting thing is one of the recommendations of the Senate banking committee was that there should not be a role for the Senate or the House of Commons when it came to looking at bank mergers. It wanted to take the House of Commons right out of making a comment on whether bank mergers should occur.
That is the audacity of people who are not elected. Maybe the Solicitor General across the way is hanging his head in shame about this. The audacity of people who are not elected, or accountable or democratic, to say that when there is a proposed bank merger, the House of Commons finance committee should not comment on that proposed merger.
I can see the Solicitor General across the way is shaking his head in shame about what the Senate said about this proposal. I hope the Solicitor General will get up and give us a few comments on why the House of Commons should have a major role to play when it comes to proposal for bank merger in Canada.
When I look at big banks, they do have special rights and special privileges. They operate under a charter of the House of Commons. They are held in a great deal of trust by the Canadian people. Therefore, when we look at a bank merger, it is very important that we look at a number of factors. One is access for all Canadians, regardless of where one lives.
In the previous bank merger campaign, I remember hopping on a small airplane with the member for Churchill and flying up to Lynn Lake, a community that had lost its last remaining bank. I remember sitting down with her and meeting the town council, members of the chamber of commerce and ordinary citizens. This was a community that had lost its last bank.
Access to the Canadian people is extremely important, yet we have a government majority across the way which is now going to facilitate the merger of banks in Canada. Of course the Alliance, on the other hand, would just do anything the banks want. I am very surprised the member for Prince Albert would agree, particularly since one of his best friends is David Orchard. That is one important point.
Another important point, and this is a factor that social democrats raise all the time, is the access of banking and equity capital for business. A social democratic party is a party that is very concerned about access to capital by small and medium sized business. We have heard many stories over the years of big banks pulling out of the market in terms of--