Mr. Speaker, the question was about whether or not our banks are competitive internationally. Once again I would refer to Dr. Peters who was the former minister of financial institutions. I think his comments were that our banks are very competitive internationally.
If we look at all the evidence that has come before the committee, we will see that our banks do not have any problem when it comes to competition internationally. Our banks are large nationally and are still a good size internationally. There is no reason that they cannot form a joint venture, a consortium for international competition that would put them up there in the size of the larger banks around the world. I do not think many contracts have been lost because they are not big enough to finance them.
The member mentioned the takeover of MacMillan Bloedel by Weyerhaeuser. There have been many other big mergers in the country and Canadian banks are capable of doing that. Sometimes one bank by itself does not finance a larger financial project, but sometimes two or three banks will go together to help finance a large project in this country. I do not think there is any real problem with that.
I am not concerned at this stage about international competition because our banks instead can form a joint venture, a national consortium, and therefore be big and very competitive.
The question we have to answer is whether or not a bank merger is good for a small community in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. Is a bank merger good for a small community in central Ontario? Is a bank merger good for a small community such as Wynyard in my riding in Saskatchewan? Those are the questions we have to answer as parliamentarians. The last time around we said no very decisively. In the end the former minister of finance, the member for LaSalle—Émard, also said no.