Madam Speaker, even though what the member has raised is not dealt with specifically in the bill, I dealt with it in my remarks and I think it is an important question.
Of course the issue around bank mergers still has to be debated and decided but we are not there yet. However there will come a day, I am sure, where banks will come forward and look to merge. I think this is where we as parliamentarians, in looking at the public interest aspects, have to deal with the question of the access and service that consumers will have, especially in small rural communities. In a city like Toronto, if the local branch of the CIBC closes, one can go to the TD Bank or the Royal Bank. There are a lot of options in large urban centres but in parts of rural Canada this could be a very big problem
For example, if a merger occurred between, let us say, the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the Bank of Montreal, in one small town in Saskatchewan that merged entity would be seen as having too dominant a position and the Competition Bureau would say that has to be divested. So now we are down to maybe one bank in that town. We know that if consumers and small business operators do not have choices they are sort of hung out to dry.
The question I think the House of Commons and Senate banking committee will be wrestling with when a merger proposal does come forward is: What does this do and how does it enhance consumer access to quality products and services?
As I indicated in my remarks, there is one interesting twist to this. Before, when we dealt with bank mergers back in 1998 I guess it was, the banks were not prepared to deal with the question of, if there was a divestiture in a certain town, what would happen. However today the banks realize that if there is going to be a divestiture in a small town in Saskatchewan, or in Ontario, or in New Brunswick, they need to have a plan and they need to be able to put those assets up for sale. Smaller banks, regional banks, credit unions, the Laurentian Bank, the National Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, banks like that, have come forward and said that they would be interested in picking up those assets.
In terms of the process of bank mergers, I think the challenge will be to align all that up simultaneously so that we have comfort as parliamentarians that in fact some other bank will pick up that branch that might be divested. I think that will be a very serious question.
In my riding, as it is, I am sure, in the riding of the member for Blackstrap, even though the banks have responded to some extent in a greater capacity in terms of small business lending, there is still a lot of angst out there that the banks are not being as helpful as they could be to small business. I think that will be a question on the table as well. By consolidating and by bulking up the bank what is that going to do in terms of capital that might be available for small business? I think that will be an important question as well.
We are not there yet but it is an important question. I am sure it will be in front of this Parliament sometime in the next year or so. I think the member has raised an important question that we will have to deal with and deal with very carefully.