Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Skeena--Bulkley Valley has made a valid point. Banks were given the exclusive monopoly on certain very lucrative financial transactions in exchange for providing basic services to Canadians, whether they live in the inner city of Winnipeg or the remote northern region of British Columbia.
I know that ministers responsible for financial institutions should have been seized of this issue in recent years because this duty very conveniently seems to have been collectively forgotten by the banks. That is what has left the people of the inner city of Winnipeg vulnerable to these rip-off payday loan outfits.
If I could correct my colleague from Edmonton, these institutions are not charging just $1.50 to cash a cheque; sometimes it is 3%, 4% and 5% of the amount of the cheque. I am not saying this is so in every case, but we know of examples where it is that high. That is an absolute rip-off. Nothing is supposed to be charged for cashing a government cheque, period. It is supposed to be a service available to Canadians. If a customer establishes a relationship with a bank and needs an extra $100 one week, he or she could do an overdraft and the service charge would be 1% or 2%.