Mr. Speaker, I come from a northern part of Canada where banking services are limited in many small rural and remote communities and limited to the extreme. In some cases, people need to air freight their cheque to another community and have it cashed there and then returned to them, which is a huge expense.
Within any amendments that are being made to the acts governing the banks, I would think that we would want to see some attention paid to ensuring that there is some universality in some of the basic banking services across this country, especially in rural and remote communities. It may be that it will require some amendments to the act that would allow banks to provide more online services. I would say that there are things that could be done.
Although we have competition in the banking field, we do have very large companies that dominate the market. The banking industry needs to have some responsibility toward Canadians to ensure their services are available in all parts of this country.
Could the hon. member comment on how these amendments to the act will help people in rural and remote communities?