My colleague from Nova Scotia, a Conservative, is agreeing with me. Now and then that Conservative member has the odd lucid moment I have noticed. It may be that in his home community he has suffered the same indignity as I have, that the corner banks are closing their doors, folding up their tents and abandoning us. They are bailing out. They have more investments offshore than they have in our own communities. We grant them a charter to exist and give them the exclusive monopoly to make a fortune on certain financial transactions and they refuse to live up to their end of the bargain. That is where I find fault. The little guy is not getting a fair shake from the big banks.
We create our own credit unions and we are left with the least profitable side of banking that nobody else seems to want. We seem to make it work. We are making it work in the non-profit sector through a vibrant credit union system throughout the land, but that is still no excuse. We cannot afford to backfill every place the banks have abandoned us, we simply cannot. No credit union can.
Imagine how devastating it is to represent an old established neighbourhood like mine and see 15 bank branches close their doors. There is another place in which they are failing to live up to their commitment. Right in the Bank Act it says that if a bank wants to close a branch, it has to have public meetings. It has to deal with the inconvenience to the long-standing customers. It has to help them find alternate banking services within a reasonable distance. One of the banks was even ordered to provide a van to drive seniors from the existing branch to the new branch, which was all the way across town. That lasted exactly four months. The van disappeared and the seniors at the Blue Bird Lodge in the inner city of Winnipeg are without service. It is just not working.
I am here to serve notice that the current Bank Act lets Canadians down. The Bank of Canada had Arthur Anderson as its auditor of record for the whole time of the Enron scandal. I have no confidence in that particular system.
I am very concerned though that Bill C-37 is a lost opportunity, because the very things that I point out as being urgent needs for the communities that I have cited I do not find anywhere in the hundreds and hundreds of complex amendments to complex acts in here.
I would urge the government to get back to the basics and listen to what Canadians are saying. They are sick to their stomachs. Get back to the people. Let us do what is best for ordinary Canadians for a change, not for whoever gets affected.