Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Yves Michaud is very well known in Quebec. He is a great social democrat. We know that he has the advantage of being a recognized sovereigntist, a member of the Parti Québécois and of the Bloc Québécois. He is obviously a man who has the interests of the people at heart.
It is a well known fact that Mr. Michaud's suggestions to the boards of directors of big banks have always been in the interests of the people, who are once again having their property taken away from them. When we see bank fees go from $1.50 to $2.50, we know that part of the increase is being used to raise the salary of the bank's CEO.
I think that the idea that the remuneration of a bank CEO should be 20 times that of the average salary of employees should be considered. The government should show that it has a little backbone but the Minister of Industry has none and never will have. We will never see that, but the government could nonetheless show a little firmness and tell the banks that enough is enough and that they must change their ways.
People work to pay the salary of the CEO, whose only aim is to increase the bank's profits to get a bigger bonus at the end of the year. Not only does the CEO's salary increase but he or she also gets a bonus for reaching the objectives of the current year and exceeding those of the following year. It is not surprising then that the good folks who pay transaction fees at ATMs see those fees increase. On the one hand, it ups the CEO's estimates and, on the other hand, it increases his or her salary at the end of the year. The CEO is very happy to get a raise but that leaves less money in people's pockets. You can understand then that the Bloc will support any request or any legislation change that the government could introduce to call the banks to order.