Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's remarks regarding the Bank Act and I share some of the frustration and concern that I heard him express. In the inner city riding that I represent, the banks abandoned, systematically over the last decade, 15 bank branches. My colleague from Winnipeg North experienced something similar. I believe she counted 13 bank branches that folded up their tents and took off from that inner city community.
The point I am trying to make is that the banks were given the exclusive monopoly on some very lucrative financial services in exchange for the duty and the obligation to provide basic financial services to all Canadians whether it is small town rural Manitoba or the inner city core areas of Surrey, Vancouver or Toronto.
They broke that compact. They tore that agreement up and threw it out the window, yet we still call them charter banks. They still enjoy the exclusive monopoly on these very lucrative financial transactions, yet they broke their end of the deal.
The point I am making is that when they fled the inner city, they left a financial services void, a vacuum that was filled very rapidly with what I call fringe bankers, the payday lenders that sprouted up like mushrooms, like a scourge on the inner city.
They offend the sensibility of every Canadian when they charge 10,000% interest on a basic loan. People think I am making that figure up. A study done by the University of Winnipeg studied fringe banking. It ranged from 1,000% at the low end to 10,000% interest. A person cannot make that kind of money selling cocaine.
It is organized crime that is behind a lot of these payday lenders. I say that with no hesitation and no fear of being sued. We know that for a fact. There is nothing else that can be done in this country to make the kind of financial return as payday lenders receive with their loan-sharking practices.
My concern and what I wanted to raise with my colleague, whom I know probably faces similar issues in the Montreal riding that he represents, is that the banks are not serving us well. We have one opportunity every five years or so to have a statutory review of the Bank Act and we fail to address some of these fundamental issues.
Why do we not force the banks to live up to their obligation to provide basic services? Why do we let them close bank branches that are still profitable, they are just not profitable enough, or they are not as profitable as their branch out in the suburbs?
Why do we let them put up ATMs that mystify and baffle people like my mother who has banked at the same street corner of Grosvenor and Stafford since 1948 until that bank branch closed? Now there is this nameless, faceless, cold ATM that she is supposed to try to figure out how to use, and then to add insult to injury, they start charging these exorbitant banking fees just to access her bank account.
Really, when we add up all these things, the banks have been raking it in making record profits. Every quarter they set new records. There are not many industries, not many sectors, that have set record profits every single quarter, year after year after year. Why can we not rein these guys in?
Why did this committee not have the guts to take the banks on and tell them they are not living up to their end of the deal with their charters, and to start doing it or we are going to tear up their charters?