House of Commons Hansard #44 of the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was cards.
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
You're back in the sandbox, I guess.
It is about understanding the issue. The question was about the credit card rates that people are paying and people using some of the tools, not all the tools but some of the tools we have funded, which the NDP has voted against, has not supported, has taken an action against by their votes.
We have tools available so people can better understand what is happening, so that they can make better decisions--
The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie
The length of the answer should correspond approximately to the amount of time of the question.
The hon. member for Mississauga South.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Madam Speaker, I think all members are familiar with the motion, which has to do with some of the things that have been happening in the credit card industry that have been hurting Canadians. It includes increases in rates at any time without reason, no protection for the consumer, et cetera. The member said this motion does not make any sense to him or any of his Conservative colleagues. I guess that is what it really comes down to, and that is too bad, but that is their position.
My question, however, has to do with the balance of his speech in which he outlined, right back to 2006, all the computer-based, Internet-based financial literacy things that have happened, and also about home ownership and the like. It would appear the member makes a rash assumption. The people who have the problems we are seeing today may not have the money to have a connection to the Internet or a computer. Does the member not think it might be useful to communicate to some Canadians in a format other than through the Internet?
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Madam Speaker, the member from the Liberal Party made exactly our point. He talked about why it does not make sense. It does not make sense to us when we have a study in the Senate, which is public information that the press is able to cover. Then we have a commitment on both the industry committee and the finance committee to study this and make it public.
The fact is that about 80% of Canadians have access to the Internet, so telling me that nobody has access to it does not make any sense. Exactly why the motion does not make any sense is because it is not placed at the right time. We do not have the information. We are about to study it at committee. It is being studied in the Senate. Why would the opposition be doing this today? It does not make any sense to us. It is not the appropriate time. We are trying to get the accurate information out so that Canadians can make proper decisions and parliamentarians can make proper decisions about what should happen in the future.
That is why the finance minister, in his economic action plan, gave the finance office the ability to take action, but we have to get the information first.
Roger Pomerleau Bloc Drummond, QC
Madam Speaker, I have listened carefully to my hon. Conservative colleague's remarks.
Essentially, today's motion by the NDP, as it stands, is aimed at reducing the power the industry has at present to do as it pleases at the expense of the ordinary consumer. The people in the industry are permanently in contradiction with themselves in this system. On the one hand, they are the ones using every possible means of encouraging people to make consumer purchases and to go into debt, appealing to their emotions by bombarding them with advertising. We know very well that ads target people's emotions, not their intellect. On the other hand, they use every possible means to encourage people to make rational choices and not full into the traps that have been set for them.
My colleague claims that the NDP, having never been in power, has no credibility in presenting this motion today. Does my colleague realize that the Conservatives will not be re-elected in the next election, nor for many decades of elections thereafter?
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois who is asking this question. I found it interesting during the last election when his leader indicated he would never be Prime Minister of this country. In fact, it could be argued that party does not really care that much about Canada. They really care about their own little niche, perhaps, but they do not have any broader view of where Canada should go.
On this side of the House, the Conservative Party of Canada cares about every single Canadian. We care about every single Canadian's financial future. That is why, through our economic action plan, we are spending money getting the economy stimulated and making sure that we have our economy operating at a level greater than other countries around the world.
We are all facing a global economic downturn, but because of the actions that Canada had taken earlier, we are in better shape, and we will be in better shape coming out of the recession. We will come out of the recession faster. That is why it is important for us to talk to the financial sector. We are dealing with the credit and debit side, understanding what the issues are and making proper, informed policy that will be good for Canadians and their credit and debit system for years and years to come.
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the NDP opposition day motion. I would like to indicate that I am sharing my time with the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. I am sure he will have much to add to this debate in his indubitable fashion, as always, as our international trade critic, who understands the issues facing Canadians at home as well.
As I stand to speak about consumer debt and credit cards, I would like to put it in the context first of myself. I have to admit that I have never had any personal debt throughout my whole life. I have always operated on the positive side of the ledger. In later life when I finally obtained a credit card, I always made sure that the payments were made on time and that interest would not accrue. My wife was very diligent in ensuring that happened. I want to thank her today because her hard work in ensuring that our family remained out of debt has made it possible for me look forward to a good life in my retirement.
That is the message I want to deliver to all Canadians. What we have seen in this country and the world has been an explosion of debt over the last 25 years that has driven the economies of many countries into rack and ruin, but it has also driven Canadians and other consumers throughout the world into great hardship.
Yes, there are problems of financial literacy, as the hon. member from the Conservative Party pointed out, but there is a far more important issue. That is why the New Democratic Party can look south of the border now with some degree of confidence when we hear the new president of the United States and his new administration talking about new ideas to bring the American economy around. That is why we can look there and ask whether they have good ideas that we can pick up on.
Does the United States have ideas within its administration or Congress that Canada can take advantage of? In fact, in some instances we are probably able to move more quickly than the United States in putting forward legislation for change, and more likely in the future to offer up solutions to the United States. With the economy that exists now in North America, we have to understand that it is very integrated.
For us to take ideas from other legislators in this grand continent I do not think is inappropriate. We are going to be seeing more of that in the future from the New Democratic Party, because the President of the United States sounds more like a New Democrat than I have heard from anyone there before. There is someone in the United States who we can count on to provide us with advice. George Bush is not there anymore, whose policies and directions were totally repugnant to the New Democratic Party and to most Canadians and our supporters across the country.
This is a different time and we have the opportunity to pick up new ideas. The New Democratic Party right now is the mainstream of economic reason in this country.
I had the opportunity the other day to speak with John Rodriguez, who was the financial institutions critic for the New Democratic Party in the 1980s. What did he say? He said we fought long and hard against the Conservatives and the Liberals to ensure that the banks in Canada did not expand their scope beyond what needed to be; our financial institutions were kept in line. That work is playing out today.
For the party opposite or the Liberals to call us, in the NDP, Luddites is nonsense. We have been standing up for Canadians' financial security in Parliament the entire time that NDP members have been here. Whether there are five members or 30, we stand up for Canadians to ensure their interests come first and are protected. That is what we are doing here today with the introduction of this motion by the hon. member for Sudbury.
In this time, when we look to the future and at what people need in this country, do we need our consumers continuing their path of greater and greater consumer debt in this country? No, we do not. We do not need that. That is not good for Canadians. That is not going to work for Canadians.
The fallacy of the extension of debt among consumers in Canada has come home to roost. It was apparent to every individual in this country. Why does the Conservative Party not recognize that the importance of these issues to consumers and to Canadians is paramount?
I really want to congratulate the member for bringing this motion forward. We need to bring sense back into the lives of Canadians. We need to take the institutions that provide them with financial resources and make them understand that their job is to ensure that their customers are well protected with their financial dealings with those companies.
The concept of a bank as being a secure and good place to get financial advice, to understand how to use credit and to ensure that the people who run the banks have the concern of their customers first are concepts that we have to go back to and that should drive the economy once we come out of this recession.
We do not want to look back two years from now and consider that nothing was really wrong with what we were doing, that nothing was wrong with the extension of consumer debt to a point where there were no savings left in this country, there was no security for individuals in what they were doing with their money. We want to change that and move forward so that Canadians will progress, so they will gain after the downturn is over, and so they will have a new economy that will be less reliant on their personal suffering and more on a system that delivers them the resources they require, that can make their lives work and that they can afford to use in their day to day practices.
To talk about consumer debt and credit cards, and to understand the nature of what is happening with this system, I think for some of us is very difficult. Of course it is, but it is not difficult to understand when someone pays his or her credit card down at the end of the month, misses $10 and ends up paying interest on the whole amount. We understand how usurious that is. It does not take a degree in economics to understand that that is not fair.
That is one of the things we are working on here, to limit abusive fees and penalties, to ensure that credit cardholders understand the terms and conditions of their contracts, and that the terms and conditions of their contracts work for them as well. That is the job of the regulatory agency, the government of this country, to provide that assurance to consumers that what is offered as a basic method of payment for so many different products in this country has the terms and conditions that can work for both the consumer and the lender.
What we are working with here is a good resolution. It has many parts to it. It is something that Parliament should take hold of and work for. The government cannot simply increase the font on the back of the credit card application form as its step toward ensuring the health and well-being of the financial future of Canadians. That is not good enough.
We need to understand where we want to go in this country with credit. We need to understand that credit can be just as much of a problem as alcohol or drugs.
We need to protect consumers in the long-term from what has happened to them. That has not been the case for past 20 years. That is why we are in the situation that we are in today. We need to change. We need to move forward.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for adding to the consensus that there is a problem and there are things to do.
I have often said in this place that for every complex problem there is a simple solution and it is wrong. What has been proposed today in this motion, and the Liberals and the Bloc will be supporting the NDP motion. It appears, according to the member for Burlington, that the motion makes no sense to either him or his Conservative colleagues.
However, the member raises a point. We have a problem and it is a problem that is a today problem. We do not need a task force, as the Conservatives are saying, to study the problem and then we will start to help people.
What we need to do, and I hope the member would comment, is to reach out now too. There is money in the budget. There is an opportunity for the government to communicate today, not six months from today, not a year from today, but today on how consumers can get the help that they need, to get the process started to stop the problem. They need some assistance.
I know that within a matter of months there will be many families who are going to lose everything they have. That is the tragedy. We cannot be seen to be just sitting here talking about doing studies and task forces, and maybe we will have a bill and deal with this. We really need to communicate with consumers now. I wonder if the member agrees.
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Madam Speaker, I agree with the urgency of the problem. This goes back to the previous budget and my major problems with it. There was no vision for the future. There was no acknowledgement of the problem.
The only one who has provided leadership on acknowledgement of the problem has been President Obama standing up and saying that greed has driven us to where we are at. We need those kinds of declarations here.
We need to give Canadians the understanding of where the problems come from first. We need solutions that can stand up for Canadians in the short-term but as well we have to have a vision of where we want the country to go after the recession is over, how we can recover from the recession, and how we can move forward with an economy that will work for Canadians in a new and better fashion.
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Madam Speaker, it is important to note that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said this:
Our members are being confronted with uncontrollable cost increases from credit card companies, with seemingly little or no warning. With economic conditions already tight and many of our members facing difficult financial conditions, they will be forced to pass this added cost onto the consumer, at the worst possible time for the Canadian economy.
The Retail Council of Canada said:
The stakes are high and Canadians are looking for decisive government action that will rein-in the runaway fees charged to merchants who have no choice but to pass along these out-of-control costs to consumers in the form of higher prices..
I have a number of questions for my colleague. Why do the Conservatives feel that the Retail Council of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business have it wrong? These organizations represent businesses, small and large, most of them small, but also consumer groups. Why is it that our Conservative colleagues do not feel that they have it so wrong too? It seems that the only people who have it right are the Conservatives. Perhaps it goes back to the fact of the matter that in 1990 Brian Mulroney rejected capping that and they are just trying to protect their flank again at the expense of Canadians.
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Madam Speaker, I think it goes back to a question of ideology. We heard the speech by the hon. member for Burlington. He talked about the necessity of people being responsible for their own future. That is the Conservatives' mentality. They want to cast people out into the sea of sharks and let them swim.
Perhaps they could take along a survival document when they go into that sea of sharks but that is about all they are going to get. They are going to get a website and that will protect them from the sharks. That is not what we need. We need some decent work here in Parliament.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to talk about this NDP motion, which aims to protect consumers across Canada from the big Canadian banks.
It is clear that we need action and change. What we are hearing is that the Conservatives are against any kind of action that might help ordinary people. That is because it is an elitist party that could not care less about real people. However, this situation is critical and we must take action. That is why the NDP moved today's motion. The purpose of this motion is to protect consumers from sudden credit card interest rate increases. This is extremely important because people are getting hit with these increases right now.
We want to prohibit the unfair application of credit card payments. I will get into that later. Right now, credit card companies can charge interest on the entire credit card balance even if the cardholder has paid off nearly the entire balance in the same month. In other words, a cardholder has a $6,000 balance and pays off $5,900 of that balance. However, some credit card companies can force these ordinary people, who have been grappling with a 20-year-long economic crisis, particularly in the past year, to pay interest on the balance, even if the balance was nearly paid off. This NDP motion would prevent such practices and protect cardholders who make their payments on time. It would also protect young people. Young people are so vulnerable, yet credit card companies target them more and more because they do not have any other way to get credit.
As members are aware, debt among young Canadians has reached record levels. The average student racks up close to $25,000 in debt in CEGEP, college, university or even a professional training program. Credit card companies target debt-ridden students and charge them very high interest rates, because they can make a profit and they know these people have no alternative.
That is the reality at present. People are losing their jobs and cannot pay their full credit card balance. Young people are entering the job market with very high debt levels and are turning to credit cards to survive. As my colleague from Western Arctic put it so well, that is when the sharks at the credit card companies and Canada's big banks strike. These young people are paying through the nose. Today's NDP motion is designed to put a stop to these practices as soon as possible, because these people cannot wait any longer.
This crisis has been going on for 20 years. Family incomes have dropped in nearly all categories, except for the wealthiest Canadians. Family incomes have gone down across the country for the middle class, the lower middle class and the poorest members of our society. People earn less today than they did 10, 15 or 20 years ago. This is a crisis we could see coming. The only people who have benefited from the elitist economic policies of the Liberals and now the Conservatives—nothing has changed—are the rich, who are now earning the lion's share of family income in Canada.
Those are the crises we could see coming, but there is also another that is very much present and clear at this time. Record numbers of workers are losing their jobs. For some months now, hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost. In my province of British Columbia, more than 100,000 jobs have been lost. Unfortunately, we hold the Canadian unemployment record, thanks to the policies of Gordon Campbell.
People not only have lower family incomes than they did 10, 15 or 20 years ago, but they are losing their jobs altogether. They end up in a terrible situation. What happens then? We have seen it, and my NDP colleagues have been talking about it all day. The credit card companies raise their interest rates for people who are unable to pay off their balance. So they end up with a debt. It is not their fault that, having lost their jobs, they are trying to survive, feed their children, keep a roof over their heads. They have lost everything and they fall a bit behind in their payments to credit companies, and then these companies hike up the interest rate to punish them. We have given one example: last fall, Visa raised its interest rate from 19% to nearly 25%, and that is calculated with charges as well. Normally, imposing such rates on people who have lost their jobs and cannot pay their balance in full ought not to be allowed; 25% interest plus all the other related charges. That is shocking.
So then what? We see it happening. The major Canadian banks are making profits as never before. The Bank of Montreal reports $560 million for the third quarter of 2008. The economy is in crisis and the banks and credit card companies are making record profits at the expense of ordinary people. This is unacceptable. The Liberal Party and the Conservative Party are engaged in economic elitism.
What does all this mean? It simply means that Canadians are getting tired of the economic elitism that has been practised in this country for the last 20 years.
The member for Burlington said it well. He said that the Conservatives are on the side of the CEOs of banks and corporations and that somehow, magically, there will be some kind of trickle down effect.
The fact that we are looking at record profits, the fact that we are looking at gouging on a monumental level, does not concern the Conservatives. It did not concern the Liberals beforehand. That essentially is what distinguishes us from them. That is why we have a key role in the House. The moment an election is over the Conservatives turn their backs on ordinary people. We saw that under the Liberal regime as well. The Liberals turned their backs on ordinary Canadians.
What we have seen over the last 20 years is a complete and utter collapse of family incomes in almost all income categories. Real income has fallen for 80% of Canadians. The top 20% have been well served by Liberal and Conservative economic policies. There is no doubt about that. They now take most of the income in Canada. Not a single Liberal or a single Conservative has stood up in the House and said that is fundamentally wrong.
We see that on trade policy as well. We sign bad trade deals without any support for value-added exports, and Liberals and Conservatives vote for them.
The economic elites, the Liberals and the Conservatives, have told the credit card companies that they can gouge away. The NDP is standing up in the House today to say no more gouging. We are going to come to the defence of Canadians. We are going to protect ordinary Canadians. That is why we moved the motion.
Roger Pomerleau Bloc Drummond, QC
Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about young people, who are often the most vulnerable when it comes to credit, and he talked about the efforts made by the banks and financial institutions to target that market. I worked for an MP before coming to this House myself. I know very well that some years back, the banks aggressively lobbied all members, asking them to go to schools to speak with students about credit cards. Members declined to do so, because they felt it made no sense. The banks were contradicting themselves on this. To a certain extent, when banks sell credit cards under the pretext of educating people about credit, they are in fact simply offering them that credit.
I wonder if my colleague agrees with the banks' actions at the time, because they are likely doing something similar right now.
This is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Madam Speaker, I agree entirely with my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. Changes must be brought forward in order to restrict banking practices that take money out of the hands of ordinary Canadians. This is crucial.
The banks say they are not limiting access to credit and that they allow young people to access credit, even when they are carrying $25,000 or $30,000 in debt. But they offer it at an appalling interest rate. For young people who merely want to survive, sometimes a credit card is their only access to credit.
The banks earn profits from both sides. On one hand, the lowest interest rates are for the wealthiest people, like the Conservative members. For those people, interest rates are not a problem, because they have a preferred interest rate. Interest rates for ordinary people are higher, even though they have less money.
The scandalous part is that the Conservative Party, the Conservative members and the Conservative government are doing absolutely nothing to correct this appalling state of affairs.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Madam Speaker, the next time an NDP member speaks in this debate, I do not know why the NDP will not consider amending the motion to change “six months” to “one month”. If it is serious enough, we should do this. This place can make this happen. We will find out who is going to be supportive of consumers in Canada who are being snake charmed into using credit cards for purposes for which they have no choice, just to survive.
If the member feels as strongly as I and most members in this place do, that we really have to take this seriously, we cannot wait for a task force or for a bill six months from now. We need to deal with this now. We need to tell Canadians we are serious about this and that we are going to work on behalf of consumers.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Madam Speaker, I support what the member is saying and what our colleagues have said, as well. Yes, let us make it quicker. We need to move immediately.
I hope the member, whom I like a lot, does not take offence, but I would point out that for 13 years the Liberals allowed the banks to gouge Canadians. They never stood up in the House. They never took action. They never at any point said that it was fundamentally wrong. I am glad that now he is pushing the NDP to quicker action. That is very good, but I wish the Liberals had done something about it in the 13 or 14 years they were in power.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Madam Speaker, I, too, am very pleased to see the Liberals take a sudden interest in this issue. I am also very surprised that the Conservatives do not have the good sense to support this motion.
Why does the member think the Conservatives do not seem to understand the problems associated with credit cards and will not agree with this resolution?
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Madam Speaker, very simply, because they are economic elitists. We see that with farm receipts in Alberta, which are the lowest in the country. There is a Conservative government in Alberta, and the Conservatives have just said goodbye to the farming sector. The lowest farm receipts in the country are in Alberta.
On credit cards, they do not want to take action, but if a banker comes calling, or a corporate CEO comes calling, or a corporate lawyer comes calling, boy, they will shovel money off the back of a truck. They just—
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.
I am joining the debate on the motion in response to concerns that have been expressed to me in my constituency of Vancouver Quadra around credit cards, credit card companies and banks, the rates, the fees and the potential increase in debit card fees that we are hearing about and about which small business is very concerned.
I will start by talking about the small business perspective. I have a letter from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business which states:
On behalf of 105,000 small- and medium-sized independent business owners that are members of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), I am asking for your help to bring greater transparency and accountability to the credit card industry and to stop Visa and MasterCard from instituting large, unjustified rate hikes on merchant fees.
I have heard from businesses in my community. Perhaps the member for Burnaby—New Westminster would consider them to be the corporate elite. He is very free with his ideological and, I think, quite divisive language. However, having come from the small- and medium-size business sector myself, these are corporations, people providing value, working hard in their communities, who are trying to make ends meet as well. Their livelihoods are being threatened, particularly if the fees on debit cards go up the way it is being projected. That could put some in the small business community out of business.
I also have a letter from the Retail Council of Canada expressing concern about the fees that are charged to businesses by the credit card companies and the banks. In Canada the fee of 2% is more than double the fees that are charged to the businesses and the retail community in the U.K., more than twice of those in Sweden, and four times what is charged in Australia. There appears to be an unaccountability in this industry. That is what the motion is intended to address.
The motion refers to tough economic times. That certainly is the challenge Canada is facing, along with other countries in the world. B.C. has lost a total of 69,000 jobs since October, and 73,000 jobs over the past 12 months. Unemployment among young people is at almost 15% now. Some 23,000 people in B.C. joined the ranks of the unemployed in March 2009. That number continues to increase.
We have a very severe economic situation in this country. Personal bankruptcies are up. These are not just terms. These are people who have invested their working lives in their small businesses and are finding that investment wiped out in this tough economic situation.
Canadians are losing their jobs, as I mentioned, and 1.4 million Canadians are waiting in the unemployment lines at this point. We do have a serious economic situation which makes me wonder why the NDP, which understood the severity of this economic situation, rejected the 2009 budget with its stimulus package before even seeing it. If the NDP is as concerned as the member was claiming, it is surprising that NDP members took a stand to slow down and block stimulus.
What is actually even more distressing is the absence of understanding of this tough economic climate by the Conservative Party, which is frequently referred to as the party of the rich elite. The Conservatives were very much asleep at the switch when it came to the economy.
Last fall, it was an absolutely woeful performance of denying that Canada would face this recession, failing to take action, encouraging Canadians to buy stocks just when they were about to take their deepest plunge and coming forward with an absolutely insulting economic update that did nothing for Canadians but instead took shots at women and civil servants. The Conservative government has a very poor record on the economy and does not appear to be taking any action on this important economic issue as well.
In response to an earlier question, the parliamentary secretary described his concerns about over-regulating Canadians. I agree that we do not want to over-regulate but using that as an excuse for inaction on this important issue is completely unacceptable.
On the other hand, the Liberals called for early action, foresaw the meltdown as early warning stages were coming, called for action and stimulus last September and have had an ongoing awareness and response to this situation, including the issue of the banks and credit cards.
We support this motion because it gets the conversation going and builds on work that the Liberal Party has already been implementing in Parliament and in Senate committees. We are supporting the intent of the motion, not the motion word for word. We believe action is needed but it must be thoughtful action. The Liberals believe that strong regulation and legislation may be needed. This motion causes us to work toward that. When to regulate is always a key issue in a situation like this. Regulation is needed in legislation when there is a market failure. When the markets are functioning well, it is not a time for government to get involved, take sides and hamper a well functioning market.
Is the market functioning properly in this situation? No, I believe there is a market failure. There are some very large players who are in a business structure that one could call a platform, where the credit card companies and banks are a platform between buyers and suppliers of goods. They facilitate that trade of goods and services. However, when one has an oligopoly structure like this, there can be too much power in the hands of the oligopoly firms. If that is not regulated properly, they can take advantage of their position.
This is a complex issue. The government is not providing leadership. It tends to focus on simplistic, politically popular issues in order to gain votes but it is not so great on tackling difficult and challenging public policy issues. This is an important one. I talked a bit about the small business sector, but the way cards are marketed to young people is another classic failure of our market system. It is a failure that is classically called information asymmetry, where the credit cards and bank purveyors of credit have a lot more information about what this will cost the young people in terms of interest rates and what will happen if they do not pay their card down fully and on time.
Shortly after my daughter came out of high school, she was sent letters offering credit cards. Young people, who may be 17, 18 or 19, do not have the information as to what it might cost them in the long term and how it may make them dependent on this culture of borrowing to buy what we want. That is not useful for our society and it is certainly worth taking a strong look at.
Elected representatives need to work together on this. The Conservative government, which is on probation so that it can be more effective and accountable, has been taking no apparent action on this issue. It should get with the program and support this motion.
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Madam Speaker, the member makes some very good points. She stated that she supports the intent of the motion but that some of the pieces within the motion, she feels, are not necessarily supportable or the implementation of the motion is not necessarily supportable.
Could the member perhaps give me two specific examples of pieces that she feels are not necessarily supportable in terms of their implementation?
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Madam Speaker, the House is calling on the government to introduce comprehensive legislation similar to an act that was introduced in the United States. We need to be mindful that we are not the United States. We have a different situation in Canada. It is not a mild recession, which is what the finance minister, surprisingly enough, called it. One of my concerns is that the government does not seem to know whether it is a severe or mild recession. However, we cannot assume that actions taken in the United States are the right ones for Canada.
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Madam Speaker, we do know that many of our industries are, in many respects, highly compatible with those in the United States. This is just a vehicle to get to a solution and the solution needs to be one that respects consumers. If any amendments come forward, we would welcome the debate of them.
The heart of the matter is whether the member believes that Canadians are being well served by credit card practices today. Does the member not think that credit card companies have too much control in a period of time when the Bank of Canada interest rates are low but consumers are paying through the nose, sometimes up to 30%? This is hurting the Canadian economy and it is hurting a number of different Canadians as they try to make ends meet because, through no fault of their own, they have lost jobs over the last number of years. I would like her opinion on that.
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Madam Speaker, a number of speakers have talked about the very high interest rates and whether the credit card companies and their banking partners have too much power. I think there is every indication that they do.
What is missing in this motion, from how I read it, is any concern about business and the costs on the small business community of some of the practices, such as the fees charged and the risk of debit card costs going through the roof. I think, from the earlier NDP member's comments about business and corporate elite, the NDP does not appear to have very much concern or appreciation for the difficulties that small businesses are facing. They are corporations, too. It does not mean they are bad. They are our parents, our families and our friends and therefore we need to address the concerns of the business community as well.
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Madam Speaker, I know the member, who gave a great speech, comes from a vibrant retail sector in her riding and has government experience. I want her to elaborate, if she would, on how this motion does not address issues of the point of sale, the commercial retailer who sometimes must judge whether the credit rating of the customer will affect what fees that he or she will need to pay to the credit card companies, which is ridiculous.