Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her intervention in this debate this afternoon.
I want to pick up on one point, even though it is not directly related to consumer credit card interest charges. She mentioned the interchange fees that are charged to retailers for using a credit card service in their businesses and how these fees constantly go up.
One of the small business people in my riding wrote to me and said that last year it went up four times as he was trying to do business. He said that when those kinds of fee increases happen, he has no choice but to pass those on to the folks who do business in his store. It gets passed on directly to consumers, so consumers get hit again by this hidden fee that is charged by banks and credit card companies to the retailers.
I wonder if the member has heard from retailers in her riding who face a similar problem and have spoken to her about how this hurts both the retail sector and consumers in Canada.