Madam Speaker, I listened to my friend's excellent speech. He is a very well respected member of the House of Commons who always gives wonderful interventions in the House.
While I have him here as the chair of the finance committee, I am going to ask him a few questions that he knows and all of us know are very important for our citizens. The first one deals with a single securities regulator. Can the hon. member tell us what his views are and what his government is going to do to enable Canada to have a single securities regulator?
Second, he mentioned the very interesting issue of home building. I wanted to point out to him that the CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association, has some excellent suggestions on tax rollover provisions that will enable us to get moneys flowing more easily through the system. This would provide a pool of private sector funds that could be used to build affordable housing across our country. I know the member has been very involved and interested in that.
Finally, on the issue of credit, we know that the absence of credit for our private sector is one of the major challenges that we have in this economic downturn. I think it is a good thing that the government has put money into EDC to enable it as a vehicle for this credit. I would strongly urge that these moneys not go to the banks. I personally have concerns that these moneys are going to go to improve the bottom line of the banks and not get to the people who need it.
I just want to ask the member if his government would consider putting more money into EDC for moneys that should go to businesses that actually have developments, that are halfway through, and therefore currently have equity in their projects? These moneys can be used to provide some bridging funding as a loan to these developments that would enable them to continue to move forward. The risk to the taxpayer would be very low because there is already equity in these projects and it would provide real money to put Canadians back to work for projects in their communities.