Madam Speaker, Canadians have a right to be concerned, if not outraged, as their salaries over the last year or so have been frozen or reduced to pay for the $56 billion deficit that the government has run up. Meanwhile, while all this is happening, bank profits hit $15.9 billion in 2009, at a time when we have a recession. Also corporate taxes are dropping to 15%, which will put them far below that of the United States.
In light of all of this, the CEOs in Canadian banks are the highest paid. The Royal Bank of Canada's Gordon Nixon and Toronto Dominion Bank's Edmund Clark were given $10.4 million in salary and compensation. CIBC's president, Gerald McCaughey, was the lowest paid, the poorest of the bunch. He was given $6.2 million. Is it any wonder that Canadians shake their heads when they see not only the Conservative government but the Liberals before it, conducting themselves in this economic strategy of reducing taxes on corporations, meanwhile allowing corporate salaries to go through the roof.
Does the member feel it is about time that Canada look at the executive compensations in other jurisdictions around the world? I believe there are other jurisdictions in Europe, maybe Southeast Asia, where corporate salaries are confined and restricted to much more reasonable levels as opposed to the system in Canada.