Mr. Speaker, I remember coming here in 1997 and by 1998 the issue of bank mergers was on the table. The Liberal caucus had a lot of debate about bank mergers, should we or should we not. The arguments on the banks were pretty heavy. They lobbied that they had to become world-class institutions and needed to have mergers. Five were going to become three and they would therefore be able to compete on a world-wide basis.
The Liberal caucus had quite extensive hearings right across the country. We listened quite carefully to people and ultimately recommended to the finance minister that he not do it. That is exactly what happened. He did not do it. He set the ratios for capital and loans fairly vigorously so we did not ultimately end up with the mess that there is in the U.S. I do not know, frankly, how the U.S. is going to dig itself out of that big mess. It is a big mess.
We should just thank our lucky stars that the previous administration under Messrs. Martin and Chrétien did not do it. If people think that this economic action plan is a little dubious, as do I, they can imagine the amount of money we, meaning the taxpayers and the Government of Canada, would have to raise in order to float the financial banking system of this country. This would be nothing, absolutely nothing.
The Conservative government is pretty lucky it inherited a very sound fiscal situation and a very sound regulatory situation. The Conservatives go all over the world patting themselves on the back saying what good boys they are, when they had absolutely nothing to do with it in the first place.