Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that makes my blood boil. Corporate governance never used to be considered a blue-collar issue. I have heard people say that Canada did not have to bail out its banks because they are in good shape. In fact, we assumed $75 billion worth of risk from our banks to give them an easier ride through this economic downturn.
At the same time, these bank presidents have the nerve and gall to reward themselves with big, fat bonuses. I guess they should reward themselves, because they duped the government into underwriting all their risk so they can take all the profit. It is as if they like to socialize the losses and privatize the gains. They are socialists in one way. They want to share all their risk and losses. However, when it comes to their profits and gains, they are privateers again.
One of the most satisfying things I have experienced as a member of Parliament was when I crashed the shareholders' meetings of a bunch of the big banks. I moved a bunch of motions to limit the CEO salaries of John Cleghorn, Matthew Barrett and all these guys to 20 times that of the average worker. I was seconded by a wonderful guy from Quebec, Yves Michaud, who was seconding all of these motions.
One other motion we moved that I think the member for Elmwood—Transcona would like was for gender parity on the board of directors of every Canadian bank. The vote on that was the exact same as the Quebec referendum, 49.4% to 50.6%. We almost achieved gender parity on the board of directors of the Royal Bank of Canada through shareholder activism. People are going to have to stand up on their hind legs and demand that banks be more accountable to people, especially when they get away like bandits with their CEO salaries.