Mr. Speaker, I will keep that advice in mind and return to the amendment.
It was part of the larger framework that we were dealing here, which is why I was trying to connect the two. The assumption or proposition of the banking industry is that they have basically propped up the Canadian economy with their wisdom, whereas if we look at history, there was clearly an attempt to actually to do something different.
However, I will go back to the amendment and the issue related to transparency, which I think is really important. It is important for the bill itself because it shows that there was an attempt to get an amendment that would clearly define where there would be some transparency for the banking industry related to transactions. The bill does actually have some interesting points related to foreign investments and a series of different things.
However, again, it speaks to the point that we have this small amendment that has been denied, whereas the banking industry in its entirety has not been dealt with in this chamber. That is a real problem.
I started my speech here today by noting that the banking industry affects consumers and businesses, and I would like to move to that point, especially the business point because I am not sure it has been addressed here in the chamber. This is a missed opportunity on credit lending and rates, and transparency is important in regard to that, because we need to have real decisions made about the lending practices and percentages.
Let me give an example. We have a successful automobile plant in Windsor that produces Ford products. It has been very good, even during the auto downturn, at expanding itself. It actually feeds into supplier markets and supplier chains that have very important jobs. These jobs are critical because they have value-added elements, but they only pay $15 an hour. In terms of an auto supply market job, their profit margin is very small. The workers make around $15 an hour and get some benefits. Here is the real connection to the banks, because these supplier have had to rely upon government lending versus their own bank, because the bank interest rate margins are so high they actually eat into the profit margins of the auto suppliers so much they actually lose money.
Here is an auto plant that produces parts for the Ford Focus in particular. It has automated itself and has workers that do some manual labour and some industrial labour related to servicing of those, including everything, from windows to doors and a series of things, and it only pays people $15 an hour, along with some modest benefits. There is also low management overhead. However, they are losing money if they have to borrow from the Canadian banks, despite the fact they made $25.5 billion in profits this past year. They have to rely on going to the Canadian Business Development Bank or Export Development Canada to actually borrow the money necessary.
What we are saying here, to conclude, is that we see this as a missed opportunity in the House of Commons to reform our banking industry. It is important for consumers. However, it is also important for the small and medium size businesses that are providing value-added work for the Canadian economy that we are missing out on and losing to the United States and other places right now, because we have a poor financial system that actually does not provide borrowing capacity at the rates necessary to survive in this industry.