Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right. The voluntary approach has not worked. When we talk to the restaurant association or the retailers or the CFIB, they acknowledge that more needs to be done. Some of them point us toward the Australian model and potentially capping rates.
Just to show how perverse the current system is, if a persons goes into a store in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and buys a pair of shoes with a credit card, the merchant can be dinged with a 3% charge upon the sale of those shoes. The person takes the shoes home, finds out his spouse does not like them, brings them back and exchanges them. There is another 3% charge for the merchant. The merchant has been hit by a 6% charge and has not sold a pair of shoes yet. That is one of the best ways to illustrate how ludicrous the current situation is and how important addressing it is for the engine of Canadian economic growth: small business.
A mandatory approach may be the best way, but ignoring it with a voluntary approach certainly has not worked.