Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his well-presented speech. While I did not agree with everything that was in there, I do agree with him when it comes to financial literacy. As parliamentarians, we can do a better job at ensuring that Canadians are well informed of the importance of financial literacy.
He talked about some of his concerns relating to the language that we used in our motion. Part of it was that he did not like the word “uncompetitive”. While I can respect the opinion, I disagree with it. If we look at what we have out there from all of the financial institutions, almost every one of them is charging the same amount, between $2 and $4. That is anti-competitive. It truly is. There is no competitive practice. If some financial institution were to say that it would charge 50¢, we would see more Canadians looking at that.
I can provide a perfect example. We have had a debate in the House on credit card merchant fees or swipe fees. Mastercard was at 1.85%, for example. I stood right here and asked the Minister of Finance why we were allowing Visa to raise its rates. Visa responded that it was matching that of Mastercard. The rates went up.
We have not seen the banks say that because the ATM fees are costing Canadians millions of dollars, maybe they should lower the rates. It is time for us to act as parliamentarians. This is anti-competitive. There are no lower rates. If people have a chequing account at a bank, they will receive 20 transactions free, after which they will be charged for them.
I would encourage my hon. colleague to look at his bank account.