Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate with great interest. We just had a question from the member for Kings—Hants, and he talked about small towns and villages and how convenient ATMs are.
Some of us in this place are old enough to remember a time when it did not cost us any money to get our money out of the bank, but we could not do it on the weekends. We had to attend between Monday and Friday during banking hours and in many cases between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Then modern technology came along and we have banking machines. Now we can access the money we have in our accounts 24 hours a day almost anywhere in Canada, even in small towns and villages.
However, we know that in some small convenience stores there are companies that provide those ATMs. They are not usually owned by the bank, but by somebody else, and we pay a little higher fee for that. However, before, those people did not have the ability to access their money, period, unless they had a friend who had a few extra dollars they could borrow or something like that.
So what this debate is all about, and what the hon. parliamentary secretary can talk about, is a plethora of financial tools that the government has assisted Canadians with in order to reduce their costs and to do many things. However, it is necessary to keep in mind the way things used to be and the way things are today.
I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could expand on some of the things he has been saying about the good things this government has been doing.