Mr. Speaker, I will stick to Bill C-29 and the impasse put before us. Never have the rights of consumers in Quebec been so diminished than they will be by this bill.
In the drafting of the government’s Bill C-29, just like in the answers that the Minister of Finance gave to Senator Pratte earlier, the solution of “opting out”—which would maintain the Quebec Consumer Protection Act and strengthen consumer protection in the other provinces—was never proposed.
This is not the case, and the masks have come off. This does not strengthen protection for Quebec consumers, but instead weakens it to the benefit of the banks and shields them against the people. This is despicable, and those words were not far-fetched at all. What is far-fetched is the government’s attitude, and this is why I am angry. We need to protect the people, not the banks.