Debates of Nov. 30th, 2023

Government Response to Petitions

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to three petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.

Health

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Health entitled “Strengthening the Oversight of Breast Implants”, which we hope will bring some hope to those women who have been the victims of adverse effects of breast implants.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

Finance

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Wednesday, November 1, be concurred in.

I am very pleased to have occasion to bring this important matter to the floor of the House of Commons, because there is an important decision pending for the Minister of Finance, which is whether to approve the RBC-HSBC merger. What we are debating today is a very concrete and simple recommendation of the finance committee of the House of Commons in its 12th report to the House. It was very clear that a majority of finance committee members do not support that merger going ahead.

There are at least a couple of main reasons why New Democrats are concerned about this merger going ahead. The first is that, as we know, right now Canadians are living through very difficult circumstances. Their household budgets are under severe stress because of rising interest rates and because of the rising costs of all sorts of necessities of life, whether that is housing, home heating or groceries. Every little thing right now means a lot to Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet.

We know that even before the pandemic, something like half of Canadian households were only $200 away from insolvency at the end of the month, and that has only gotten harder. We see the effects in our communities, whether that is the longer and longer lines at food banks for people struggling to feed their families or the fact that more and more folks are homeless and living on the street. I just had the opportunity to travel with the finance committee to many different cities across the country, and that was a common theme, no matter whether we were on the east coast or the west coast. There are tons of folks right now who are no longer housed, and the problem of homelessness is increasingly visible as more and more Canadians cannot make their rent payment at the end of the month or cannot make their mortgage payment and have nowhere to go.

Indeed, some Canadians who are gainfully employed cannot find a place to live that they can afford. It is no longer the case that it is just folks who are not able to get a job or who have a disability and are not able to work who are finding themselves homeless. We are also hearing from folks who do have a reasonable monthly income, what would have been considered reasonable just a few years ago, that they cannot afford a place to live. They have to figure out how to work a full day and go back somewhere to a tent or a spot they found under a building with a bit of shelter, feed themselves, go to sleep, wake up and look presentable in the morning to go back to work, which is certainly a real challenge and not one that I would wish on anyone. That is why we need a government that is going to act with a much stronger sense of urgency in respect of the housing crisis.

One of the other things Canadians have struggled with for a long time is the fees that banks impose to do business at their institutions: to hold deposits and write cheques, or, more and more, to withdraw from ATMs and do e-transfers. We know that in Canada, Canadians pay high fees for that. One of the reasons they pay high fees is that we do not have a competitive banking sector in Canada. We pretty much have five big banks with over 90% market share when it comes to banking in Canada. Think about that. That is not a lot of players in the market. In economics they call that an oligopoly, and while it may not be an oligopoly on paper, it is certainly an oligopoly in practice.

Now what we have is one of Canada's largest banks, RBC, proposing to eat up the seventh-largest bank in Canada. The difference between those two banks is considerable. HSBC is not a huge player, but it is a scrappy player. If we were to look up mortgage rates right now, I think it is offering mortgages at over 70 basis points lower than what RBC is offering them at. Historically, HSBC has offered mortgage rates that are considerably lower than those at RBC.

The government, in the fall economic statement, rightly announced something the New Democrats have been calling for: Folks with insured mortgages will be able to shop around and transfer their mortgage without having to undergo the stress test again. This is exactly the kind of move that Canadians would be looking to make. If they have a mortgage with RBC, they may well want to go to an institution like HSBC that is offering over half a percentage less in the rate for a mortgage. Clearing the way so they would not have to do a stress test is important, but it is not going to matter if HSBC gets gobbled up by RBC and then offers the same rate as RBC. That means Canadians will have won the right to transfer without having to undergo the stress test, but would no longer have somewhere to transfer to that is offering a better rate.

That is why New Democrats think it is important that the government say no to this merger to preserve one of the few players not in the big five in Canada, particularly when they have a track record of exactly the kind of effect we would hope to get from competition, which is competitive pricing on mortgage rates and other services. We know the big five have been relatively unchallenged, and Transcona went through this since I was elected. The TD branch on the corner of Regent and Bond shut down. There are not a lot of bank branches in my community anymore.

Thankfully, Manitoba has a strong credit union movement that I am very proud of. I am a proud member of a couple of credit unions. There are many in Manitoba. I know a former board member of one of those credit unions is in the House today. It is a wonderful thing. It is really only because of the credit unions in Manitoba that we continue to have local branch banking available in my community. The big banks have all but fled in an attempt to reduce costs. That leaves consumers wanting the kind of traditional relationship they had at a local branch, but they are unable to get it. Why is it that the big banks can get away with that? It is because they do not have sufficient competition.

As I said, I am glad I live in a province where the credit union movement is filling an important void with respect to banking services. I am also glad to say that I get my banking services at a credit union. That was in jeopardy not that long ago when the government was looking at changing the Bank Act to outlaw talking about banking at credit unions. I am glad that common sense prevailed and people can say they bank at a credit union. The banks did not get their way on that, just as I hope that the big banks are not going to get their way with this merger, because competition will provide lower rates for Canadians.

I do not want to mislead anyone. It is not that HSBC is some kind of second environmental coming or something, but it was the first bank to offer green bonds. It has made some pretty serious commitments and backed them up with investment plans to lower the emissions profile of its investments. That is exactly the kind of thing we need to start seeing in the financial sector if Canada is going to meet the legal climate commitments we have signed on to in the Paris Agreement and elsewhere.

RBC, on the other hand, is the bank that does the most fossil fuel-heavy investment in Canada today. It is an important player, for instance, in the government's TMX project and put up a lot of capital for that. It is very invested in growing fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada, despite the fact that the oil and gas sector in Canada is extracting more barrels of oil today than at any other point in our history, which is easy to forget in the kinds of debates we have about the oil and gas sector on the floor of this place.

For those who say that the industry is in distress or on the verge of extinction, let us take a deep breath and look at the facts. The fact is that the oil and gas industry in Canada is more prolific today than at any other point in our history. That does not necessarily mean that it is employing more people than it has ever employed, because as technology advances, jobs for workers and the profitability and productivity of the oil and gas industry are on separate paths.

The truth is that oil and gas companies are able to extract more and make more money than ever with fewer workers. The continued advancement and increase in extraction are no longer tied in the same way they used to be to the creation of jobs for people in Canada, which is not to say that there are not a lot of jobs in the oil and gas sector or that this is not important. It is to say that we need to find the right level of extraction that is sustainable for the planet and that provides a strong economic basis for Alberta and other parts of the country where that industry is really important.

All of that is to say that RBC is being driven to grow and grow, with no sense of sustainability or what would be a sustainable rate of extraction. Therefore, both on the environmental front and on the consumer protection front, there are strong reasons to oppose this merger. It is why opposition parties on the finance committee sent a very clear message by working together that this was not a good idea.

I do not know that the Conservatives would endorse some of the environmental concerns I have raised on the floor today. I wish they would. I think Canada would be a better place if we could talk more about these issues in a serious way and about how to get Canada's emissions under control. I know that is not a conversation we want to have, but I am glad we can at least agree on the need for more competition and financial services and what that would mean for Canadians. It is an important signal the government should not ignore that so many parties in this place, for their own reasons, do not think this merger is a good idea.

We are going to hear at some point from Conservatives on this matter, and Canadians should take what they have to say with a grain of salt. They talk a lot about the Competition Bureau these days and the importance of competitiveness. Of course, this merger was looked at by the Competition Bureau, but not under the new framework that is on its way both through Bill C-56, which just passed in committee last night and is going to make some important changes to the Competition Act, and through, if we look at the ways and means motion, the budget implementation act the government will be tabling presumably after a vote on the ways and means motion. More changes to the Competition Act are coming there.

This merger was not reviewed with any of the new powers that would be afforded to the Competition Bureau. It was reviewed under a regime at the Competition Bureau that even the federal government itself recognizes as being deficient.

We know in the past that, for instance, Conservatives have talked about wanting to have independent officers doing work without political interference. I have certainly heard that at committee. I am glad to hear that, but I remember them setting up the Parliamentary Budget Office under Stephen Harper in the early days. It was a good thing they did that when they did.

Then the Parliamentary Budget Officer started saying things they did not like, and shockingly, the campaign of character assassination began. Kevin Page, who was the Parliamentary Budget Officer, came under direct attack by the Harper government. It was not that great an outing for the Harper government after all. Conservatives did the right thing initially, but they could not stay the course because they cannot stand any criticism and react badly as soon as someone starts calling them out for things they would prefer to get away with.

Canadians should be taking some of the remarks the Conservatives are making today as an opposition party with a grain of salt when it comes to their desire for an independent Competition Bureau. I certainly hope that in the future, if we have a Conservative government, we will not see that government decide to attack the competition commissioner if he starts telling them things they do not want to hear. The whole point of having those independent offices is to be able to do that.

We saw it again with David Johnston, who is someone they held up at one point. They held him up to the point that they were willing to appoint him as Governor General of the country. Then, when he started saying and doing things they did not like, a campaign of character assassination began. That was unfortunate because it detracted from the important point, which was that, when it came to being a special rapporteur on foreign interference, that was not the right way to proceed. Making it about David Johnston detracted from the important point, which was that it was a bad process and what we really needed was a public inquiry.

I am proud to say that New Democrats stayed the course and finally put that process on track. I do not think the personal attacks against David Johnston were helpful in that regard because they detracted from the main issue. Conservatives were so concerned with attacking David Johnston that it took them a long time to work with us in the right way to get that process back on track.

This is just another example of Conservatives claiming they want certain people in positions of authority to be able to make pronouncements on what the government of the day is doing, but then as soon as those pronouncements are not in line with their partisan lines, all of a sudden it is a problem and an affront to democracy, and the character assassination begins.

It is important we take this moment when Conservatives are prepared to do the right thing. Those moments are few and far between. We should not waste the opportunity. The government itself should be listening and taking the opportunity to do the right thing and say no to a merger that would both set the private financial sector back in green financing, potentially, and maintain and reinforce the lack of competition that Canadians have already been suffering under for too long. They have had to pay some of the highest banking fees, even as those same banks reduce services in their communities and close local branches.

Those are some of the reasons we think it is really important that the government take this opportunity and not do what it did on the Rogers-Shaw deal, which was to ultimately cave to those big corporate interests. We talk a lot in here, rightly, about corporate-controlled Conservatives, but we should not forget that the Liberals do their fair share of corporate service here in this place. After all, that is the true coalition in Parliament: Liberals and Conservatives serving Canada's corporate sector.

We have a real opportunity here, one of those few and far between moments, when the Conservatives are prepared to do the right thing in opposition. Let us seize the day. With the Rogers-Shaw merger, and the minister likes to say he put conditions on it and everything else, some of the things we would expect to happen did happen.

Somebody from B.C. called me up and said that he had been a Shaw customer. When the merger happened, Rogers sent him a new SIM card, and he had to figure out how to put it in his phone and everything else. He had not done it yet. It took him a couple of months, as household administration sometimes does, and I am sure there are many Canadians listening who are sympathetic to the fact that sometimes it is hard to stay on top of all those things, particularly if there is a technological component one is not familiar with.

What happened is that, with this merger that was not going to have any negative consequences for Canadian consumers, he started getting a bill from Shaw because he had not changed the SIM card yet, and he was getting a bill from Rogers. He was getting two bills from the same company for one cellphone, if members can believe that. Unfortunately, I can because I know what it is like to deal with some of these big telecom companies and other corporate oligopolies, whatever the sector. The fact is that it is very hard to get justice as a consumer.

That has been true for Canadians in respect of the big five banks, and this merger is not going to help. It is going to take a smaller player out of the market that is doing its work to be scrappy and to offer competitive rates. That is not what Canadians need, especially not in a time of economic and financial strain.

What they need is more competition to be able to deliver lower prices and take a bit of that strain off their household budget, just as the government is bringing in new rules to make it easier to transfer one's mortgage. When one's term is up is not the time to take competitors out of the market that are offering lower rates. HSBC is one of those very banks, with its lower offering, that Canadians will be looking to in order to save money in their monthly household budget. Let us make sure those options are there, just as Canadians get the freedom to transfer their mortgage, without having to undergo another stress test.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian banking system is sound, stable and free from political interference. It has served Canadians well through the 2008 great recession and during the COVID recession as well. Why do members opposite continue to politicize a pillar of our economy?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, of course most companies in an oligopoly are sound and secure. That is kind of the point, is it not? They have the market power to ensure that their own business is sound and secure. The problem is they are doing that on the backs of Canadian consumers.

We want to see more competition in the financial sector so Canadians do not have to pay for the soundness, security and peace of mind of bank CEOs. We think that is backward. We also think it is the job of this place to ensure that Canadians' interests are put first, not the interests of wealthy bankers. That is why we continue to say it is important to not approve the merger and keep a scrappy smaller player in the market to provide more competitive pricing to Canadians.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the Conservatives and the NDP, surprisingly, agree that competition is broken in Canada. We certainly, at the finance committee, agreed that the HSBC-RBC merger is a product of that broken system. There are broken laws that we have to fix. Everyone has brought new laws in.

The biggest thing that would change banking in Canada would be consumer-led banking or open banking. Does the member agree with the bill I have brought forward, that this party has brought forward, which would push the government to bring competition to Canada? That means consumer-led banking, with many different fintechs, would compete and lower the price of banking for Canadians.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do support open banking. I think that is really important. For folks watching at home who may not be familiar with the term, open banking just means that one should own one's financial data.

When one is banking with an institution, it should not be able to say that one cannot take this information and share it with another institution. That is one's information. It is one's finances. It is one's money. If one wants another institution to know the facts about one's account, the current financial institution that one banks with should have an obligation to share that without a bunch of silly business or putting up walls or making it difficult for one to shop around and get a better price.

As I say, we believe that there is not enough competition in the financial sector today and that Canadian consumers are paying a serious price for that. That needs to change. That is why we oppose the HSBC-RBC merger. It is why we support open banking.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a little earlier this year, The Canadian Press reported the following:

According to a report, Royal Bank of Canada was the biggest fossil fuel financier in the world last year after providing over $42 billion U.S. in funding in 2022, $3 billion U.S. more than in 2021.

Of that amount, $4.8 billion went to the oil sands and $7.4 billion went to hydraulic fracking extraction.

According to the same report, since the Paris climate agreement was adopted in 2016, RBC has provided over $253.98 billion U.S. in funding to fossil fuel companies.

I am wondering about the climate accountability of these big banks. Does the Government of Canada not also have a responsibility to legislate to force these banks to phase out their investments in fossil fuels and instead encourage investments in clean energy?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I think that one very important point raised by this acquisition relates to the environment. Clearly, RBC's strategy is based on endlessly increasing its investments in industries that produce greenhouse gases. I think that is one of the major issues the government needs to consider when deciding whether to approve this acquisition.

We need a clear green taxonomy for the financial industry and for institutions that truly want to start greening their portfolios beyond mere greenwashing. The government has a role to play in encouraging institutions to make green investments like HSBC does.

We do not want to see an institution like this gobbled up by one like RBC, which is clearly intent on increasing the greenhouse gases in its portfolio.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask if the member could expand on corporate greed and what really underlies these decisions to amalgamate and buy out competitors. Could the member for Elmwood—Transcona explain how this hurts consumers?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the important issues at play in changes to the Competition Act, for example, if we look at the private member's bill of the NDP leader, the member for Burnaby South, is the question of killer acquisitions, which is when companies buy up smaller competitors before they get the market share to become competitors to the bigger players in the industry.

We have a bank that is quite small compared to the big five, but it has shown that it is willing to price its products competitively, and Canadians can benefit from that if they so choose. They are going to have a better opportunity to benefit from that after new rules come in not requiring them to take a stress test when they transfer their mortgage. That will not help very much if the smaller player that is offering better rates disappears between now and when those measures come into effect.

Absolutely, corporations, in the name of gathering up market shares and making bigger profits, do try to acquire and shut down smaller competitors that are undermining what otherwise is a pretty comfortable pricing environment for those bigger players. It is something that is not in the interests of Canadians. It is in the interests of those larger companies, which already have dominance within their market, and it is something that, as legislators for the public interest, we should be concerned about stopping, not encouraging.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that really concerns people in my riding is the disappearance of financial institutions in neighbourhoods where it is not seen as being financially convenient for them to be in that big business market. One of the things we had been pushing for is postal banking. The government did start it, but not successfully. Even though it was successful on the ground, it seems the government has abandoned that pilot project.

How can that also help, with just credit unions providing an alternative for people to have more power over their banking situation?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, it is certainly a concern for folks in my riding as they have watched bank branches close and access to financial services get more difficult for those who care to do it in person. There are still a lot of people in Canada who want to have a direct face-to-face relationship with the people who are in charge of their savings.

Postal banking would be a great way to do this. As I said, I am very proud of the credit union movement in Manitoba. I think it has showed that, if smaller financial institutions, such as credit unions, can have brick and mortar branches in our communities, sometimes more than one for the same credit union, it is certainly possible for the larger banks to do it, but it is something that should not fall through the cracks.

I think that, through the infrastructure of Canada Post, we have an excellent opportunity to make sure that banking services are available in every community, in addition to whatever the private financial market, through credit unions, banks or others, would provide.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the NDP's support on our motion.

Will the NDP join us in delivering more than just words and, in fact, deliver action in voting non-confidence if the government allow this merger?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would gently remind the member that we are actually debating my motion of concurrence today. I was very glad that they brought the issue forward at the finance committee with my support. I think that shows that it really is an act of true collaboration.

As for confidence votes, we will take those as they come. As long as the government continues to deliver on the CASA commitments, we will continue this Parliament.

We are certainly in the midst of some important negotiations on pharmacare. That is an issue that we think is election worthy. I am not sure that having a corporate-controlled Conservative government is the answer for Canadians if these guys are willing to approve the merger.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am committed to giving a short speech today.

On that note, I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that it be carried on division.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we would request a recorded division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #462

Committees of the House

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I declare the motion carried.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the app did not provide any photo for the member for Drummond. Would you check into that please?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The issue was resolved on the screen at the last minute. I thank the hon. member for raising this matter.

Industry and Technology

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology that, during its consideration of Bill C-27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, the committee be granted the power to divide the bill into two pieces of legislation:

(a) Bill C-27A, an Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, and an Act to enact the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act, containing Part 1, Part 2, and the schedule, to section 2; and

(b) Bill C-27B, an Act to enact the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, containing Part 3.

Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed that we are not talking about housing, and about RBC and HSBC, in the House today. After eight years, this country is in the worst housing crisis we have ever had. We just have to talk to any constituent to see exactly what is happening.

Before I get into that, I want to mention that I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill.

When we talk about housing, it is absolute ludicrous that there are families right now that cannot afford the mortgage they do have, if they are so lucky to have a home, and also that those who are renting are finding that rents have doubled. We are hearing, across all of our communities, that homelessness has doubled. I met with the police chief and the mayor from my city last week, and we talked about detox centres. It is not only a housing crisis that has put people on the street; it is also a major drug, mental health and addictions crisis that is putting people into precarious situations. Oftentimes things are out of control and they cannot handle it. We had 66 overdoses in one week in Belleville, Ontario. It is just out of hand.

Housing should be announced as a crisis in this country. At the end of the day, after four years of talking, and after eight years, housing is in such dire straits. Of course, we look to competition to be the answer for that. Every single government has brought that forward and talked about competition. However, it has really been just drip, drip, drip. There has been one little policy or one little change, but no major competition. For the most part, it would bring in consumer-led banking, which would mean that many companies, fintech companies, could provide different options for consumers. The second part of that would be to ensure that we really look at stopping major bad deals that have happened under the existing Competition Act.

The speed of competition is really bad right now. There are major oligopolies in the banking sector. Six companies have 93% of all of the banking and 87% of all of the mortgages in Canada. The HSBC rates right now are 81 basis points lower than the RBC rates. This morning, HSBC is at 6.14% for a five-year variable mortgage rate, versus RBC at 6.95%. We can see what that means for competition.

The Competition Bureau is really a policing agency that is not supposed to prosecute but is supposed to look at competition in terms of a law enforcement society. We have all watched Law and Order. I don't remember their names, but the two detectives are supposed to bring the culprits in, and then, of course, there is the judicial system to tackle that.

The speed for competition law is about 100 kilometres an hour, when competition in housing should be a school zone; the speed should be 15 to 20 kilometres an hour so we look at slowing things down, blocking mergers such as HSBC's being bought by RBC, which would become the biggest bank in Canada by buying the seventh-biggest bank.

My bill, the consumer-led banking bill, if it were to push the government to bring legislation to the House, would ensure that we change one thing in the Banking Act: to ensure that people's personal data, which should be theirs, could be shared, with their consent, with other banking institutions. Doing so would create real, meaningful competition in the banking sector.

That is exactly what we are looking at with Bill C-27. Bill C-27 is about protecting data. It is looking at personal data for Canadians. I have spoken extensively about that in the House, about how our children's data is not protected right now. All of our children, at one point, have an iPad or an Amazon firestick, or they are on personal phones. Right now, data protection is so bad in Canada that all of that data can be scraped, and it is owned by companies, not by the children. It is sold to other companies.

Of course, we have not talked about the Privacy Act in Canada's not having been updated since 1987, way before the iPod. It was way before the time when we had technology and the Internet, as explosive as it is, which puts our children's data at risk.

However, the government, in its speed, in not adhering to speed signs, has sometimes been talking and making announcements as quickly as it can, and certainly not bringing action forward as quickly as it can. It has taken a year for the government to put Bill C-27, after its introduction in the House, into committee where it is now. The biggest problem with the legislation and the out-of-control speed of the government on announcements and on talking, not speed of action, was that the Liberals combined an AI bill with Bill C-27. The minister at the time said that this was because it was what the Liberals needed to do and that we would be the first jurisdiction across the world to do it. However, they were so speedy in announcing that they were doing it instead of doing it. They did not even do public consultation. We had no chance for public consultation when the AIDA was thrown into the act as the third section of Bill C-27.

So far, we have had about nine or 10 committee meetings about Bill C-27. Every witness so far has basically said that the AIDA, the third section of the act, is terrible and it is weak. The bill would not do the things we need to do, because we did not have public consultation and did not look really prudently at legislation that should have had public consultation and public input that would have listened to the industry.

AI in Canada is pretty scary because it is evolving quicker than we can look at it. It is not scary enough to say that we need to put in placeholder legislation and do something that is above that and different. No, it is scary enough that we have to do it right, which means that we slow it down. Just through testimony so far and because of the importance of the issue and how bad AIDA is, combined with the bill, we see that it will delay the better part of the bill, the first two parts of Bill C-27. The first two parts deal with updating privacy and the digital charter, but also with the tribunal.

The tribunal, which is still up for discussion, is taking from the Competition Act a process by which, if a privacy commissioner made a ruling or recommendation against an individual or against a corporation, at the end of the day, that tribunal would allow the option for an individual to have a second reading. The problem is that the tribunal in the Competition Act is not all that great either, which we saw with the Rogers and Shaw merger. The Competition Tribunal was utilized to review a merger of Rogers and Shaw, which was rejected by the Competition Bureau. The make-up of the Competition Tribunal is supposed to be three experts in privacy law, only three, so there is a lot of debate on that.

The first two parts of the bill are so complex. The third part throws the whole bill into a spin. The recommendation we are making is one we have made before. However, after hearing testimony in committee, we have recommended to separate the third part of the bill, which really needs to be scrapped because it is so weak. The recommendation about the bill would be to make it a separate vote. Probably the biggest argument for this is that it could save the first two parts of the bill, because we do need to update privacy legislation.

With respect to the most important part, which is owning one's data, I am going to go back to why that is so important with competition in banking. Right now, the only way to get people's credit-card and banking-statement data, which is theirs, is a method called “screen scraping”, which means that people give their safe word to another institution so they can go into their bank account and see their information. This is wrong. The U.K. and Australia have outlawed that because it is absolutely wrong, but it is a practice we allow in Canada. Consumer-led banking would ensure that people own their data, and, on their consent, they move that data to new competitors. New competitors could then bank them and provide better service, lower cost and more competition in Canada.

We have to separate the third part of the bill. AI is extremely scary. It is extremely important. I know that the next speaker is going to speak very profoundly on that. She is an expert on it.