House of Commons Hansard #368 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was liberals.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
The hon. member is not to indicate whether someone has come into or exited the chamber. I would remind members to please be respectful to each other. If members wish to have conversations across the way, then they should step outside the chamber to have those conversations.
I have another point of order from the hon. member for Waterloo.
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
Madam Speaker, I really do not appreciate the comments about my attire and what I choose to wear. I do feel that I am appropriately dressed for this chamber, and you just recognized me.
I would also like to put on the record that I have no problem with the member for Winnipeg North speaking and representing the views of Canadians in the House—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
That is a point of debate. I have asked members to please be respectful of each other so that we can move on with the business of the House.
We have another point of order from the hon. government deputy House leader.
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Madam Speaker, given the fact that the member has come into the House to display that she is not happy with the—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
The hon. member cannot say whether a member is in the House or not.
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
Based on what I have ruled on, and as I said, if members want to have conversations, they can take them out of the chamber, I just think that we need to be respectful of each other. I would hope that we would be able to continue with the orders of the day without having another point of order.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Madam Speaker, I believe it is inappropriate for a member to speak about how another member is dressed.
I would think that the honourable thing to do would be to ask the member to apologize. I do not think he is a fashion guru, and it is inappropriate to say that what a member is wearing is inappropriate.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
I already gave a warning that members should not be speaking about what individuals are wearing or be yelling across the way.
The hon. member did come into the House and did not ask for a withdrawal or an apology. She did mention that it was not appropriate. I already spoke to that.
We are going to go on with the orders of the day, which is continuing debate with the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets. I know he is anxious to continue. If the hon. member wishes, he can restart his speech, given everything that has taken place.
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Madam Speaker, points of order usually do not happen until I have started my speech. I will do something unusual, as I said a few moments ago. I am actually going to speak to the concurrence motion that is before the House right now, unlike most of the speakers today.
We are here discussing a motion to have a further detailed study on what are called the fees related to Interac. A lot of folks watching use e-transfers to send money to their friends or kids through electronic banking. We have discovered that there are what we might call usury or monopolistic fees happening.
We have a challenge in our economy right now. We are not very productive. We have been losing our productivity over the last nine years. That is due to three main things: First, this country has too much debt. More than half of that debt has been generated by the Liberals over nine years. That has caused strain on our system. Second, we are not selling enough of what we make to the world anymore; most of those issues have been generated by the antidevelopment policies of the government, which has squashed our resource industries, both renewable and non-renewable. Third, we have an oligopolistic economy, which is the federal government—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
I have another point of order.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Madam Speaker, I think all women in the chamber now need to have the approval of the NDP. I want to determine if my attire is in order.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
It was not a point of order; the hon. member is making this a point of debate. As I indicated, the issue has already been addressed. I would hope that members will be able to move on.
The hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets.
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Madam Speaker, what we have here, besides interruptions, is the issue that the Liberals do not want to talk about. That is why they are not doing anything about the oligopolistic economy, which includes the fees that Canadians pay for their banking services and, in particular, the fees around a company called Interac. It is on the back of our cards. Interac is an association, but it is basically owned by the four big banks: RBC, CIBC, Scotiabank and TD. Then there is a fifth one, Desjardins. They own it, and they charge a fee any time we move money around. They do about 19 million transactions a day in Canada, but one issue is moving our own money to somebody else through an e-transfer. I am sure members will be shocked to learn that the two companies that chair the board of Interac, which are RBC and TD, get a preferential rate over all other financial services companies. They only charge themselves six cents; they charge smaller and smaller financial institutions, particularly those that are not part of the Interac board, almost 44¢ to 46¢ per transaction. That is huge.
I understand that there is a $1.50 charge on each end on that. Technically, that is a three-dollar charge. If someone does not keep a minimum balance in their account, they get a three-dollar charge from the banks. RBC, TD and the big guys are only paying six cents for that transaction, so they are making a 98% gross margin. If there is a small credit union that is not part of the government-protected oligopoly of Interac, which basically has a complete monopoly on the movement of money in Canada, then it is out of luck. It must pay 44¢ to 46¢ to the big banks that own Interac for this service.
That is why we are here. It is because we had witnesses in committee who refused to table any of their fee structures, even though they are a protected government business. We also had witnesses who came before the committee in the credit card study on the issue of what is called the “interchange fee”. The government made a big announcement that it is reducing the fees that small businesses have to pay to credit card companies for every transaction. It is usually a per cent, somewhere between 1% and 2.9% of the transaction, if someone pays with their credit card, that a small business has to pay to the big banks and the Visa card companies.
There are companies that are the plumber of the system that do that, and one of them is called Stripe. Another one is called Moneris; some may have heard of it. Moneris agreed to the voluntary fee cut that the government asked for, but Stripe decided that it was not going to. Its representatives said that it is because they are being charged a new GST fee and cannot afford it. It is actually a GST fee that they were paying all along, but it was delayed for 12 months because of a court action. However, Stripe representatives used that as an excuse, either because they are greedy or because they are just not as efficient as the other providers of that service. We will be the judge of which one it is.
An interesting thing is that a person on the board of Stripe, which is one of the biggest companies in the world at doing this, is Mark Carney, the special adviser to the Prime Minister on the economy. He is the boss above the Minister of Finance, and he is the next Liberal leader. This is the same fellow who is on the board of a company called Brookfield; the entire company has just decided to move from Toronto to New York to avoid paying Canadian taxes.
Mr. Carney preaches that Canadians should pay more for everything with a carbon tax; carbon tax Carney loves the carbon tax and thinks it should be 61¢ a litre. At the same time, he moves all his business interests to the U.S. and avoids the things that the Department of Finance is trying to do. This is the character of an individual who supposedly aspires to be Prime Minister of Canada. However, he thinks it is better for the companies that he sits on the boards of to dodge Canadian taxes and move to the U.S., where they can pay lower taxes.
I do not know why carbon tax Carney wants to help the newly elected President Trump by moving his head office to New York. Apparently, he admires him more than he admires the current Prime Minister, or he would not be doing this.
As such, why is it that the Liberals continue to filibuster in committee to stop these examinations from happening? The parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Industry has done nothing but filibuster every time we bring up a motion to bring carbon tax Carney, disclose the financials of Mastercard or disclose the financials of Stripe, which carbon tax Carney is on the board of. The parliamentary secretary does not have the guts to vote against it. He just keeps talking and talking, stopping us from getting to a vote. That is the reason we are in this situation in the House, and we have to use the power of the majority to try to get that study done. It is because the parliamentary secretary is too afraid of having this debate in committee.
It makes me wonder what that individual is trying to cover up for the government by preventing these studies from happening. We had one of the banking executives from RBC, who is co-chair of Interac and sits on their board, before committee. One of our members asked him a number of times if he knew the fees of the company he is on the board of, where he represents his bank. His bank owns this company, which is called Interac. He said he does not know the fees.
I have served on private boards and Crown boards. I always knew what the fees were of the businesses I was on the board of. It defied believability that this senior banking executive in Canada would not even know the fees he charges or gets charged on Interac. This is the kind of obfuscation we see happening on this credit card study, and that has prompted this motion. In fact, all the banking heads were before the committee, and we told them we did not want them to betray their confidential commercial stuff, but they all judge themselves publicly on something called “return on equity”. That is how much profit a year the company makes per share that shareholders own. The companies overall, the banks overall, have anywhere from a 10% to 15% return on equity. This means that, for a $10 share, they make $1 to $1.50 in profit a year.
We asked them to share what their credit card business is as a percentage, not the overall revenue numbers or their expenses, as they do on their overall business. What do they make in their credit card business? They said it is all confidential. Of course it is confidential. Some may know that I used to work for a bank at one time, a long time ago. I had hair then. When I worked for the bank on Bay Street, it had a return on equity of 52%.
Some might call that loansharking, but that is the level of return they get. That is why they do not want to do it. That is why the government does not want to do it. We had finance officials in industry committee this morning. We asked them if they knew those numbers on their credit card business. They said they never asked. We had the senior finance officials in committee this morning and asked if they ever looked at the anti-competitive pricing of Interac and what they do between the owners of RBC, TD, Scotiabank and CIBC, and what they give themselves as a cut rate versus all the other financial institutions. They said they have never looked at it.
I asked if the Minister of Finance cares about competitive behaviour in the industry she regulates. They said they do not look at it. That it is somebody else's job; it is the Competition Bureau's job. It is not their job to look at policy and decide whether the industry they regulate is competitive. I asked the same question about these great interchange fees and carbon tax Carney's company, Stripe, which is refusing to abide by the Minister of Finance's order.
I asked if they look at anti-competitive behaviour on the interchange fees. They said it is not their job. They are just the government; there is nothing to see here. They are just the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance; they are not concerned with competition.
That is the reason we have an oligopolistic economy. We have a Minister of Finance, a Liberal government and a Department of Finance that do not care about the fact that we have an oligopolistic cellphone industry. We have a government that does not care about the fact that we have monopolies in banking, telecommunications and airlines.
The extent to which the government members protect their corporate buddies is incredible.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.
The question is on the amendment.
If a member participating in person wishes that the amendment 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.
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the recorded division stands deferred until later this day at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Madam Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motions. First, I move:
That, in accordance with subsection 4.1(1) of the Lobbying Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. 44 (4th Supplement), and pursuant to Standing Order 111.1(2), the House approve the reappointment of Nancy Bélanger as Commissioner of Lobbying, for a term of seven years.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
All those opposed to the hon. parliamentary secretary's moving the motion will please say nay.
It is agreed.
The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.
(Motion agreed to)
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Madam Speaker, second, I move:
That, in accordance with subsection 54(1) of the Access to Information Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. A-1, and pursuant to Standing Order 111.1(2), the House approve the reappointment of Caroline Maynard as Information Commissioner, for a term of seven years.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
All those opposed to the hon. parliamentary secretary's moving the motion will please say nay.
It is agreed.
The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.
(Motion agreed to)
Dave Epp Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Madam Speaker, Sun Qian has been imprisoned by the People's Republic of China. She is a practitioner of Falun Gong, which is the traditional Chinese spiritual discipline of meditation, exercise and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
Tens of thousands of such practitioners have been imprisoned, and Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting has sponsored and been behind the petition of 1.5 million folks in 50 countries bringing this to the attention of their governments.
Petitioners are looking for a resolution to establish measures to stop the Chinese Communist regime's crime of systemically murdering Falun Gong practitioners for their organs, amend Canadian legislation to combat forced organ harvesting and publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions to present to the House today.
The first petition is from petitioners who believe that regardless of circumstances, it is always wrong to kill a child. They are, as a result, deeply concerned by some of the discourse that has happened in this place, particularly proposals around the expansion of euthanasia to include babies from birth to one year of age. This proposal was made by a representative of the Quebec college of physicians, and this proposal for the legalized killing of infants, as a further expansion to Canada's already extremely liberal euthanasia regime, is certainly a further source of concern for these petitioners. They call on the government and the House to oppose this radical proposal to legalize the killing of small children in this country.
Freedom of Political ExpressionPetitionsRoutine Proceedings
November 7th, 2024 / 1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition is in support of Bill C-257. It is a private member's bill that stands in my name that would add political belief or activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination to the Canadian Human Rights Act.
This bill would protect Canadians from discrimination on the basis of their political views. Currently, while Canadians are protected in the federal jurisdiction from discrimination on the basis of many different criteria, there is no protection against discrimination on the basis of political views. This lack of protection can have a chilling effect when people maybe limit their public comments on issues that are important to them for fear they might face professional or other forms of discrimination or retaliation.
Petitioners call on the House to support Bill C-257, which would protect Canadians from political discrimination.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition deals with the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Petitioners highlight the history of the terrible persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Communist Party. They call on the House to take additional and stronger steps to try to combat the scourge of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.