Lorne Nystrom

[Bank Act, May 13th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to say that I support Bill C-289 moved by my friend, the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. There may be some details on which I disagree, but this is normal.

It is very important to refer this bill to a committee of the House to have a debate on the future of the banking system in our country.

Similar legislation exists in the United States. It is not something very radical. In the United States, just south of the border, there is very similar legislation. For this reason, I am in favour of this bill before us this afternoon.

The time has come when we should start treating more seriously private members' initiatives in the House in terms of referring them to committee more often; giving our committees more power and independence so that a committee of the House can actually initiate legislation; reforming our political parliamentary system to make it more democratic and more independent from the executive, the government; and making parliament more meaningful to the people of the country. I think that is a very non-partisan statement.

I come from Saskatchewan where our party has been in power for the most part of the last 50 years. I know there and in every other province that too much power resides with the executive. There is not enough independence for ordinary members of parliament who are elected to express their point of view and initiate legislation that is useful to people of any province or any country.

The time has come where members on all sides of the House, all five parties, will have to band together to make sure we get some meaningful reforms to make parliament more acceptable.

When I look at the cynicism out there today I see it is increasing. When we look at the turnout in the last election we see that it is going down. People are more and more turned off by the political process. If we could somehow make debates like this one more meaningful, it would serve a great purpose for Canadian people.

One of the great exercises in democracy that I hope will occur in the next six months will be to allow the opinion of the people of the country to be expressed about the bank mergers and the future of financial institutions.

The Minister of Finance, probably in November, will make a decision on whether or not he will allow the merger of the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal along with the merger of the CIBC and the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

As I travel around the country there is a great amount of concern about megabanks being expressed by a broad spectrum of the Canadian population that support all parties in the House. It does not only come from certain groups in society. It comes, for example, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that represents 89,000 small and medium businesses. It recently did a survey which shows around 75% of its members are in opposition to these megamergers.

That should tell us something. Small business is the real motor of our economy. It employs people. It talks to the public. It has a good sense of what the public wants.

We in parliament should find a way to make sure that point of view is heard by and expressed to the government. We should be saying to John Cleghorn, Matthew Barrett and the other presidents of the banks that they will not hold parliament to ransom by making their announcement well ahead time and expecting us to rubber stamp the merger of these four great Canadian banks into two.

That will not be the case just because the stock market has reacted and bank stocks have gone up by $19 billion since January in anticipation of our being trained seals. We will not necessarily react that way. Parliament should express the will of the people.

Big is not necessarily better. We can look at the big Japanese banks that are having trouble today. These two megabanks which are now four Canadian banks represent assets of over $900 billion compared to the budget of the Government of Canada in the $120 billion to $150 billion range. We are talking about two huge sumo wrestler type banks.

They do not want to merge to be a better service to the Canadian people. It is the bank workers, the customers and the communities which have built those banks and made them profitable that will be devastated by these mergers.

The banks want to merge for one reason and that reason is greed. Those bank presidents have seen their stock options increase by approximately $100 million since January. In the CIBC and the TD alone the nine major officers of those two banks have seen their stock options increase by $142 million since January. No wonder they want the mergers to proceed. It is good for the big fat bankers, but is it good for Canadians?

Experts are saying that approximately 20% of the people who work for those banks will be laid off. They will lose their jobs. Approximately 30,000 Canadians will lose their jobs. That is a population of a small city. That is why parliament has to stand up and say no and represent the Canadian people on this issue.

Those four banks have about 5,000 branches, many of which will close throughout rural Canada and in city centres. This will result in a lack of service for the Canadian people. There is also the issue of corporate concentration. Our banking sector already is the most concentrated banking sector of any country in the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development.

When we go from five big banks to two megabanks we will see about 70% of the banking assets in the hands of two banks. In the United States it would take approximately 100 banks to make 70% of the banking assets of that country.

This should be a great worry to Canadian people in terms of service, bank service charges, interest on loans, service to the small business community, farmers and ordinary people. These mergers will not be in the interest of the people of the country. They are in the interest of Mr. Cleghorn, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Baillie and Mr. Flood, the presidents, CEOs and banking executives of these four big banks.

Those banks have been made very profitable. They have made over $7 billion in profits in the last year, and they have done that in Canada. They do not have to get bigger to be more profitable.

Even my Liberal friend from Winnipeg is embarrassed about the power of these big banks. He knows the electorate in his riding is very concerned about the layoffs that will ensue, the lack of competition and the branches that will close throughout Manitoba. In Lynn Lake, Manitoba, there was only one bank which is the Toronto-Dominion Bank and it has closed. It is a community without a bank. This is happening right across the country.

I hope we take advantage of this debate to focus once again on the power of these banks and to say at the very least that Canadian banks should be forced to reinvest in their local communities the money they take from depositors in their local communities. This is happening now in the United States of America.

There is nothing radical about it. It is happening in the United States. Let us make sure it happens here. The banks are here to serve the Canadian people, not to fatten the pockets of John Cleghorn, Al Ford and the other big bank CEOs.

I will do whatever I can as a member of parliament to help channel public opinion against these big mergers. They are not in the Canadian interest and I say to John Cleghorn “Don't take parliament for granted. We are not trained seals. We are not a rubber stamp. You can't blackmail the Parliament of Canada”. Parliament is supreme in terms of making up its mind whether or not these mergers go ahead. We reflect the Canadian people. We will make sure they say no.

There was a survey in the Regina Leader Post about two weeks ago. It was a survey and not a poll. The question was “Do you think if these big banks merge you will get better service or worse service?” Over 2,000 people called the Leader Post and 93% said the service would be worse and 7% said the service would be better.

This is another reason we as members of parliament should say that it is not in the public interest, not in the interest of Canada, that these mergers go ahead. That is one of the reasons I support the bill of the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve.

[Petitions, May 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased you are very diligent; we all appreciate that.

I also want to present a petition about cruelty to animals that was signed by hundreds of people across the country. It specifically refers to an incident that took place in Saskatchewan, another one in Alberta and another one in Gatineau, Quebec.

The petitioners call for tougher rules and regulations in the country so that when people commit an offence that is cruel to animals they have to actually pay for it.

I am very proud to present the petition on behalf of hundreds of Canadians all across the country.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very difficult question for the member from New Brunswick.

I agree with her statement, but I want to ask a question that I think is very important for those of us in small provinces like Saskatchewan or Manitoba. The federal government cut social programs by $6.5 billion last year. I am thinking of health and education, among others.

The member comes from a small province, New Brunswick, with an unemployment rate, if memory serves, of close to 13% or 14% and budget problems up until last year, or the year before that.

Are annual cuts of $6.5 billion a big problem for a small province like New Brunswick? Is it a problem for her province's health system?

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. The buck stops where the buck stops. According to the law in this country it stops with the federal regulators. I think the member for Winnipeg North Centre has summed it up very well.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I think the answer to the second question is that there was a lot of guesswork in coming to the $1.1 billion. I do not think they know for sure how many victims they are going to compensate with that $1.1 billion.

The member knows the federal government is to pay $800 million of that and the provinces $300 million of that, and that division came of course because of negotiations. But the $1.1 billion is just a guess, I assume, from what I have heard and may or may not be accurate. Indeed that money will now have to be increased to compensate all victims.

I also want to comment on the first part of what the member said. I am pleased the House is going to support the motion today. I think the House should also be saying to the ministers of health, let us televise those hearings. Let us have those hearings in public. We did that in some of the constitutional process which led to Charlottetown, the member may recall.

There is no reason the hearings cannot be televised. The victims of hepatitis C could see exactly where every minister stands, where every province stands, where the federal government stands. Just as important, the Canadian people could see the response of their governments. Let us negotiate in public. Let us have a transparent process. Let us open up the democratic process in this country so we have more accountability and more visibility.

I would certainly favour any motion anyone puts to that effect in the House.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words on this and share my time with a member from New Brunswick, if I may.

I am pleased to see the government announce earlier today that it would be supporting this opposition day motion. Indeed it is rare in the House of Commons to have the government stand up and vote in favour of a motion of an opposition party.

I am pleased we made some progress and that the government wants to at least bring to the table the representatives of the Hepatitis C Society when the minister meets with his provincial counterparts later on this week. I maintain that is a step in a positive direction.

We all remember last week after the vote took place in the House the minister went out and faced the television cameras. He looked the camera lens in the eye and he said “The file is closed”. Thanks to the Canadian people, the file is not closed. The file is open and I think we are going to see several changes made in the original position of the federal minister and his provincial counterparts. That is a good thing.

I want to applaud public reaction, public pressure and public opinion for forcing the government to reopen the file. It shows that the democratic system can work when there is concerted public pressure and public opinion. When there is people power it can force a majority government to reopen the file and do something one day it said it was not going to do the previous week. That is a very good and positive thing about how this institution sometimes can work on behalf of ordinary people.

The logjam was broken when the premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, announced yesterday that his government would compensate all sufferers of hepatitis C in terms of the provincial amount of that compensation.

It is very important that we do not have two tiers of settlements and two tiers of health care in this country. It is important that the federal minister take the leadership now, reopen the package and make sure that all people who suffer from hepatitis C are compensated in a fair, compassionate and just way.

That should be done for a number of reasons. First of all the Canadian people have asked that we do it. They have shown compassion. There are past precedents for doing this.

The situation in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean two years ago comes to mind. There was a great flood in this part of the province of Quebec. The federal government provided support for the people of Lac-Saint-Jean. The same was true in the case of the people of southern Manitoba. I refer to the Red River, which flooded last year as well.

The same was true for last January's ice storm, in which the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario, and the Ottawa region in particular, were hard hit. The federal government was compassionate and provided assistance to the disaster victims, as it has done on a number of occasions in this country.

There was also the compensation for the victims of thalidomide and victims of HIV. The thalidomide case took a long time before it wound through the courts, but again there was compensation for all the victims.

What I am saying here is that once again we have had a regulatory failure and the federal government should be willing to take the leadership in making sure that there is fair compensation.

I want to make one other point before I sit down and I think it is the most important one of all. The federal government has the obligation to provide the lion's share of the compensation. I say that for a couple of reasons.

There have been massive cutbacks in social programs in terms of cutbacks from the federal government to the provinces in the last few years. Last year there was a cutback of $6.5 billion in transfers from the federal government to the provinces. That cutback is in effect this year and next year, $6.5 billion each and every year. That is less money for the provinces for health care and education and welfare programs that would have been there had it not been for the Minister of Finance cutting back in a cold and callous way in his budget a year or so ago.

Because of that the federal government has an obligation to fund the lion's share. I am sure the hon. member from Mississauga would agree with that, to fund the lion's share of the compensation for hepatitis C victims.

Because of these cutbacks, the federal government has a surplus of several billion dollars this year. The federal government can afford to compensate the victims of hepatitis C. It has that surplus because it has been cutting back in transfers to the provinces, cutting back in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, all the provinces. I maintain the government has an obligation to provide the funding for the compensation of the other victims.

I agree with the Government of Quebec, which said so last week. As did British Columbia and Ontario, before it changed its position and decided to compensate the victims in its own province.

The money is there for the victims of hepatitis C and the federal government should lead the way.

In terms of funding, when medicare first became a reality in this country in 1967, there was an agreement that the federal government would fund 50% of the cost of health care in this country, 50 cents on the dollar. What is it today? Today the federal government pays not 50 cents on the dollar, but 13 cents on the dollar. It has gone from 50 cents on the dollar to 13. That is a shameful record for the Liberal Party of Canada that once prided itself as being progressive and compassionate and forward thinking.

In fact the father of the current Minister of Finance was the Minister of Health back in the 1960s when national medicare became a reality in this country after the provincial leadership of the CCF in Saskatchewan with Tommy Douglas and Premier Woodrow Lloyd.

I say that is a shameful record and it is no wonder the member from Mississauga is now hanging his head in shame over that legacy of the Liberal Party. The Liberals are much more conservative than Brian Mulroney and the Tories and the hon. member for Mississauga knows that. That is why he is hanging his head in shame. He does not dare get to his feet and respond to an argument of that sort because the figures speak for themselves: 1967, 50 cents on the dollar; 1997, 30 years later, 13 cents on the dollar. Mulroney would not have even dreamed of doing that, and that is exactly the legacy the Liberal Party has left Canadians.

If the sufferers of hepatitis C want to see who the culprits are, they should look in the eyeballs of the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health. Those are the people who refuse to provide adequate funding to people who are suffering from a disease through no fault of their own, suffering from a disease because of the fault of regulators who allowed contaminated blood to go out into the system.

Mr. Speaker, I make that appeal through you to the minister and the government across the way, that they start once again adequately funding the health care system in this country. What a better place to start than to pay the lion's share, the overwhelming share of the cost to compensate these victims who are suffering from a disease through no fault of their own.

[Banks, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I will take the minister up on his offer.

Last week, less than a month after mergers were announced by banks in the United States, the banking committee of Congress started public hearings quickly. Meanwhile in this country the minister is hiding behind an unelected task force that has no mandate to look into these specific mergers or the 30,000 jobs that are to be lost.

In light of that, will the minister at least agree to an immediate all party committee hearing on the issue, or will he continue to play off the public interest against his own leadership ambitions?

[Banks, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance. Today in the Globe and Mail the minister finally recognized what we have been telling him for months when he stated concern that bank mergers would hurt jobs, small communities and small business in this country.

Meanwhile, while the minister fiddles, thousands of bank employees are fearing for their jobs and bank presidents are making millions on their stock options. In light of that, will the minister finally lay down his fiddle, do the right thing and stop these mergers right here and now?

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 4th, 1998]

With regard to recent changes in the tax treaty between the United States and Canada, which restore a tax exemption from U.S. federal income taxes to all Canadians who received U.S. social security or railroad retirement in 1996 and 1997, what measures has the Minister of National Revenue taken to ensure a speedy refund to eligible recipients of the excess taxes that were deducted for tax years 1996 and 1997?

[Hepatitis C, May 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I want to know today whether or not the minister will put more money on the table since the government has a surplus and it cut back billions of dollars in transfer payments for health to the provinces. Is he going to put more money on the table and fairly compensate all the victims of hepatitis C as the provincial health ministers are now calling for?