Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise today to join the debate on Bill C-20. I was waiting for the previous speaker to get to his question, but I guess we will hear it later.
The bill seeks to modernize the Competition Act to respond to a changing business environment. It seeks to accomplish that by increasing the flexibility in the administration of the act and by improving the efficiency of enforcement.
The hon. member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac spoke about the telemarketing aspects of the bill. That is a section of the bill which we in this caucus strongly support.
I will focus my remarks on the administrative changes in the merger notification process about which we in the NDP have reservations.
However, before I do that, since it has been raised by the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar and the hon. member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, I want to talk about the be on guard telephone security tips which were sent out last year.
Because of the kind of television audience we often get it is worth running through the list. I believe every member of the House would want to ensure that citizens, particularly senior citizens, do not get caught up in some of the scams out and about these days on the telephone.
I acknowledge a resident of Regina, a gentleman named Al Knox, who spoke to me about this matter last fall. His story was that he was at the post office one day when an elderly woman came in and wanted to send a money order for $2,000 to a company in Montreal. She had just won a prize and she had to send the money in order to collect it. He was there as a customer of the post office. Another customer and the postal agent who was also there tried to talk this woman out of buying the money order and forwarding it, all to no avail. She was so convinced she had won the prize that nothing or no one was going to be able to put a stop to her desire to get that prize.
There are a number of dos and don'ts. I will read them into the record because they would be useful for people who may be listening: don't believe that everyone calling with an exciting promotion or investment opportunity it trustworthy; don't be fooled by a promise of a valuable prize in return for a low cost purchase; don't disclose information about your bank account or credit card, not even a credit card expiry date; don't be pressured to send money to take advantage of a deal; don't be afraid to hang up, a very important one; don't purchase or invest without carefully checking the product, the investment and the company; and don't be afraid to demand more information from the caller.
Finally I will refer to a couple of dos: do demand the name and the phone number of the caller; do contact your local fraud squad if you believe that is what the call is all about; and remember, perhaps most of all, that if you have really won a prize it shouldn't cost you a dime.
Those are important things to remember about this telephone scam. I am pleased the government has moved ahead in this area.
I want to talk about the merger notification process. As I indicated it deals with the administration. This is where we have some reservations. It is our opinion that if the notification of merger process is to be changed, it should be done so in a way which strengthens the legislation, not weakens it, or keeps it at the status quo level. The changes we see to this notification of merger process in Bill C-20 are simply cosmetic changes.
I would like to take the few moments available to me to lay out some of our concerns. In the implementation area the changes in Bill C-20 are not necessarily the problem. Rather the problem is implementing what the bill seeks to achieve.
Rarely has a merger ever been sent to the review tribunal and actually been reviewed extensively. We all know what happens normally. The head of the tribunal, who after Bill C-24 passes will be known as the commissioner, has the two parties join together and tells them what needs to be done in order to make the merger a successful one. This is ridiculous and will certainly not work. The provisions of Bill C-20 in my mind will never really be enforced when they certainly need to be and should be enforced.
Turning to the sanctions, failure to give proper notification in the past has left the government with the option to pursue criminal charges against the parties involved. Under the provisions of Bill C-20, the bill before us this afternoon, the criminal sanction elements of the previous bill are being dropped and being replaced with a fine which has a maximum of $50,000.
In the great scheme of things with megamergers of banks and insurance companies, $50,000 is simply peanuts and will not act as a deterrent in any way, shape, or form. We think of the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank merger talks. A total of four insurance companies are now involved. Two are merging and another two are proposing to merge. We are talking multibillion dollars and $50,000, as I indicated, is peanuts for them to pay any kind of a deterrent fee if they wish to go ahead.
On the job front, this is perhaps the most important element of our concerns. There is nothing in the bill that deals with job losses as a result of a merger. There is absolutely nothing by way of offering to protect the workers from job losses in huge takeovers and megamergers.
We know from newspaper and media reports that as a result of the proposed Royal Bank-Bank of Montreal merger that roughly 10,000 Canadians will experience job losses. It is noteworthy that CEOs of these banks, Mr. Matthew Barrett and John Cleghorn, have refused to commit that the workers in their two respective banks will not have to bite the bullet as a result of this merger proposal, which in all probability as the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar said earlier, will go ahead earlier this year despite the fact that Canadians are very much opposed to the two banks merging.
With Bill C-20 the government had the opportunity to and should have instructed the commissioner of notification of merger process to take into account the significant number of job losses when considering any merger. We believe that Bill C-20 fails to order the commissioner to consider the public interest in megamergers and New Democrats believe that the public interest must prevail over megamania.
New Democrats do not see these megamergers as good for Canada's community of workers. In our opinion, Bill C-20 does not make the merger notification process any stronger. That is why the New Democrats oppose this portion of the bill. We will have to decide whether the government will break up this bill and allow it to be looked at in its various entities, otherwise it will be a dilemma for many of us as to whether to support or oppose it. We certainly support the attempts to reduce telephone scams, but on the merger aspect of it we have major reservations.
