Nelson Riis

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

My point is—

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The rules of the House are well known, particularly to my hon. friend who is an experienced member. The first round is 10 minutes with 5 minutes for questions and comments. It seems to me that he is simply bootlegging in parts of his speech that he was hoping to make within 20 minutes.

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. friend's comments. I find I agree with most of what he says, which is somewhat frightening, but on this issue I can feel safe.

The member referred to the fact that a number of Liberal backbenchers toured western Canada to seek out why people from that region of Canada were feeling somewhat alienated. Could he share with the House what his constituents felt about this initiative in terms of having to send out a delegation of eastern backbenchers to find out what they were concerned about?

[Petitions, April 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 from a number of constituents of Clearwater, British Columbia who point out a number of reasons they are concerned that the provisions of NAFTA will result in the eventual export of Canada's fresh water to the United States and northern Mexico.

[Bank Act, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thought my friend actually answered his own question when he said what changes are being made to benefit foreign banks.

That is what the whole act is about. There are 141 pages of ways and means to permit, encourage and enable foreign banks to access the Canadian capital market. That is what this is all about. In other words, it removes the barriers that presently exist against foreign banks. If that is not helping foreign banks I do not know what is. We are saying we are now open for business for foreign banks to come in and cream off the top of the market. That is what this is all about.

My friend reminded me of something that I forgot to say in my speech, the Liberal task force on bank mergers. I will ask this rhetorical question. Did the Minister of Finance have the courtesy to ask the members of the House of Commons who represent all the people of Canada, not just those who support Liberals but people who support the Reform Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservative and the New Democratic Party, to seek the views of Canadians as to whether the banks should merge? No. He asked some of his backbenchers to keep him out of trouble. It must get awfully boring sitting there bleating all the time. Rather than bleat for the next few weeks they can go out, travel around and then he will tell them what to say in the end.

I use that again as an example of the Minister of Finance and the government abusing this place. They do not ask MPs to do something. They ask a bunch of Liberal flacks in the back row to do something. That is not the way it is supposed to work.

[Bank Act, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, this is a little off the topic but I guess not really when we are trying to make the point that the Minister of Finance essentially runs the show now and he is run by the WTO.

What we are saying is that we are becoming irrelevant now in terms of what is important. Earlier today in question period my friend asked a question about catholic newspapers. The parliamentary secretary indicated that one of the reasons they took this action was because of the World Trade Organization. Now catholics from coast to coast to coast who are looking forward to their publication on a regular basis may not see it anymore because of the World Trade Organization's ruling. What does the World Trade Organization have to do with whether catholics get a decent news letter? That is what it has come to.

[Bank Act, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, once again the member for Winnipeg—Transcona has asked the kind of intelligent, thoughtful and probing questions we do not hear enough of in the House. My friend asked me to give a short history lesson.

People who read the Wall Street Journal would have noticed on November 10, 1997 a small article stating that Canada would be submitting a revised offer on that day committing itself to open branched banking to other WTO members. We were perplexed by this because we had not heard about the government negotiating WTO's openness for foreign banking. There had been discussions of foreign banking but we thought it would wait until the finance committee report was submitted to the House and until other reports underway had been completed.

We were perplexed so we made some inquiries in the House. We found out that the government had been negotiating changes to the financial services act for some time, that it had been negotiating the best way to open up Canada to foreign banks. This made everybody's ears perk up.

On December 12 we got an elaborate news release stating that Canada was now welcoming the WTO financial services agreement which would open up Canada to foreign banks and foreign insurance companies. There was no debate here, not even a ministerial statement. Unless we had the inside track through the office of the Minister of Finance, there would be no way the ordinary citizen even knew this was taking place until it was announced. Was it announced in the House of Commons? No. That would be the last place. It was announced in the national press theatre. That is where the announcements are. Why would you make an announcement in such an irrelevant place? It feeds into this cynicism.

As my friend said, then the banks came out with their notice. They said if the Government of Canada has just allowed the floodgates to be open for foreign banks, they have to do something and they have been thinking about a merger so they will announce their intention to look at merging.

We see the sequence. I add one more element to what I said earlier. Now that the foreign banks are coming in, and the biggest foreign banks now have access to Canada, we will soon hear a case to lower the 10% ownership level for our banking system. Then we will see more bank mergers announced because we will have no choice under the WTO.

[Bank Act, March 19th, 1999]

The report came after this was signed. My Liberal friend reveals the problem. The Liberals did not start the report until after this was signed, sealed and delivered. He reveals the fact that he actually thinks he is not a eunuch. He actually thinks he has some energy, that he has some role to play. He does not. He is just a nice piece of backdrop that every now and again is asked to bleat, what we call voting, and that is his job.

Let us understand that when we debate legislation like Bill C-67 we are acknowledging one more time in a long list of acknowledgements that one person runs this country and runs this government, the Minister of Finance. He decides now on education policy. He decides on health care policy. He decides on environmental policy. He decides everything.

Once again, should we have foreign banks? My friend says there was a committee roaming the country looking into this. I am on the finance committee. We actually study this. It was all after the fact, after the Minister of Finance had committed to the world that this is what the Government of Canada would do on a particular day, and that is what we are doing. That is why this is really a frustrating place sometimes.

I like the Minister of Finance. He is a smart guy. He is not an expert on health care, education and so on. Maybe foreign banking is getting close. That is not the way we are supposed to work in this place. Members of parliament are supposed to have some role in deciding on the appropriateness of certain legislation.

I lament the fact, I regret the fact that we are living in a dictatorship. It is a kind of elected dictatorship, because we do elect the dictator every four or five years, but basically once that is done, that is it. We are all a bunch of rubber stamps. We sit here and stamp ourselves and that is it, and the Minister of Finance decides what will go on.

It is an elected dictatorship in the hands of the Minister of Finance who now decides all types of economic and social policy and all types of foreign policy. Look at our defence budget. Who decides on the nature of Canada's armed forces? Is it the minister of defence? No, it is the Minister of Finance because he decides on the financial ability of our armed forces to develop the infrastructure they require.

This is frustrating. I am frustrated. I know other members of parliament are frustrated. They are shaking their heads. Even some Liberals are shaking their heads one way or the other. I know the people of Canada are frustrated because they know that the government ignores them. They say they feel alienated. They feel left out of the circle. Of course they should feel alienated because they are left out. They are not considered. Their views are not considered.

We do not support the trickle down theory of economics. We do not like the idea of foreign banks coming into the country and not providing any useful services to the average Canadian. We lament the fact that this debate is irrelevant. What I am saying is that we will not be voting in favour of the legislation.

[Bank Act, March 19th, 1999]

They are probably trickled off at this point. Getting trickled on, which is what the legislation is all about, is not the kind of thing we want to see in Canada.

We would maybe welcome a change in legislation if in fact it meant that there would actually be real competition so the average citizen would benefit by lower service charges, by a greater range of services and by easier access to financial services. The legislation will do the opposite. It will put pressure on the existing banking system to cut back to enable it to compete at the high end level.

What does cutback mean? It means a whole bunch of people will lose their jobs. A whole bunch of people will lose access to branches in their various communities. Branches will be closed. The banks have already acknowledged this. The Royal Bank the other day suggested that it would have to cut back at last $400 million in the next little while.

Cutting back $400 million means a whole lot of people who have jobs today will not have them. A whole lot of people will be inconvenienced so that the Royal Bank of Canada can compete at the upper end of the commercial lending market.

What is our job here? Is it not our job as elected representatives to protect the interests of ordinary people? We do not have to protect the interests of banks. Goodness, they have small armies of lawyers, financial experts and lobbyists and unlimited amounts of money. They do not need our protection.

The average Canadian expects us to represent their interests. That is why the folly of this debate today and this discussion is to give the illusion to people sitting in the gallery that somehow this is an important debate when the deal was cut two years ago when the Minister of Finance said “I promise that we will pass legislation permitting foreign banks in Canada before June 1999”.

What are we doing here? We all are like a bunch of rubber stamps. Stamp, stamp, stamp, that is all we end up doing now. As long as we understand we are just rubber stamps, then that is fair enough, but let us not pretend to anybody listening to this debate that this is meaningful in any way. The Minister of Finance has decided on this.

Let us understand what this reveals. Who runs this country? Who runs this government? Is it the members of parliament elected by their constituents who make decisions? The answer is clearly no. Is it the cabinet that sits there in secret and makes decisions? The answer is absolutely no. One person sitting over there makes all the decisions, the Minister of Finance. He made the decision on whether we should have foreign banking. Was it discussed among the Liberal caucus members? No, it was not.

[Bank Act, March 19th, 1999]

I hear what my friend says. We are just changing Canadian legislation to allow greater access for large foreign banks to come into the country. That is a pretty major change in how banking is conducted here.

The secretary of state for financial services said that he had faith in the trickle down approach. He said if we waited long enough eventually the good things would trickle down on us. If average Canadians were asked if they wanted to be trickled on, they would say no. Being trickled on is not something they find attractive. They probably feel they have been trickled on for a long time.