Mr. Speaker, like my colleague, it is a pleasure to see you back in the House. I also want to give a warm welcome to the pages who are beginning their work here. I sure hope we do not drive them crazy before the end of the session.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Sydney—Victoria.
I am very pleased to participate in the debate today.
Earlier today our finance critic very eloquently outlined the NDP's work and position on this massive bill before us. Our finance critic has certainly done an incredible job over the years of bringing forward in the House how unaccountable and undemocratic the banking sector is and the concerns of consumers and Canadians. I applaud him for his very thoughtful analysis and comments earlier today.
Yesterday in Ottawa I was sitting at a kitchen table talking about political life with a young working couple with a newborn baby. The new mother said “Let us talk about our banking horror stories”. For two hours this young family and their friends swapped horror stories about their encounters when dealing with a big bank.
I cannot think of any issue that would unite Canadians, whether nationalists in Quebec, people in Vancouver, people in the maritimes or wherever, in terms of the suspicion and contempt that people have and, dare I say, even a sense of outrage at what happens in the banking sector. We can all think of our own personal experiences of what it is like to deal with these massive institutions that bleed the Canadian public.
A young student I talked to a few weeks ago was outraged when she went to her bank, the Royal Bank, and found out that there was now a $1.50 service charge for using the Royal Bank ATM machine. We all know that if we go to another bank we have to pay a fee but now even the bank we deal with is charging a fee. This is a young student with a huge debt who is getting dinged again. The stories go on and on.
This piece of legislation, the 900 or so pages, is a very important piece of legislation but it demands that we, as members of parliament, examine whether the bill sets out what it claims to do, which is to reform the financial sector and truly protect Canadians from some of the appalling practices and gouging that takes place.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from the constituents in my riding of Vancouver East, which probably has the highest incidence of poverty and more low income families in the country in an urban setting, is that people who are poor cannot access financial institutions. The discrimination that exists is awful. It is hard to believe that it could exist in today's society. It is so subtle and people are treated with such disrespect and contempt that it makes people on welfare or social assistance feel like nothing. They feel devalued as human beings.
As a new member of parliament, over the last couple of years I introduced motions in the House of Commons to deal with this issue and to draw attention to the discrimination that poor people and low income Canadians are faced with in the financial sector and which absolutely has to change. The bill takes some steps to do that but there is no guarantee that it will actually happen. No basic package has been set out to ensure there will be a no frills bank account. A lot of research has been done which shows that this is entirely possible and administratively easy for the banks to do.
For example, one of my motions called on the government to work with community groups to not just change the legislation but to change the culture and attitudes of the big banks toward poor people and to make it unlawful for someone to be denied access to banking services as a result of his or her income.
Anyone who does not believe this is happening should go into any of the big banks on an assistance cheque day to see the kind of mayhem that takes place and the kind of anxiety and anguish that people go through trying to get their cheques cashed. People end up going into the marketplace, into the money marts and so on, and paying huge amounts of money from their meagre low incomes to get cheques cashed that may be from a provincial government or the Government of Canada. It could be pensioners with pension cheques and so on. It is a very fundamental issue of equality and ending discrimination in Canada.
The situation became so alarming in Vancouver East that our provincial government, in co-operation with the local community, established a very successful community savings financial institution called the Four Corners Community Savings at Main and Hastings. In actual fact it is situated in an old Bank of Montreal building that was closed down like many other branches that moved out and closed down. We now have a very successful community model of accessibility and non-discrimination. Poor people can now say they have a few bucks they want to put in the bank without being penalized and looked down on. They do not want to go into special line-ups. The big banks force them to go into special line-ups because they are poor. I am disappointed because the bill does not adequately address this fundamental concern.
We in the NDP have some other concerns with the bill. One of them is the fact that it does not deal with the issue of corporate concentration. We have six major banks with assets and profits worth multibillion dollars, and the bill would encourage and allow greater corporate concentration and ownership by changing the rule from 10% to 20% in terms of the number of voting shares that one can own and from 10% to 30% for the number of non-voting shares. That seems to me to be a non-reform item. This is not about reform. This is about giving the banks a massive hand up, something that they do not need, and allowing for corporate concentration.
It is positive after many years of work that credit unions will be recognized by being allowed to have a single service entity to support credit union membership. We have in Vancouver a highly successful model, probably the most successful and largest credit union in Canada Van City, which is providing a real alternative to big banks for these people. To give credit to the government, there is that positive aspect of the legislation.
Another issue that is quite amazing is that the bill is silent on taxation. The combined after tax profits of the six big banks amount to $9.1 billion. What does the Government of Canada do? What does the finance minister do? Does he deal with that issue? Does he bring fairness and equity to the taxation system to give modest income Canadians and low income Canadians a break? No, the opposite is true. We actually see a corporate tax cut by the finance minister from 28% to 21%. This means that these banks are getting more powerful. They are getting more influence. They are getting more money. This is completely contrary to democratic reform.
It poses a question. Who will stand up to these banks? I do not think it will be the Liberal government. It is quite cozy in its relationship with the banks. It sure as heck is not the Canadian Alliance. We have to shake our heads and wonder what the heck is going on.
The Globe and Mail today quotes that wallets are being opened at events that include a $25,000 table dinner with Mr. Day in Toronto, expected to draw 2,000 executives. It indicates that executives are genuinely attracted to the Alliance's position on flattened taxes, deregulation and a diminished role for the federal government within Confederation. Here we see the hand in glove, the nice cozy alliance between these fancy executives and this political party which purports to speak up for the little guy. There we see it. The evidence is there in terms of where they do their fundraising and who they seek to attract.
The question of who stands up for the banks is something that should be addressed by parliament. In our party we have taken on this issue. We have consistently called for democratic reform. We have consistently called for an ombudsperson who has real clout and teeth and is not just a paper entity.
One of the real concerns with the bill is that more power is given to the Minister of Finance, not parliament. Power is being taken away from parliament.
At this point we are clearly not in support of the bill unless there are major changes. What we need to do in debating this legislation is truly examine whether or not it is protecting the consumer.
