Pat Martin

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Bigger and bigger, there is no such thing as too much profit for the banks.

One of the right-wingers said that we should nationalize the banks. What an extremist point of view. I am going to use that in my literature the next time there is an election campaign.

The segue between the last bill we debated on offshore tax havens and the bill we are presently debating on Canada's chartered banks and financial institutions is interesting, because there are no worse culprits for tax avoidance and being tax fugitives than the big banks that are abandoning the inner city of Winnipeg. They are abandoning the inner city of Winnipeg and setting up shop in Barbados, the Cayman Islands and everywhere else they can think of to avoid paying their fair share of taxes in our country.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Let's not forget Tuktoyaktuk.

The deal was not that they could run those banks as long as they were profitable. The deal was that overall this would be one of the costs that they would assume in their overall activity, namely providing basic financial services. It seems to me the banks do not want ma and pa business any more. They are pawning it off to the credit unions.

There is this idea of the right wingers, the Conservatives, the neo-conservatives in this place. The right wing neo-conservatives have this idea that they should privatize the profits and socialize the losses. That seems to be their basic philosophy. They should privatize all that they gain and let the big banks have all the real good paying business, and they should pawn off the less profitable services such as mortgages, basic banking services, and let the credit unions have those. Somehow the non-profit sector can have all that non-profitable stuff and that will streamline our activities.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

In New Westminster too, my colleague from New Westminster--Coquitlam tells us.

I do not know if Bill C-37 satisfactorily addresses the one compelling issue facing Canadians and that is access to banking services. This has led to the proliferation of payday lenders. Every single vacancy in every strip mall across the country is being filled with another Money Mart or Payday Loans, et cetera. Why? Because they can charge 1,000% to 10,000% interest per year. Show me another business enterprise that receives 1,000% interest. Selling coke for God's sake does not provide 1,000% interest. Prostitution or any other illegal activity does not provide 1,000% interest.

The province of Manitoba did a study on payday lenders in my riding of Winnipeg Centre. One case study documented 10,000% per annum interest on some of the loans as a result of a series of surcharges and fees and roll-over loans. No wonder the Hells Angels are involved. No wonder terrorists are looking to this kind of activity to launder money. I trace it back directly to the banks and the abrogation of their duties to provide basic financial services. By abrogating their duties, they left a vacuum for these rip-off outfits to spring up.

Without getting too over the top on what these reprehensible companies are doing in my riding, one thing they are doing is charging to cash cheques. If people knew their banking rights and if the charter banks were living up to their obligations, people should know that the banks have to open a bank account for them. If people have one piece of ID, even if they do not have any money, a bank has to open a bank account for them. It is in the Bank Act.

Yet poor, low income people do not know this, so they get maybe a government cheque and have no place to cash it because they do not have a relationship with a bank because the bank has abandoned their community. They wind up at a payday loan outfit where they are charged 3% or 4% of their social allowance cheque to cash it. It is illegal to charge to cash a government cheque. Another thing people do not know about their banking rights, and the present and past governments have made no effort to tell them.

Governments have allowed this burgeoning mini-industry of preying on the misery of poor people by taking a chunk of their meagre paycheques to provide basic financial services. I am not overstating it to say that it is morally and ethically reprehensible to be in the payday loan industry. It is morally negligent for the government not to police this industry and not to prosecute anybody who would exceed the usury laws in the Canadian Criminal Code and charge 1,000% per annum. They should be locked up. They should be led away in handcuffs. They should be dragged away in a paddy wagon and locked up, and the key thrown away because there is no lower form of animal in my view than someone who would prey on human misery by exploiting the poor and the desperate in the inner cities.

I am no big fan of the big banks. We do not need to do a tag day for the big charter banks in this country, but we should be holding their feet to the fire and make them live up to their basic commitments, their basic obligations under the Bank Act.

Bill C-37 would have been an opportunity to remind the charter banks of their obligations. In the inner city of Winnipeg where I live and at the corner of Portage and Arlington where I had my campaign offices two elections in a row in two different vacant buildings there are six payday lenders on that one intersection within a half a block in any direction and they are open all the time.

For low income people in my riding, because these firms have been around for almost a decade, people carry their Money Mart card in their back pocket as if that is their ID. That is a poor man's credit card today which is a licence to cheat that person. It is not a credit card. It is not even an ATM card where people can get money using it. It is their identification because payday lenders are smart. They have nice clean tile floors, they are well lit and illuminated. People are treated with some dignity because they want to cheat them. People are sucked in that way, but that used to be the type of service that banks offered legally to neighbourhoods and communities. They were big clean places too where people could go with their paycheques and be treated with some dignity. All that is gone.

We have to remind our charter banks that there was a reason why we gave them the exclusive monopoly on certain very lucrative financial transactions and that was so that they would provide basic services whether we were in Plum Coulee, Manitoba or New Westminster, British Columbia, or in the heart of downtown Toronto, or wherever they are needed.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to enter the debate on Bill C-37. I thank my colleague for answering my questions and clarifying the view in the province of Quebec on some of these issues.

This is a massive piece of legislation affecting many consequential amendments and many pieces of legislation and acts. I may be proven wrong, but at first overview of the bill, I am afraid it may fail to address the single most compelling concern that we have about our financial and banking institutions and that is basic access to basic financial services for all Canadians.

I represent a low income riding in the inner city of Winnipeg. I can tell the House that there has been a flight of capital from the core area of the city of Winnipeg. My colleague from Western Arctic in his questioning of previous speakers told us today that there is a problem finding basic financial services in the rural and remote areas of Canada's north. This is a complex problem that is bigger than just an inconvenience.

In the core area of my riding of Winnipeg Centre, 15 neighbourhood bank branches have closed in the last five years. These branches have been there for 10 to 50 years. The bank that my parents banked at since 1948 when they were married and bought their first home also closed. This is a vote of non-confidence in the inner city.

Let me remind the House that our chartered banks are granted the exclusive monopoly on some very lucrative financial transactions, such as credit cards, in exchange for providing basic services to all Canadians even where that might not be the most profitable thing for them to do. That was the trade-off under which we granted their charters.

The Government of Canada should revisit these charters to ensure that our partners are in compliance with their obligations. In an era of record profits, I defy banks to justify why they are closing branches on every street corner in the inner city of Winnipeg. My colleague from Winnipeg North, who spoke before me, indicated that there had been 13 bank closures in her community.

Winnipeg Centre and Winnipeg North are venerable ridings with old established neighbourhoods full of hard-working people. These people trustingly trudged to the street corners year after year to cash their cheques at their banks. This is a thing of the past. I think it is a breach of trust. Banks have broken their contracts with Canadians because they are making record profits quarter after quarter. Every time we open the financial pages of newspapers we read about banks making record profits. We read in community newspapers about bank closures in the inner city of some major city or in rural Canada.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc made reference to the blossoming of payday lenders and payday loan companies in his riding. I can tell him that the same applies in my riding of Winnipeg Centre where these outfits are sprouting up like mushrooms and where low income people, poor people I believe, are being exploited by these companies because they cannot find basic financial services anywhere else in the country.

Does my colleague share this view with me that the government should crack down on the payday lenders who are charging exorbitant usurious rates of interest, criminal rates of interest, and that rather than simply regulating the payday loan industry, it should prosecute people who charge more than 60% interest per annum?

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2006, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I could not help but notice this. As my colleague was speaking about these outrageous tax loopholes, which still exist and are allowed to exist, both the Liberal and Tory members present were looking at their shoes. They were trying to pretend their laces were not tied so they would not have to look us in the eye and explain why on earth they allow these outrageous tax loopholes to continue, which allow tax fugitives to find tax havens.

In the context of trying to nickel and dime $1 billion out of virtually every social program, on which people our ridings have come to rely, how can the government knowingly and willingly show this wilful blindness? Sometimes I think the Tories view taxpayers the way P.T. Barnum viewed circus goers. They must think we are suckers if they think it is not ideologically driven to make cuts, yet show this wilful blindness and allow this egregious, outrageous loophole to continue on the other side.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague was not here for the earlier part of my speech. The NDP is not supporting the bill. The NDP is vehemently opposed to Bill C-24. In fact, my colleague from Burnaby--New Westminster was the sole voice on the standing committee that objected in the strongest possible terms to having this very flawed piece of legislation rammed down our throats.

Perhaps I misspoke or perhaps my colleague did not hear me clearly, but let me phrase it for him one more time. The NDP is opposed to Bill C-24. We will vote against it because we believe that we left $1 billion on the table, notwithstanding the very real point my colleague raises about there not even being any interest on that money. It is in actual fact the $5.3 billion of illegal duties taken by the United States. If we add even a nominal rate of interest, it is actually much more money than that currently.

We believe that $500 million that is going to the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports will be used to launch the next volley of assault toward the Canadian softwood lumber producers. In other words, we are financing through our own money that was taken from us illegally the next trade challenge against us.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there are two key areas that the NDP finds fault with in Bill C-24. The first is the money that was left on the table, the billion dollars that could have been rightfully returned back to the softwood lumber producers.

My colleague is saying that is the past and ancient history. In actual fact we have now financed the next attack of the American softwood lumber producers on Canadian softwood lumber producers because my colleague should not think for a minute that this is the end of the harassment by the Americans. This deal does not protect Canadian producers adequately.

The second objection the NDP has, which I cited earlier, is the whole issue of forfeiting our Canadian sovereignty in the administration of our own softwood lumber industry. I am sure my colleague would agree with me that the notion is fundamentally reprehensible that some other country should dictate to the province of Quebec how it manages its softwood lumber industry in that province. It is an affront to Canadian sovereignty. It is an affront to the jurisdictional sovereignty of the province of Quebec that it would now have to have any of these changes vetted through Washington before it would be allowed to change.

That means a change in stumpage fees, a change in cutting rights, or a change in the way that the forest is managed and administered would now have to be cleared through Washington. The Americans will try to ensure that this does not constitute any kind of a subsidy because in their minds almost everything that Canada does to look after our own best interests constitutes a subsidy.

We are damaged. We are suffering on two fronts: first, the pure financial aspect that we have $1 billion less to create jobs and to revitalize our industry, money that our softwood lumber industry players could have used to reinvest, retool, and use in research and development; and second, this affront to Canadian sovereignty that the Americans will now dictate how we manage our assets in the forestry industry.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the reason Bill C-24 is fiscally flawed is the payout is based on Canadian softwood exporters that are owed the equivalent of 95% of the total $5.3 billion in illegal duties paid to the U.S. We know full well that the Conservative government fell far short of the 95% target, despite contrary public representations which makes the special tax essential and imposes costs on taxpayers funding these advance payments.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to Canada's multiple NAFTA and WTO victories, the October 13 Court of International Trade judgment finally confirmed that Canada was very close to a decisive victory. Within 24 hours of Canada and the U.S. forcing the amended October 12 softwood lumber agreement, 19 pages of previously undisclosed amendments, the U.S. court declared that to recover all of Canadian industry money and to establish free lumber trade immediately, no agreement was necessary.

As of October 13, our worst fears were realized. The views of our member for Burnaby—New Westminster were validated, and we now know we made a terrible deal. We bargained from a position of weakness. Instead of standing up on our hind legs to the Americans and fighting for what was right, we bargained on our knees. No one stood up for Canada. People rolled over instead and accepted a substandard deal when we were a hair's breadth away from getting the whole kit and caboodle. The whole $1 billion could have been delivered to us.

Instead of a 100% return and fair and free trade, the government has seized $1 billion of the Canadian industry's money to complete its tax funding scheme and to deliver it to the U.S. government.

I wish I had time to explain for Canadians what section 18 of the softwood lumber agreement does, but it sets a precedent about which every Canadian in every industry sector should be very concerned.