Finance committee  Thank you. Basically ACORN's proposal was that the federal government backstop some of what we call the “fair credit benefit” for low- and moderate-income people, which could be administered by the banks. We know the banks will not themselves do this because they don't see any profit in doing so, and they're probably also evaluated on insolvency and stuff.

Finance committee  Yes, that's correct—but to fair credit.

Finance committee  We don't believe that this particular move will reduce access to credit. We've seen the payday loans case as well, when we had this campaign where we were pushing the provincial governments to lower the fee when it was around $21 for $100. Even then, the payday lending industry said that the access to credit is going to be reduced because there was a push to lower the fee from $21 to....

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  We know that credit cards charge anywhere between 20% and 22%, so a lower interest rate is definitely better than.... We know that even 35% is huge; it's not still a fair credit. For us at ACORN, we've been saying 30%. We know that there was a proposal by Senator Pierrette Ringuette, who was asking for 20%-plus the Bank of Canada prime rate.

Finance committee  That's right. Thank you so much for having us today. ACORN is very encouraged by the federal government's decision to lower the interest rate for installment loans from 48% to 35%. ACORN's fair banking campaign has been asking for this change for years now, and we're happy it is finally happening.

Finance committee  Thank you. I'm sorry about that. ACORN is very encouraged by the federal government's decision to lower the interest rate for instalment loans from 48% to 35% APR. The evidence, through a series of surveys and testimonies of low- and moderate-income people, refutes the claims of lenders that it helps people in any way or improves their credit scores.