Finance committee  On that point, I'd simply like to point out that the government stated in the June White Paper that it would propose a voluntary approach to all stakeholders. The federal government does not regulate all stakeholders with regard to payment systems. It regulates the banks and othe

Finance committee  I don't think the problem is entirely disregarded. Moreover, the consumer associations will be invited to work on the development of this code. The Department of Finance will be acting somewhat as a leader in this field and will invite the representatives of the provinces, the co

Finance committee  When we talk about a voluntary approach, we're not talking about a process in which providers simply do what they want to do. We're also talking about a code whose implementation is potentially monitored by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. Second, for these payment method

Finance committee  There's one amendment in particular in the bill, which in fact we've discussed with the Co-operative Union...the CUCC—sorry, I have the acronym, but I forget the different parts—that is allowing a retail association of credit unions to be created with a lower threshold. Currently

Finance committee  We're seeing whether we can propose better wording.

Finance committee  As regards the $50 limit, I'm told it applies under provincial legislation, in Quebec and in British Columbia.

Finance committee  Since then, we've had talks with the association, and we're now studying how we can ensure that, from a technical standpoint, the wording of the bill produces the result we wanted to achieve, that is to say to ensure that consumers have relevant information on registered products

Finance committee  I don't know which act it is, but it's under a provincial act. Some credit card issuing companies, including the best known ones, have no-liability policies. Consumer liability is nil. That's a deliberate gesture by those institutions to promote their corporate image and to insp

Finance committee  I think the issue is as the minister explained. It's trying to look to ways to encourage that we have strong Canada-based global corporations, including banks in this case, or insurance companies. With insurance companies—for example, life insurers—the large ones derive about 60%

Finance committee  The ideas were presented to us a few days ago, Mr. Chair. That said, we have to complete our analysis, which we'll do as soon as possible in order to determine whether a technical amendment would enable the government to achieve its objectives more effectively. I think that, if

Finance committee  I think you may be giving yourself a way to have a stronger Canadian identity internationally.

Finance committee  Yes. That consultation will likely include all the stakeholders in the payments system.

Finance committee  I would simply add that the operators of what we call these white label terminals are not regulated by the federal government. Businesses operate these networks and connect to the Interac network, but there isn't any regulation.

Finance committee  There are a number of issues that we're working on outside the scope of this bill, issues that we'll continue to work on. I mentioned the voluntary code for electronic transactions, which is an important one, we think. The issue was raised of a common securities regulator. We thi

Finance committee  I'd like to add a final comment, if I may. A number of good questions have been asked about electronic payments. They were questions asked by a number of members concerning the time that elapses between the moment payments are withdrawn from an account and when they are deposite