Finance committee  Thank you very much to the committee for this opportunity to present on Bill C-37. The Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition, which I chair, is a coalition of a hundred anti-poverty, community economic development, consumer, labour, and citizen groups that represent, in tot

Finance committee  If I could, I'll just make one more point.

Finance committee  Overall, in the long term, we have a completely unbalanced marketplace. The way to balance it, at no cost, is for the federal government to simply require institutions to enclose a one-page envelope--like this--when they mail out their bank statements or credit card bills or insu

Finance committee  In the meantime, I simply say that I agree.

Finance committee  I hope so, but perhaps not, since—

Finance committee  Exactly, and the parties have already supported the bill at second reading. So you cannot change the principles of the bill at this point. However, I think that changing the whole legislative regime for federal financial institutions should be a priority in the future.

Finance committee  It's really an imbalance of resources and, as a result, power. I mean, there are 100 full-time bank lobbyists. I spend a quarter of my time on banking issues, and I'm sure John doesn't spend much more, and there are a couple of others. So it adds up to one person. When you're out

Finance committee  You'd have to get the advice from the parliamentary counsel. Certainly the cheque-holds are within the bill, so you could change that such that people have a right to their funds as soon as the cheque clears, which in 98% of the cases would be the next day, as opposed to after fo

Finance committee  I could suggest that overall you would have a much better answer than we would, because you are the ones who are lobbied. You could pose a question, for example, to your committee colleague Mr. McCallum, who expressed concern about credit card interest rates several years ago, wh

Finance committee  The government has tried pretty much everything so far, and the competitors don't step up. Why? Because the best locations are already taken, and the start-up costs are enormous. Foreign banks have testified to that now for 15 years. When you have a market such as that, as we d

Finance committee  No, there are enormous barriers.

Finance committee  Not that much, actually, now, given what has been done under the WTO agreement, and also through Bill C-8. But you just don't see them opening up branches. The only one that really has a branch network is HSBC, who bought their branch network. Other than that entry point, whi

Finance committee  No, but when you--

Finance committee  The coalition is not proposing a particular percentage. We would like to see a system that requires the banks to release information on loan applications. The banks grant loans to consumers. The United States have a system and a method to determine whether the person asking for t

Finance committee  We do not want a percentage. We want exactly the same system as already exists in the United States.