Industry committee  Yes. If you look at slide 10 of the deck I gave you, where we look at the obstacles to accepting electronic payments, the fourth one, at 26%, says “concerned with online security”. We delved into this further. It's related to the fear that they become liable, of course, should

Industry committee  It really depends, obviously, on the rates they are able to negotiate, but in addition to that, of course, is the cost of setting up the systems. No, I don't have any exact numbers of what that could look like, but certainly we know when premium cards were introduced into the mar

Industry committee  We always knew when the code of conduct was introduced in 2010 that it would be a document that needed to be updated constantly. We do think it's in need of updating today, including adding some provisions around mobile payments, on which there have been some good consultations d

Industry committee  To have a balanced budget?

Industry committee  That is very important to our members. It's among one of the top two or three most important issues for our members, that governments at all levels look to find ways to bring budgets back into balance as soon as possible.

Industry committee  The data you just quoted came from one of our surveys, where we do know that 80% of our members are still using cheques for business-to-business transactions. That's really where the biggest hurdle is: it's these business-to-business types of payments. For business-to-consumer tr

Industry committee  We believe that we need to look at things like surcharging. I agree, most of our members are not going to want to surcharge, and I understand that. The point behind the idea of allowing the surcharging is that it gives power back into their hands. We know in other international e

Industry committee  It includes the banks, the credit card companies. I believe the Consumers' Association of Canada, and the Retail Council of Canada are part of it as well. I don't think it's all the banks. I don't sit on it, but our president, Dan Kelly, does. I believe that's the mix. It's a mi

Industry committee  It probably started about the beginning of this year or late last year. They are meeting every two to three months. They have a meeting this week.

Industry committee  It's not an easy balance. The credit card industry in Canada is dominated by two or three, and maybe now four, players, given the entry of Discover into Canada. Given that they have such a dominance in that particular market, we believe there needs to be a little bit of oversigh

Industry committee  Absolutely. As I said, I think that mobile technologies as well as digital technologies have been great for small businesses because they have given them an avenue to the world and to customers, putting them almost on par with larger competitors. On the Internet everyone is sort

Industry committee  I hate to tell you this, but it's already hitting the consumer. I mean, the merchant fees are being put into the price of the product. The way it is today, anybody who pays cash or uses Interac is subsidizing those who are paying by credit card, because the merchants have to inco

Industry committee  That's right. But this way, at least you're only charging those people who choose to use maybe a premium credit card. That's where we would like to see it. Most of our members who would surcharge.... Frankly, as I said, we believe that the vast majority are not going to do it.

Industry committee  We haven't actually asked our members about that particular model. What we would always have to look at is what the cost of it would be to that community and where it was going to get the funds to create that kind of wireless system. This would be a big concern for us; municipali

Industry committee  It's all about priorities, isn't it? It's about what the priorities are at the municipal level and whether this is the priority, when you ask a small business owner what a municipality should be investing in. It's a great idea, but whether it's at the top of the list....