Hon. Céline Hervieux-Payette:

Honourable senators, as the Deputy Chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, I would like to add a few comments and recognize the cooperation of all those who participated in the committee's work.

The government has called this bill technical, but I would like to remind the honourable senators that there has not been any consultation with the general public since 1995.

The Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce produced a report that led to the 1995 reform. This resulted in unprecedented economic stability in Canada, stability that my colleagues are very pleased to mention on a regular basis. At that time, we toured Canada. It has therefore now been 15 years since a public consultation was held.

I would like to remind those who were not here and who did not follow the debate at that time that the Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce travelled across Canada, held public hearings and listened to Canadians and special interest groups, who made recommendations after participating in the debate or discussion. Thus, all Canadians participated in the review. Although this legislation was passed under a Liberal government, I would like to remind the honourable senators that the legislation was in the interest of all Canadians and that both Liberals and Conservatives participated in the reform.

Unfortunately, for 15 years, we have not had this type of indepth reform of the legislation. Although the government has said this bill is technical, it is not technical to note that the cost of enforcing some provisions will increase from $8 billion to $12 billion. This is a funding issue. There have not been any indepth discussions. Perhaps we need $20 billion instead of $12 billion. It was in the bill.

The bill was introduced as follows. In September 2010, the Department of Finance published a working document on its website and 30 special interest groups in the field of finance responded. Of these 30 groups, 27 responded anonymously and three identified themselves.

As a member of the Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, I have no knowledge of the 27 financial groups in Canada that provided suggestions to the government. We do not know if these people got what they wanted. We do not know who made the suggestions.

We did meet with certain groups, it is true. We heard from certain witnesses who told us that the government ignored more than one of their recommendations, but we did not have the opportunity to discuss the matter further.

All that is to say, honourable senators, that I hope we will not wait another 10 years for any reforms. In 2016, it will be 20 years since the legal review of the Bank Act, which affects all financial institutions, was carried out with the participation of all Canadians. It is a fundamental pillar of our economy.

I think that everyone realized that the work done the last time was in depth, with the participation of everyone, including consumers, which was not the case this time.

I remind honourable senators that Mr. Carney's report would perhaps be a little rosier and we would be in a little less debt if there had been a different position on some sections in this act, if the interest rate had been examined carefully and if there had truly been some thought given to whether this served the interests of Canadians.

Earlier I mentioned that I received one of the last credit cards from a Canadian company with an interest rate of 29.9 per cent. I think that all senators here probably pay off the balance on their cards at the end of the month. People who have several payments to make do not always manage to pay off their balance and if they have excessive interest rates of 29.9 per cent, with the balance every month, often the amount of purchases and the interest will be almost the same, so the consumer could end up paying about 100 per cent interest, even though that is in violation of our Criminal Code.

We need a much more in-depth review to deal with the challenges Canada might face. It is true that Mr. Flaherty sometimes says that we may run into some problems. However, Mr. Carney recently said that Canada is heading toward some very serious economic problems, that the global situation will affect us eventually, and that if the interest rate is increased, a number of people will have difficulties paying their bills.

Honourable senators, even though we are supporting Bill S-5, which does not provide comprehensive reform, I want my colleagues to know that this bill is simply a draft to allow us to study the problem more thoroughly and that we should be looking far more closely at reforming the Bank Act.

Honourable senators, I want to reiterate that this affects trusts, insurance, cooperatives, large and small banks and foreign banks. This sector needs to be reviewed in depth. We have not finished determining what measures will have to be taken so that Canada, which has a large deficit that grows larger every year, does not end up in the same situation as Europe and is not required to cut very important programs such as health insurance and can have a stable economy that allows us to go back to having a balanced budget.

We will support this bill even though it does not go far enough.

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