Financial System Review Act

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak to this legislation. The legislation does not make extraordinary changes to the Canadian banking system but I would like to speak to some of the changes that it would make.

The reality is that the Canadian economy is doing better than some of the other global economies with which we compete. There are three principal reasons for that. One is the fact that we do have a somewhat stronger fiscal situation than other countries, and I will speak to that in a moment. Second, we are riding a global commodity boom as a country that has a remarkable amount of natural resource wealth in oil and gas and minerals. Third is the prudential strength of our banks and our banking system.

I have heard throughout the debate today the Conservatives taking credit for all three. First, in terms of the fiscal situation, when the Conservatives were elected in 2006 they inherited the best fiscal environment of any incoming government in the history of Canada with a $13 billion surplus. The Conservatives spent through that surplus at a rate of three times the rate of inflation and put Canada into a deficit position even before the downturn of 2008.

Second, it is very hard for the Conservatives to take credit for the fact that we are benefiting as a country from an oil and gas and mining boom. The recovery, as it exists in Canada, is largely focused in a couple of provinces. Over 60% of the new jobs created in the last year were created in one province, Alberta. We know that we are hemorrhaging jobs in other parts of the country. We are seeing a bit of a Dutch disease where a commodity boom is shoving our dollar higher and is driving out and crowding out value added jobs in some of the other provinces, like Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.

However, the Conservatives almost seem to be taking credit for the strength of the overall numbers, which would be a little like saying that they were responsible for putting the oil and gas under the ground or the potash under the ground in Saskatchewan. They cannot take credit for that, obviously, and they cannot take credit for the oil and gas under the water off Newfoundland because everyone knows that was Danny Williams.

The fact is that it gets a bit silly in the House sometimes when the Conservatives go on and on taking credit for where the Canadian economy is when they did not really have a lot to do with the decisions made or the good fortune we have as a country in terms of our natural wealth.

The third area where the Conservatives have been doing this throughout the day is when they take credit for the prudential strength of the Canadian banks. It was, of course, in the nineties when Paul Martin, as finance minister, and Jean Chrétien, as prime minister, fought the global trend of deregulation of the financial services sector. At that time, people in the Reform Party were critical of the Liberal government and said that we were missing out on the global trend of deregulation and that--