Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use today’s opportunity to return to one of my favorite subjects, which happens to be the consumer affairs protection division, or lack thereof, Mr. Speaker.
Many Northerners continue to wait for any action from this division and certainly by the Minister and for years have been continuing to raise issues about the restrictiveness and confusing concerns around cell phone contracts, problems around homeownership purchasing, protection, the fact that homes don’t require full disclosure under protection rules, and payday loans continue to hold people at risk, at prey and vulnerable.
I’ve gone on relentlessly about the high cost of gasoline and how they affect the cost of living. There are so many other issues when it comes to collection agencies and certainly home renovation repairs.
Municipal and Community Affairs seems to not be interested in this issue. While I sit and watch, it certainly pales in comparison to the action taken across Canada by other governments. Why won’t this government budge? It appears this Minister is either not interested in these issues or, as constituents ask me, does he just not care about consumer protection or does he not understand consumer protection? People want to know, does he just believe everything’s fine or is he stubborn? We just don’t know.
The constituents ask me how do we know he even appreciates the issue. I just don’t have an answer for them. I’ve been asking for years. When you pay some of the highest gas prices in the land in our remote, northern communities, you often wonder if you are being taken advantage of and you don’t know where to go. When our phone bills hold you over a barrel, people want to know how to access services to find out if they are being treated fairly.
Many services go on and on and on, but people don’t know what their full rights and disclosure and protections are. That’s why we need a consumer affairs division that is public and not anonymous.
Speaking of that, many months ago, if not a good year and a half ago, I asked the Minister of MACA to make this public, not anonymous. This office continues to hide behind I don’t know what, some web page.
I went to the web page because I actually know where to go. There is very little information on how to contact this particular office, so when the Minister says it’s a very busy office, perhaps not from complaints. I’m not sure what they do.
The bottom line is we need a public office that helps citizens know their rights, understand their rights and so they know where to go. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
