Bank Accountability Campaign
Advocating for stronger, more effectively enforced accountability measures for Canada's big banks and other financial institutions
Please send your letter now using the form on this page, and please help spread the word by Liking and Tweeting this page.
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Trudeau Liberal Finance Minister Freeland proposes to partially keep three of five election promises to close bank tax loopholes and stop gouging and abuse of bank customers
120,000+ petition calls on Finance Minister Freeland to impose permanent excess bank profits tax like England and Australia have, and also keep other election promises to close bank tax loopholes and stop gouging and abuse of bank customers
April 4, 2022 4:28AM
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Bank Accountability Campaign 1993-2011 archive (archive website)
While millions of Canadians and hundreds of thousands of small businesses are suffering from the coronavirus crisis, Canada's Big 6 Banks gouged out record profits of more than $46 billion in 2019 and more than $41 billion in 2020 and more than $57 billion in 2021!
That works out to almost $28 million in profit every hour banks are open – almost triple their profits in 2010!
While the Big Banks' profits dropped a little bit (12% overall) in 2020, from 2010 to 2019 the Big Banks' profits increased every single year, and increased again in 2021 by more than 40% compared to 2020!
The heads of the Big 6 Banks were also paid a total of $75 million in 2019 ($12.5 million each on average), and a total of $66.4 million in 2020 ($11 million each on average), and a total of $74.4 million in 2021 ($12.4 million each on average).
Canada's Big Banks make among the highest profits of any banks in the world because the federal government has protected them from competition and bailed them out and given them many favours over the past 50 years. The Big Banks have reaped their record profits every year for the past 10 years in part by:
firing thousands of people;
cutting services, and;
hiking fees and credit card interest rates to gouge you even more than they were already (even though interest rates have dropped to record low levels).
The Finance Minister is reviewing Canada's banking law right now – so please help make your voice heard by sending your letter now using the form on this page, and Liking and Sharing this page.
Canada's big banks make the highest percentage profits of any comparable banks in the industrialized world while doing far too little to give fair and equitable support to job-creating businesses across Canada.
In a Fall 2016 public consultation report, the federal government points to all these problems — including the fact that Canada's big banks control more than 90% of the banking market in the country, which gives them even more power to gouge and treat business and individual customers unfairly.
But still the federal government continues to fail to require the banks serve everyone well at fair prices, or to require responsible lending and investing, even though the government gave the banks a record $114 billion bailout in 2008-2009 (most of it by having CMHC purchase mortgages from the banks), and even though the federal government will likely bail out the banks again if they have any financial difficulties.
The federal government has an ongoing review of the Bank Act and Insurance Companies Act — so please let the government know you want Canada's banking law strengthened to prevent and penalize gouging and abuse of customers, businesses and communities by Canada's big banks.
In addition, the federal government has an ongoing public consultation process on the review process for bank mergers.
No matter what issue or problem concerns you, strengthening the federal bank accountability systems will help you win the changes and solutions you are pushing for.
Now is a key time to send a strong message to the leaders of all the federal political parties that you are fed up with the dishonest, unethical, secretive, unrepresentative, and wasteful actions of bank executives and you want key changes to make everyone involved in Canada's big banks act honestly, ethically, openly, responsibly and to prevent waste.
On bank honesty, ethics, openness, responsibility and waste prevention reforms, the federal government has not heard from citizens or citizen groups enough to counter the power of bank lobby groups. It is important that you let the government know that you want significant bank accountability reforms.
Canada's big banks spend about $500 million annually on their lobbying, protection and promotion efforts (advertising, lawyers etc.), including having about 100 full-time lobbyists across the country. In contrast, there are only about 5 citizen group lobbyists spending only about $50,000 annually on bank accountability efforts. As a result, Canadians must all work together and push hard if there is any hope to counter the bank lobby and win key bank accountability changes.
Democracy Watch and the nation-wide Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition (CCRC) that it coordinates, made up of 100 citizen groups from across Canada with a combined total membership of more than 3 million Canadians, are leading the push for key accountability reforms in Canada.
The bank mergers proposed in 1998 were stopped, but TD Bank was allowed to take over Canada Trust in February 2000, banks and other financial institutions continue to provide poor service to many Canadians, and bank mergers will likely be proposed in the future.
The federal government released a policy paper on financial services at the end of June 1999, and introduced draft legislation in the form of Bill C-38 on June 13, 2000, but Bill C-38 was derailed by the fall 2000 federal election.
Bill C-38 was re-introduced as Bill C-8 in February 2001, and was passed by Parliament in June 2001.
Bill C-8 contained some good measures, but left some key gaps in bank regulation (For details, see Comparison Between Bill C-8 and CCRC Recommendations).
In late 2006, the federal government introduced Bill C-37 (which passed in April 2007) but it contained a couple of ineffective measures that only slightly increase bank accountability in Canada (For details, see the CCRC's Analysis of Bill C-37).
In 2012, Bill S-5 was passed, but all it did was strengthen a couple of measures and increase penalties from $250,000 maximum to $500,000 maximum (which is much too low).
In December 2018, the Trudeau Liberals quickly passed budget Bill C-86 which contained some measures to strengthen financial consumer protection but did nothing to stop gouging by Canada's big banks.
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Send your letter to key politicians calling for changes to ensure Canada's big banks serve everyone fairly and well at fair prices, and support sustainable job-creating businesses and community development
(See list of politicians below)
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I am sending this email to call for changes to ensure Canada's big banks serve everyone fairly and well at fair prices, and support sustainable, responsible job-creating businesses and community development.
While businesses in many sectors across Canada were suffering, Canada's Big 6 Banks gouged out record annual profits of more than $57 billion in 2021. That works out to almost $28 million in profit every hour banks are open – almost three times higher than their profits in 2010.
The big banks also paid their CEOs $12.4 million each on average in 2021. Canada's Big 6 Banks reaped record profits over the past few years in part by firing thousands of people, cutting services, and hiking fees and credit card interest rates.
Canada's big banks make among the highest percentage of profit of any banks in the world while doing far too little to give fair and equitable support to job-creating businesses across Canada. But still the federal government continues to fail to require the banks serve everyone well at fair prices, or to require responsible lending and investing, even though the government gave the banks a record $114 billion bailout in 2008-2009 (most of it by having CMHC purchase mortgages from the banks), and even though the federal government will likely bail out the banks again if they have any financial difficulties.
The following 10 key changes are needed to ensure our big banks serve everyone well at fair prices, lend and invest our money responsibly to support sustainable, responsible job-creating businesses and community development, and remain Canadian-owned and controlled.
These changes are supported by Democracy Watch and the nation-wide Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition (CCRC) that it coordinates, which is made up of 100 citizen groups from across Canada with a combined total membership of more than 3 million Canadians, and they must be made to ensure better Canadian big banks:
Establish a Financial Consumer Organization (FCO) to help consumers (as recommended by the Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services Sector and a House and Senate committee in 1998), and an Individual Investor Organization (IIO), using a method that has been successfully used in the U.S., by requiring banks and other financial institutions to send email and mailed notices inviting their customers and shareholders to join the FCO and the IIO at a nominal annual membership fee (See details at: https://democracywatch.ca/fco/ and https://democracywatch.ca/individualinvestororg/);
Require banks and trust companies to provide detailed information on loans, investments and services to customers, as required in the U.S (to track whether banks are fairly meeting the needs of individuals and businesses on a community-by-community level and, as in the U.S., to require corrective action if banks are not fairly meeting customer needs);
Empower the Competition Bureau and Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) to conduct an audit of profits from service charges and credit card interest rates, and reduction in competition community-by-community across Canada, and savings from closing branches and firing tellers, over the past 15 years, and require banks to cut charges and open branches if past profits were excessive;
Prohibit any future service charge or credit card interest rate increases if the bank can't prove the increase is justified;
Fire the Canada Post board because, among other negligent actions, they have failed to pursue postal banking even though their internal report showed it would be feasible and profitable, and appoint a new board and give Canada Post a banking license to provide basic banking services and small personal lines of credit and small business loans at its branches across Canada.
Require banks and trust companies to disclose the profit/loss record for any branch proposed to be closed, to allow for a full review of the reasons for the closure;
Require banks and trust companies to prove that they have a fair, responsible and very good service, lending and investment record every year for the past 10 years as a mandatory condition for any financial institution bidding on federal government contracts;
Require the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Commissioner to conduct "mystery shopper" audits of financial institution compliance with laws at least every 3 years, and to disclose the name of the financial institution and the terms of settlement whenever the Commissioner finds that an institution has violated the law (currently, the Commissioner can only disclose the name of the institution if the Commissioner prosecutes the institution), and change the complaint process to require all financial institution to be covered by the Ombudsman for Banking and Investments (OBSI) and allow consumers to complain to the OBSI directly at any time without having to go first to their bank's ombudsman;
Give customers access to the money they deposit by cheque as soon as the cheque clears; and
Given that each of the big banks makes billions of dollars each year, increase the maximum penalty for violating the Bank Act from the too-low amount of $500,000 to the more effective penalty of $50 million.
Canadians have made it clear in every poll conducted over the past 15 years that they need, and want, better banks. Please close these gaps by passing a law to ensure that all financial institutions in Canada serve all Canadians fairly and well, use our money responsibly, and can be held accountable for poor lending, investment or service records. And please do not let Canada's banks take over any other financial institution, or merge together, before you have set up the Financial Consumer Organization (FCO) and Individual Investor Organization (IIO), and the strict bank lending, investment and service disclosure and evaluation system outlined above. Please let me know what steps you are taking to make these key banking and financial industry changes. My vote in the next election will very much depend on your response. I look forward to hearing from you.
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