CIBC called my $300K line of credit when I had some problems maintaining my financial ratios. The bank called in my loan and gave me 60 days to pay it down. I was denied a meeting with the individual who called in the loan and was told that the bank was not in the business of financing risk. My business grossed about $3.5M a year with a profit margin of between 3-5%. At the time I was not quick enough to question the risk they had taken with Dome Petroleum and Olympia and York. I moved my business to HSBC who took an interest in my business and worked with me to make the business a success. Today the business grosses about $15M with a healthy profit margin. No thanks to CIBC and the Canadian banking establishment.
This same story is playing out in much of the industrialized West. The root cause is that our free market capitalist system has been corrupted into a monolithic corporatist oligarchy by the globalist elite managerial and administrative class.
The control mechanisms of a working democratic capitalist system require copious competition and governance that ensures it. What we have instead is governance that seeks to ensure the wealthy elite grow more wealthy. Competition is eroded until a few large corporations control markets, and then their products grow more expensive and their service declines similar to the inflated cost and crappy service from their government benefactors.
This is somewhat a natural cycle of bloat that we see in large organizations. If the organization is facing competition, it will strive to clean up its act. TQM, business process reengineering, Six Sigma... there are a number of quality frameworks available to get the corporate house back in order.
If we look at the entire national economy as an organization, we have a need for a complete bureaucratic overhaul... breaking up large corporations, forcing them to divest, thinning regulation, taxes and fees for small business and working people. And no, taxing the wealthy so that these elite class looters can make the population more dependent on the oligarchy is not the answer.
The US elected Trump and the MAGA platform with hope that at least some of this will be addressed. Tariffs are part of that play because the US has a near $1 trillion per year trade deficit while having the 8th highest cost of living. Other countries have benefitted more from trade agreements, and the US does not extract, refine, make, build, grow and fix enough of its own products. Unfortunately Canada is led by the globalist oligarchy cabal that has also pulled in the radical woke feminist left to deflect from their considerate looting of Canadian resources and wealth. If Canadians had elected sane and rational leaders instead of the crap like Justine T., Trump would have someone to negotiate with and it is likely that Canada and the US would partner to grow stronger together.
I think the first step for Canada is to elect Pierre Poilievre and then get to work ripping the old guard out of power.
Excellent story. It's not just the banks why is Canadian company product distribution focused solely on the US and not focused on Canada as well. I would be interested more anayalis and reporting on other companies in the same situation.
Recently learned on an interview with a Leamington area politician who indicated the greenhouses in Kingsville will be hard hit due to US tariffs as most of their produce goes to US. I can buy some produce from those greenhouses in Toronto at specialty grocers but not at mainstream grocers. It was intriguing to me that Canada is not also a major market for them. Then yesterday I heard Loblaws indicate they were looking to source more Ontario produced items. Really what took them so long!
I also heard an interview with an entrepreneur from Montreal (sadly forgot the company name) that developed bandages that heal wounds faster and they have been very successful in selling to US hospitals etc. The owner lamented that their products is approved by Health Canada and yet it has been very hard to sell their products to Canadian hospitals even though Canada has an extremely poor record of effective wound healing for burns etc. Of course the Canadian health system has fall apart and the Canadian health philosophy is definitely not preventative or helpful assistance when one needs it.
There's some presumptuousness embedded in this overly-critical assessment of Canadian banking. Banks serve to preserve wealth as well as drain it. And the accumulation of wealth is a function of personal saving and financial management.
In few--if any--Canadian public schools do we teach personal finance and prudent saving. The average pre-retirement Canadian has accumulated only about $92,000 by 55-64. At these low savings rates, a single Canadian bank failure is a catastrophe. Over-stability assists in mitigating the impacts of personal financial ignorance.
I have several reflections on this. Firstly, several years ago I wanted to invest some money, and because of my own beliefs I wanted to invest in local small business. Since I am not a professional money manager, and don't know how to manage an investment, I looked for a professional fund to do this. I could not find one at any of my local banks or credit unions.
Secondly, I have long felt that we need to be producing for our own economy first. So we need to be manufacturing & growing what we need locally as much as possible, then trading for what we can't produce. For this to happen, it should be the responsibility of our banks to finance this. It should be the responsibility of our education system to train people to be a part of this. (Machinists, tool & die makers, not graduates from the humanities. Business schools should be training 30 year old people already working for a business to be managers, not 22 year old's who have never done anything.)
Next, thank you for talking about the connection between finance & the lack of affordable housing. This needs to explored in more detail.
You brought up the subject of the poor. One of the most egregious things in Canada the connection between Pay Day Loans & the banks, as well as the unbanked. Pay Day loans are an extremely profitable line of business for the banks, and the ownership of these companies is not transparent. If it were up to me, the Banks would be legally required as a condition of their charter to provide services to the Unbanked with minimal fees. Failure to do so should results in fines that are set at least 10 times the cost of serving the unbanked.
Finally, with respect to Bank Charges. So many of the charges are not transparent, and almost impossible to understand. For small business, the POS system (the machine that takes your payment) is a huge issue, and the customer has no idea of the charges the business is paying. I would like to see firstly that the charges must show on the receipt, and secondly I think they should be called "Bank Taxes" so that people understand that they are effectively paying tax to the bank every time they use their card.
CIBC called my $300K line of credit when I had some problems maintaining my financial ratios. The bank called in my loan and gave me 60 days to pay it down. I was denied a meeting with the individual who called in the loan and was told that the bank was not in the business of financing risk. My business grossed about $3.5M a year with a profit margin of between 3-5%. At the time I was not quick enough to question the risk they had taken with Dome Petroleum and Olympia and York. I moved my business to HSBC who took an interest in my business and worked with me to make the business a success. Today the business grosses about $15M with a healthy profit margin. No thanks to CIBC and the Canadian banking establishment.
This same story is playing out in much of the industrialized West. The root cause is that our free market capitalist system has been corrupted into a monolithic corporatist oligarchy by the globalist elite managerial and administrative class.
The control mechanisms of a working democratic capitalist system require copious competition and governance that ensures it. What we have instead is governance that seeks to ensure the wealthy elite grow more wealthy. Competition is eroded until a few large corporations control markets, and then their products grow more expensive and their service declines similar to the inflated cost and crappy service from their government benefactors.
This is somewhat a natural cycle of bloat that we see in large organizations. If the organization is facing competition, it will strive to clean up its act. TQM, business process reengineering, Six Sigma... there are a number of quality frameworks available to get the corporate house back in order.
If we look at the entire national economy as an organization, we have a need for a complete bureaucratic overhaul... breaking up large corporations, forcing them to divest, thinning regulation, taxes and fees for small business and working people. And no, taxing the wealthy so that these elite class looters can make the population more dependent on the oligarchy is not the answer.
The US elected Trump and the MAGA platform with hope that at least some of this will be addressed. Tariffs are part of that play because the US has a near $1 trillion per year trade deficit while having the 8th highest cost of living. Other countries have benefitted more from trade agreements, and the US does not extract, refine, make, build, grow and fix enough of its own products. Unfortunately Canada is led by the globalist oligarchy cabal that has also pulled in the radical woke feminist left to deflect from their considerate looting of Canadian resources and wealth. If Canadians had elected sane and rational leaders instead of the crap like Justine T., Trump would have someone to negotiate with and it is likely that Canada and the US would partner to grow stronger together.
I think the first step for Canada is to elect Pierre Poilievre and then get to work ripping the old guard out of power.
Excellent story. It's not just the banks why is Canadian company product distribution focused solely on the US and not focused on Canada as well. I would be interested more anayalis and reporting on other companies in the same situation.
Recently learned on an interview with a Leamington area politician who indicated the greenhouses in Kingsville will be hard hit due to US tariffs as most of their produce goes to US. I can buy some produce from those greenhouses in Toronto at specialty grocers but not at mainstream grocers. It was intriguing to me that Canada is not also a major market for them. Then yesterday I heard Loblaws indicate they were looking to source more Ontario produced items. Really what took them so long!
I also heard an interview with an entrepreneur from Montreal (sadly forgot the company name) that developed bandages that heal wounds faster and they have been very successful in selling to US hospitals etc. The owner lamented that their products is approved by Health Canada and yet it has been very hard to sell their products to Canadian hospitals even though Canada has an extremely poor record of effective wound healing for burns etc. Of course the Canadian health system has fall apart and the Canadian health philosophy is definitely not preventative or helpful assistance when one needs it.
C'mon now. You can get death on request.
Yep!
There's some presumptuousness embedded in this overly-critical assessment of Canadian banking. Banks serve to preserve wealth as well as drain it. And the accumulation of wealth is a function of personal saving and financial management.
In few--if any--Canadian public schools do we teach personal finance and prudent saving. The average pre-retirement Canadian has accumulated only about $92,000 by 55-64. At these low savings rates, a single Canadian bank failure is a catastrophe. Over-stability assists in mitigating the impacts of personal financial ignorance.
Brace for impact.
If you think it's bad now, just wait, 2 years from now you're going to be in a long cold line at the food bank.
Thank you Tara for opening up this conversation.
I have several reflections on this. Firstly, several years ago I wanted to invest some money, and because of my own beliefs I wanted to invest in local small business. Since I am not a professional money manager, and don't know how to manage an investment, I looked for a professional fund to do this. I could not find one at any of my local banks or credit unions.
Secondly, I have long felt that we need to be producing for our own economy first. So we need to be manufacturing & growing what we need locally as much as possible, then trading for what we can't produce. For this to happen, it should be the responsibility of our banks to finance this. It should be the responsibility of our education system to train people to be a part of this. (Machinists, tool & die makers, not graduates from the humanities. Business schools should be training 30 year old people already working for a business to be managers, not 22 year old's who have never done anything.)
Next, thank you for talking about the connection between finance & the lack of affordable housing. This needs to explored in more detail.
You brought up the subject of the poor. One of the most egregious things in Canada the connection between Pay Day Loans & the banks, as well as the unbanked. Pay Day loans are an extremely profitable line of business for the banks, and the ownership of these companies is not transparent. If it were up to me, the Banks would be legally required as a condition of their charter to provide services to the Unbanked with minimal fees. Failure to do so should results in fines that are set at least 10 times the cost of serving the unbanked.
Finally, with respect to Bank Charges. So many of the charges are not transparent, and almost impossible to understand. For small business, the POS system (the machine that takes your payment) is a huge issue, and the customer has no idea of the charges the business is paying. I would like to see firstly that the charges must show on the receipt, and secondly I think they should be called "Bank Taxes" so that people understand that they are effectively paying tax to the bank every time they use their card.