Editor:
It’s always nice to be reminded of how financially well Canada’s big banks are doing.
“Canadian banks rake in dough,” said the headline buried way too deep in a recent Vancouver newspaper.
Apparently the country’s six big banks, including the Royal, TD, CIBC, BMO, Scotia and National netted themselves a whopping $35 billion in 2015.
You could almost see the smile on his face when Royal Bank CEO David McKay said it’s the first time that a Canadian company has crossed the $10-billion mark.
Hardly surprising that a bank would be the first to pull off such a feat, but there’s something very wrong if it can happen during a lengthy economic downturn, and in the very same year that we just happened to find ourselves in a so-call technical recession.
Perhaps this is something that our newly elected – and cash-strapped – Liberal government might want to have a look at. Because if they really are Canada’s middle-class champs, and future balanced-budget makers, then they must be willing to go places where political and corporate interests have been travelling in tandem for way too long. Places where plenty of economic stimulus and personal savings can easily be found.
Only then can we hope to achieve the kind of “real change” that Prime Minister Trudeau had so passionately promised us during the campaign.
John Freeman, White Rock
