There has been some contentiousness for a while now about one of the claims COMER makes about the Bank of Canada. It regards articles 18 (i) and (j) of the Bank of Canada Act: "Business and Powers of the Bank "18 The Bank may "(i) make loans or advances for periods not exceeding six months to the Government of Canada or the government of a province on taking security in readily marketable securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province; "(j) make loans to the Government of Canada or the government of any province, but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not, in the case of the Government of Canada, exceed one-third of the estimated revenue of the Government of Canada for its fiscal year, and shall not, in the case of a provincial government, exceed one-fourth of that government’s estimated revenue for its fiscal year, and such loans shall be repaid before the end of the first quarter after the end of the fiscal year of the government that has contracted the loan;" It was thought by some this power was never used. But that is untrue, the Bank of Canada has indeed made advances to both the feds and the provinces. The reason it seemed impossible to verify is because, first, the Stats Canada tables showing the Bank of Canada's balance sheet do not show "advances to Government of Canada" by default, and second, because those tables do not show earlier than 1953. http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a47 In the table you will see a link "Add/Remove data", click on it. Under "Step 2- Select: Assets and liabilities" select the checkbox for "Advances to Government of Canada (Terminated)". Down below choose the range of years you want to see, starting at Jan 1953. So the claim that advances were never made can be disproven by two advances to the GoC, one for $15 million in Jan of 1953 and $9 million in 1961. But only two instances does not make a very strong argument, what about prior to 1953? Well, for that one must dive into the Canada Gazette archives. http://www.gazette.gc.ca/archives/archives-eng.html Here you will find grainy scans of this ongoing annual report on the activities of the federal government and its agencies. This report includes the debt, expenditures and revenues, and of course, many balance sheet statements of the BoC. It takes some navigating to get used to it, but once you get the hang of it it's possible to look up just about anything crossing the feds desks that year, including every divorce and bankruptcy. But it's incredibly difficult to research the BoC with all those past balance sheets buried in the Canada Gazette. Luckily one of our allies, Understanding Canada, has done all that work and compiled every BoC monthly balance sheet from it's inception in 1935 to the beginning of the Stats Canada tables in 1953. https://understandingcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/BoC-balance-sheet-1935-1952.pdf It shows, not often, but in multiple instances, advances made to both the feds and the provinces. One would have to dig deeper to find which provinces got what, but the total was $3 million in 1936 ($52,905,405.41 in today's dollars and when our population was 30% of what it is now), the only time it happened. Not to mention of course the substantial number of federal and provincial bonds the BoC was holding. In the fight for monetary sovereignty there is alot of financial jargon, unfamiliar concepts and accounting practices, and generally information that becomes exclusive due to its difficulty in deciphering. But evidence speaks for itself, and if we can educate and arm ourselves with that evidence, we get the leg up on the neoliberal ideologues who brush off monetary reform with specious notions of "inflation" and central bank "independence". Do not be fooled, but do your best to learn about our current monetary system first, before you try to debunk it or suggest alternatives. In alot of ways the financial system is very solid in Canada, it's just being used for private profit instead of public needs. All it needs is political will to reform it, but monetary reform is just not on the minds of voters. It's time we changed that... https://understandingcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/BoC-balance-sheet-1935-1952.pdf