Dear Friend,
We hope all is as well as can be with you and yours in this ongoing difficult time.
Thank you very much for signing the petition calling for key measures to Make Canada's Big Banks Help More during the COVID-19 crisis, and after, at:
https://www.change.org/p/make-canada-s-big-banks-help-during-coronavirus-and-after
Please also click here now to send a letter directly to Prime Minister Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland calling for these key changes to be made now!
Many people have done much more to help than Canada’s Big Banks in the past year.
The Big Banks had record profits every year, year after year, from 2010 to 2019, and despite the coronavirus crisis they still gouged out more than $41 billion in profits in 2020 and paid their CEOs an average of $11 million each.
According to Fortune magazine’s Global 500 ranking in 2020, 4 of Canada’s Big 6 Banks are in the top 50 most profitable banks in the world!
The Big Banks can afford to do more than the very few things they have done over the past year – all they have done is allow only some people to not pay their mortgage or credit card payments for a few months (but all those people had to pay back those amounts after).
The Big Banks and their multi-millionaire executives are a powerful lobby group – that’s why they have been able to keep their gouging credit card interest rates and fees so high for the past 30 years.
However, as this HuffPost article about this campaign makes clear, with the Big Banks gouging profits heading up even higher in 2021, the pressure is growing on the federal government to Make the Big Banks help more.
But Finance Minister Freeland and the federal government need to be pushed more – they have done nothing to require the banks to give everyone who needs it a real break, and have done nothing to ensure the banks don’t continue gouging and treating their customers unfairly after the crisis is over.
The federal government also continues to refuse to make the Big Banks pay their fair share of taxes to help pay the costs of the crisis. Canada's Big Banks pay an average tax rate of only 16% each year -- lower than banks in other G7 countries.
The Big Banks are the biggest tax evaders of all Canadian big businesses and, not surprisingly, also the most profitable.
Please click here now to send a letter directly to Prime Minister Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and other key federal politicians calling for key actions now to Make Canada's Big Banks Help more during the COVID-19 crisis, and after, including by making them pay their fair share of taxes.
For more details, click here to see Democracy Watch recent news release.
Your time to be heard and counted is now!
All together, we can make a difference,
Duff, Josephine, David and everyone at Democracy Watch
P.S. Please click here to help keep this campaign going to win key changes to stop big bank gouging, unfairness and tax evasion! Even $5 a month will help win protections for you and your family.