Statement made on 11 December 2009 by Senator Pierrette Ringuette
Hon. Pierrette Ringuette:
Honourable senators, at a time when Canadian parliamentarians are anxious to return home to be with their families for the holiday season, many Canadian families are facing the most financially difficult winter they have seen in over 20 years.
Yesterday, all our Canadian newspaper headlines read as follows: "National Bank Profits More Than Triple"; "CIBC Profits Beat Expectations"; "Bank Profits on Fast Track"; "Record Bonuses at Canada's Banks."
I will quote this article:
Bonuses at the country's six largest banks will reach a record $8.3-billion for fiscal 2009, an increase of 18 per cent from last year and about 4-per-cent higher than in 2007, according to an analysis by The Globe and Mail.
These are the financial institutions that all Canadian taxpayers supposedly bailed out in the last eight months in the following way: $60 billion buyback of mortgages; $12 billion buyback of auto leasing; $30 billion liquidity from the Bank of Canada.
There may be more than the figures I have just stated, but at least we know that the taxpayers of Canada provided $102 billion to those financial institutions and that, today, before the worst Christmas and winter Canadians have faced, those financial institutions are recording major profits and major bonuses.
How can we accept that our taxpayers are still paying record rates of interest on credit cards, between 18 and 30 per cent, at the same time that the Bank of Canada overnight rate is at 0.25 per cent and the average prime rate is at 5 per cent? How can we accept that it is okay that our Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act provides greater security to banks than to employees and retirees? Where have our principles of fairness and overall respect for our Canadian citizens and their families gone?
Last, but not least, this quote:
We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership, and maybe leadership in general. Tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and greed, both terrible traits.
Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability. . . . In too many situations, leaders divided us instead of bringing us together.
That is a statement by Jeffrey Immelt, head of General Electric. His remarks were made at West Point.