Could You Be Debanked for Political Views? The Risk in Canada is Real Earlier this summer I had a rude awakening about our banking system here in Canada. I received a generic letter from the bank, saying the account I used to help people featured on this page would be shut down. It said the level of risk surrounding the account was outside of their risk parameters. No reasons were given as to how they had made that assessment. When I called the bank, I was also given no reasons. A decision had been made to cut me loose, and there was no getting around it. It was similar to other debanking letters I've seen circulating online. I was given a few months to find other options. Thankfully, I was able to find an alternative, but it scared me to learn that you can be debanked without reason and with no recourse. I've also had several other people approach me personally sharing how multi-decade relationships with a big bank were severed after mysterious circumstances, one in particular where the lady made a fair, but politically incorrect comment to the bank when frustrated. I've thought about this very seriously since receiving this letter, and have done some research surrounding the issue. The basic solution is to create a bank that refuses to debank people for political reasons. This is actually quite possible, provided there's enough people that want it. I have created an important survey in the comments below asking your thoughts on this idea. Please fill out this survey today. I've learned through my research that access to the banking system in Canada is not guaranteed, and you could be debanked for your political or other views without even knowing it. We saw an extreme example during the invocation of the Emergency Act, where various accounts were frozen, but it seems to be happening more regularly. Given advanced social credit systems in countries like communist China, any move in the direction to control access to our finances must be fiercely opposed. Access to banking is essential in our modern society. Paying or receiving a mortgage or line of credit, cashing cheques, sending e-transfers, paying bills, shopping in person and online, investing for retirement, receiving access to business credit and business banking services, and much more requires a bank. Without access, we'd have to deal entirely in cash, and self-protect all our wealth by burying it or storing it on our property. Access to investments and other ways to grow wealth would be very limited. Outside of limited exceptions, there is no positive right to access the Banking System in Canada. Banks can and do sever relationships with clients under the guise of "derisking" without any true recourse on behalf of the customer. I've seen several examples of this recently. For example, a prominent lawyer from the Emergency Act Inquiry (who grilled Trudeau himself) posted a letter online from a Big 5 bank showing they were terminating their relationship. The letter gave no reason other than saying the level of risk surrounding the accounts was outside of their risk parameters. There is a limited statutory right to have a basic personal account opened at a federally regulated bank, if you show up in person with proper ID. This is the limited exception noted above. Credit unions and many other institutions are not covered by this rule, and can refuse anyone for any reason (I have other stories dealing with credit unions, but will share them another time). Once the account is open, courts have confirmed that a bank can end the relationship, and the customer cannot force the account back open. The OBSI (Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments) states that banks are not required to explain why they close an account, and OBSI will not compensate if notice was given. You can complain through the OBSI, but they rarely force reinstatement. In practice, banks can and do shut down accounts without reason, and there's not much you can do. Another overt political example of debanking happened in the UK. Nigel Farage, a prominent politician in favour of Brexit, was debunked by a bank he'd been with for decades. He said 7 other banks refused him after this. He obtained an internal dossier where staff had written that his politics were "at odds with our position as an inclusive organization", and treated his profile as a reputational risk. When this came out, 2 key executives at this bank left or resigned. The bank settled with Farage, apologized, and paid an undisclosed sum. In Canada, it's not clear there would be any way to know if you were debanked for political reasons, nor would there be recourse. A March Financial Post article notes that the US and UK have taken serious measures to prevent de-banking and Canada should do likewise. It says: "The federal government has done nothing to stop the weaponization of the banking sector, while our banks have offered no assurances to Canadians concerned they might lose their accounts because of their political views or affiliations. Only one financial institution, Alberta-based Bow Valley Credit Union, has publicly committed not to de-bank its law-abiding customers." "The fact that Ottawa is not following our allies on this topic is not surprising, given that it was the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau that unconstitutionally coerced our banks to de-bank selected customers by means of the Emergencies Act...[in addition] Financial institutions, including banks, have maintained exclusions for the oil and gas sector for ideological, not fiscal or business, reasons." "Banks hold a government charter to conduct banking. That charter grants a privilege, but it also comes with the responsibility to stay focused on the purpose of banking. Withholding services based on the ideological alignment or political perspective of clients is overreach. As both customers and shareholders of the banks, Canadians need to hold them to account for any activity that strays from the business of banking." (emphasis added.) Banking should be open to all, and there should be no moral or political test to access the system. If a "freedom bank" existed that would never debank you for political or moral views, would fight tooth and nail in court against any government attempts to do so, and gave of its profits to its customers and the country, including key areas of concern like homelessness and addiction etc., would you be interested?
On February 28, 2021, in Myitkyina, Myanmar, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng saw heavily @rmed security forces approaching protesters near the clinic where she worked. 😧 Instead of stepping away, the Catholic nun walked toward them. Then she dropped to her knees in the street, stretched out her arms, and pleaded with the officers not to shoot the young protesters behind her.🥺 She was putting herself directly between the security forces and people who were seeking safety. Photographs of that moment quickly spread around the world. What looked like one quiet woman kneeling in the dust became one of the most recognizable images from Myanmar’s 2021 protests. Her courage brought international attention, and she was later named to the BBC’s 100 Women of 2021. Pope Francis also publicly referred to her act, saying, “I too kneel on the streets of Myanmar.” 🙏 But perhaps what makes this photograph so powerful is its simplicity. No weapon. No armor. No force. Just one person deciding that, for those few moments, she would place herself between danger and people who were vulnerable. Sometimes courage doesn't look powerful at all. Sometimes, it looks like simply refusing to move
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I know the MAGA cult believes Donald Trump can do no wrong, but what we're witnessing on this global stage is exactly why — long before politics — nobody who had ever done business with Trump could stand him and why he's been sued more times than possibly any other human being: because he's an incompetent, unethical, lowlife piece of crap. Trump supporters view him through a delusional, partisan lens of Republican vs. Democrat, and that's how they think we all view him as well. Except that's not true. At least not for me or most people, in my opinion. As I've stated plenty of times before, my disdain for Trump predates politics. I've known of the guy my entire life, and everything I had ever heard or seen about him told me he was a lowlife, a con artist, and a horrible person. The only person he has ever, or will ever, care about is himself. He will screw anyone over just as long as he feels doing so benefits him. Ask anyone familiar with his business dealings in New York City, where he was well known for constantly stiffing contractors and other small businesses out of the last 10–15% they were owed because he knew it would cost them more money to try to collect that money than what he might ultimately have to pay them. That was literally part of his “business strategy” — to abuse whatever power he had to screw over small and medium-sized businesses. To say nothing of the seemingly countless other lawsuits he faced for everything from fraud to racial discrimination. The main difference now is that we're seeing “Trump the businessman” try to run a country — and, unfortunately, that's exactly what he's doing. Which is why practically everything he's tried to do has failed — like most of his businesses — and why none of our allies can stand us right now. His disastrous and incompetent Iran war and the ongoing war in Ukraine are prime examples of that. Not only has Trump been unable to get any of our allies to help bail him out of the mess he created — with some of them openly dismissing and mocking him — he's also failed to control Benjamin Netanyahu, who's played him like the useful idiot that he is. Which is exactly why we're now in this seventh-month-long war with no end in sight, three-year-high inflation, and sky-high oil, gas, and diesel prices. That's a level of ineptitude that only pure “Trumpcompetence” could achieve. Netanyahu found his useful idiot, Donald J. Trump. Then there's the war in Ukraine. You know, the one he said he would end “very easily... with one phone call.” Except, approaching two years into his term, and despite the fact that he's done everything he can to suck up to Vladimir Putin, including rolling out a red carpet for him on American soil last year, the war rages on, and the Russian dictator couldn't care less what this president thinks of it. In fact, Putin just keeps making him look like a fool while Trump sits there and takes it, often continuing to parrot Russian propaganda and praising the dictator. We're living in a world right now where Trump's ignorance has managed to make our friends hate us, while our enemies are laughing at us as all this happens. We're increasingly isolated — much like Trump the businessman was when he was effectively pushed out of New York City for being a worthless piece of trash of a human being. So, while MAGA supporters can live in this delusional bubble of Trump fan fiction all they want, that's not going to change reality. And as I've said plenty of times before, this goes well beyond politics. Sure, I don't agree with his policies, but my rejection of him has nothing to do with what letter shows up next to his name on a ballot and everything to do with my moral stance to stand up to — and reject — what I view as disgraceful behavior lacking decency or empathy. An ugly person, both inside an out. The only difference now is that instead of Trump screwing up one of his businesses and ruining the partnerships associated with it while trying to enrich himself, he's doing that to this country and our allies — while his family's net worth continues to skyrocket. He doesn't care about this country, Iran, Russia, our allies, the Republican Party, or anyone who's voted for him. The only thing he cares about is himself and his own interests. And if he thought reducing the world to ashes just so that he could be king of the ash pile was in his interests, then that's exactly what he would do. Because he has been, and always will be, a lowlife piece of sh*t.
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