10 Key Rules for Fair, Democratic Minority Government

1. Until the Governor General has communicated directly with all the party leaders, the Governor General will not make a decision about which party or parties (through either a formal coalition or legislative agreement) will be given the opportunity to govern first (i.e. to appoint a Cabinet and introduce a Speech from the Throne in Parliament);
2. The party that wins the most seats in the election will be given the first opportunity to govern, including in partnership or coalition with another party, unless the leaders of other parties representing a majority of members of the legislature indicate clearly to the Governor General that they will not support that party and that they have agreed to form a coalition government or have agreed on a common legislative agenda;
3. Within 30 days after the Governor General decides which party or parties will be given the first opportunity to govern, the Governor General and the governing party/parties will open Parliament with a Speech from the Throne;
4. Even if the leaders of parties that represent a majority of members of the House of Commons do not indicate lack of support for the party that wins the most seats before that party’s Speech from the Throne, if they subsequently indicate lack of support for the Speech, the Governor General will not allow the Prime Minister-designate to prorogue the legislature before the Speech from the Throne is voted on by members of the House of Commons;
5. If a majority of members in the House of Commons vote against the Speech from the Throne, the Governor General, before agreeing to any request by the Prime Minister’s to call an election, will give the opposition parties an opportunity to govern if they present a written agreement to the Governor General for either a formal coalition or legislative agreement;
6. After the vote on the Speech from the Throne, the only vote in House of Commons that shall be a vote of non-confidence is a vote on a motion that states: “The House of Commons does not have confidence in the government.”
7. If opposition parties introduce a motion of non-confidence in the governing party at any time after election day, the Governor General will not allow the Prime Minister to prorogue the legislature before the motion is voted on by the House of Commons;
8. If a majority in the House of Commons votes to approve a motion of non-confidence in the governing party before the next fixed-election date, the Governor General will, before agreeing to any request by the Prime Minister that the Governor General call an election, give the opposition parties an opportunity to govern if they present a written agreement to the Governor General for either a formal coalition or legislative agreement;
9. As Britain’s fixed election date law set out, if a majority in the House of Commons votes to rescind the vote of non-confidence within two weeks after the vote passed, then an early election will not occur, but if the vote is not rescinded then the Prime Minister is required to request the Governor General to call an election, and;
10. As Britain’s fixed election date law set out, the Prime Minister is prohibited from calling an early snap election before the fixed election date unless a majority in the House of Commons have approved a voted of non-confidence and the vote has not been rescinded by a majority.

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(August 2025)

Both watchdogs too weak in powers, and enforcement attitude, to protect financial consumers and investors

The federal government’s Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) has a very weak enforcement record since it was created in 2003.

It has made only 145 compliance rulings, is prohibited from naming a law-violating bank unless it prosecutes the bank, and it has only prosecuted 2 banks (neither of them a Big 6 bank). The FCAC not only lacks resources by comparison to the similar watchdog agencies in Britain and the U.S., it is also clearly a lapdog compared to these two other agencies.

According to an article by Reuters in March 2017, and Democracy Watch’s research of fines imposed since then, the FCAC has issued fines totalling just $20 million since 2001 in the 145 rulings it has issued.

In contrast, since 2013 when it was created until the end of 2024, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued penalties totalling 4.76 billion pounds ($8.86 billion Can.), and since 2011 when it was created up to January 2025, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) imposed penalties totalling $24.7 billion U.S. ($34.1 billion Can.).

Key consumer protection rules need to be strengthened, and the FCAC must be required to do unannounced, mystery-shopper audits to find violations, required to publicly identify financial institutions who violate the rules, and required to impose high fines on violators. The FCAC hasn’t done unannounced audits since 2005, tipped off the banks in March 2017 about the audit they did through the rest of 2017 on abuses, and then allowed the banks to see the draft audit results and suggest changes that weakened the report.

Meanwhile, former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, and former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, did nothing, and current Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland moved as slowly as possible to require TD, Royal, Scotiabank or National Bank to stop using their own complaint judges and return to the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI — which finally happened in November 2024).

All banks and investment companies should be required to use OBSI, and allow financial consumers and investors to complain directly to OBSI without having to go through a financial institution’s internal complaint system, and OBSI’s rulings on complaints by bank customers and investors must be made binding in every case.

An FCAC report released in February 2020 showed that the banks have a horrible record of dealing with financial consumer and investor complaints, especially the banks that use their own complaint judges.

And while the maximum fine allowed under the Bank Act was finally increased in 2018 to the meaningful penalty of $50 million, it is very unlikely the FCAC or a court will ever impose the maximum fine so they must be required to impose a minimum fine of at least $1 million for each violation, and a sliding scale of required penalties for more serious violations up to the $50 million maximum fine for the most serious, systemic violations.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) and the Ombudsman (OBSI) will continue to be ineffective until the federal government gives them key powers and requires them to use those powers to audit banks and other financial institutions regularly and to penalize every violation with a high fine (there should be minimum fines for various violations of at least $1 million, and the maximum fine should be $50 million) and public naming and shaming.

Finally, to ensure the FCAC and OBSI do their jobs properly, and to ensure that financial consumers and investors have help when complaining to the FCAC and OBSI, require banks, trust and insurance companies to promote in their mailings and emails to customers that they can join an independent, consumer-run Financial Consumer Organization (FCO – as recommended in 1998 by the MacKay Task Force, and the House Finance and Senate Banking committees) so consumers have a place to call for help if they are gouged or treated unfairly, and to get fully independent, expert advice (See details at: https://democracywatch.ca/question-and-answers-about-the-proposed-financial-consumer-organization/). Also, banks and the largest mutual fund companies must be required to promote in their mailings and emails to customers that they can join an independent, consumer-run Individual Investor Organization (IIO – as recommended by an Ontario legislative committee in 2006) so they have have a place to call for help if they are ripped off or treated unfairly, and to get fully independent, expert advice (See details at: https://democracywatch.ca/question-and-answers-about-individual-investor-organization-iio/).

For more information, see Democracy Watch’s
Bank Accountability Campaign

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(December 2024)

Controlling the market, and gouging out world-leading, record profits year after year for the past decade, while reducing service and treating many customers unfairly

According to Finance Canada, despite the lowering of barriers to competition 20 years ago under a World Trade Organization agreement, Canada’s Big 6 Banks:

• Bank of Montreal (BMO)
• Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)
• National Bank
• Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
• Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank)
• Toronto Dominion Bank (TD)

control 93 per cent of all banking assets, and are more profitable than comparable banks in other countries, and than small banks in Canada, and Canada’s corporate sector overall. The big banks control of the market essentially allows them to gouge and abuse customers with excessive fees, high interest rates (especially on credit cards). As a result, government regulation is needed to stop them.

The federal government bailed out the banks with $114 billion in mortgage purchases during the financial industry fraud crisis in 2009. It hasn’t required the banks to do anything in return for that bailout, or for the protections from foreign competition that the government has given the banks since 1967.

Canada’s Big 6 Banks reported, yet again, excessively high annual profits totalling $51.28 billion in 2024, $30 billion higher than their 2010 profits, all reaped through gouging their customers with excessively high credit card and other credit interest rates and mutual fund and other banking fees.

The banks gouged all Canadians who had loans back in 2015 by failing to lower their interest rates as much as the Bank of Canada had lowered its interest rate, and then the banks abused everyone with savings accounts by failing to increase their deposit account interest rates as much as the Bank of Canada when it began raising its interest rate in 2022.

Canada’s Big 6 Banks also paid their CEOs an average of $11 million each in 2023, and the average increased to $12.3 million in 2024 – 55% higher than in 2008).

Canada’s Big 6 Banks handed out $23.75 billion in bonuses to their employees in 2024, 12% more than the $21.2 billion total in bonuses.

The federal government also continues to refuse to make the Big Banks pay their fair share of taxes. Canada’s Big Banks pay a tax rate of only 16% — lower than banks in other G7 countries. The Big Banks also exploit tax loopholes more more than all other Canadian big businesses. England imposed a permanent annual excess profits tax on its banks in 2011, and Australia did the same in 2017.

For more information, see Democracy Watch’s
Bank Accountability Campaign

(August 2025)

Democracy Watch’s letter-writing campaign and petition call for the following key bank accountability changes needed to make Canada’s Big Banks give everyone a break on interest rates and fees, pay their fair share in taxes, and treat everyone fairly, now and after the coronavirus crisis is over:

1. Require banks to cut credit card interest rates in half now (as they are at a gouging level now, and always have been excessively high), and allow people renewing their mortgages to re-renew without a penalty at a lower interest rate if interest rates decrease over the next few years, and require them also to lower all their interest rates at exactly the same time as the Bank of Canada lowers its interest rate over the next few years;
2. Require banks, trust and insurance companies to promote in their mailings and emails to customers that they can join an independent, consumer-run Financial Consumer Organization (FCO – as recommended in 1998 by the MacKay Task Force, and the House Finance and Senate Banking committees) so consumers have a place to call for help if they are gouged or treated unfairly, and to get fully independent, expert advice (See details at: https://democracywatch.ca/question-and-answers-about-the-proposed-financial-consumer-organization/) and also require the banks and largest mutual fund companies to promote in their mailings and emails to customers that they can join an independent, consumer-run Individual Investor Organization (IIO – as recommended by an Ontario legislative committee in 2006) so they have have a place to call for help if they are ripped off or treated unfairly, and to get fully independent, expert advice (See details at: https://democracywatch.ca/question-and-answers-about-individual-investor-organization-iio/);
3. Require banks to disclose the profit level of every part of their business (credit cards, mortgages, lines of credit, each other type of loan, bank machines, and investment and insurance divisions) after fully independent audits (overseen by the Auditor General);
4. Require banks to keep all their interest rates and fees at a level that gives them no more than a reasonable profit (for example, many U.S. states cap credit card interest rates);
5. Require banks to disclose detailed information about how many people and small businesses apply for credit cards and loans or all types, and loan interest rate cuts or other relief, and accounts, and how many are approved and rejected, by type of borrower and customer, and require corrective actions if a bank discriminates against any type of borrower or customer (as the U.S. has required banks to do for 40 years);
6. Require the banks to re-open basic banking branches in every neighbourhood that offer low-interest rate, small-value lines of credit to everyone to stop predatory lending across Canada (including through partnering with Canada Post outlets for postal banking, as TD started to do in November 2022 but then paused and then cancelled);
7. Require banks to give customers access to the money they deposit by cheque as soon as the cheque clears through the inter-banking clearance system;
8. To stop fraud scams from taking huge amounts from customers’ bank accounts and credit cards, require banks to give customers the choice to set dollar-amount levels and geographic-location rules for notifications of suspicious account and credit card transactions, and require banks and telecommunication companies to prove that they took all due diligence steps to determine whether a transaction was fraudulent and to stop all fraudulent transactions, with the penalty of being required to reimburse the customer the total amount lost, and give customers the right to appeal the freezing of accounts and cards and to apply directly to the OBSI for compensation if the bank’s actions were unjustifiable and harmed the customer;
9. Require banks and trust companies to disclose the profit/loss record for any branch proposed to be closed, to allow for a full public review of whether the closure is justified;
10. Require banks and trust companies to prove that they have a fair, responsible and very good service, lending and investment record every year for the past 10 years as a mandatory condition for any financial institution bidding on federal government contracts;
11. Strengthen key consumer protection rules, and require the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) to do unannounced, mystery-shopper audits to find violations, and to identify violators and fine them (the FCAC hasn’t done unannounced audits since 2005, tipped off the banks in March 2017 about the audit they did through the rest of 2017 on abuses, and then allowed the banks to see the draft audit results and suggest changes that weakened the report) and establish an independent, effective whistleblower protection system for the employees and everyone else who has any interactions with any financial institution;
12. Require all banks to be covered by the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments, and allow financial consumers and investors to complain directly to OBSI without having to go through a financial institution’s internal complaint system, and make OBSI’s rulings binding;
13. Require the FCAC to name every bank and financial institution that it finds has violated any rule and, given the big banks each make billions in profit annually, to fine violators a minimum of $1 million for each violation, and a sliding scale of higher fines must be required to be imposed up to the maximum $50 million penalty for the most serious, systemic violations;
14. Close all the loopholes that allow Canada’s banks (and other big businesses) to evade paying taxes in Canada by pretending they make their money through companies they own in low-tax countries, and impose a special tax (as England and Australia have) on any Canadian business or bank that has excessively high profits like Canada’s Big Banks have had in the past several years, and;
15. Require the Big Banks and other financial institutions to cut the pay of their CEO and other top executives to no more than 40 times their lowest paid employee (as in some European countries).

To see more details about why enforcement needs to be strengthened as proposed above in points #6-9, please click here.

For more information, see Democracy Watch’s
Bank Accountability Campaign

Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.