Bill Morneau should defend regular folks

Finance minister should help consumers receive fair prices for their banking services, by reviewing the Bank Act

Given that it’s the festive season, I wonder if the finance minister could spare some time for the little people.

The Tiny Tims who bat back tears as they are charged usurious fees at the automatic teller, simply because they want to withdraw $20.

The Mrs. Cratchits, dampening the credit-card statement as they steam the Christmas pud, weeping over 19.99-per-cent interest rates that haven’t budged in forever long. And, oh dear, Mr. Cratchit, usually so good with numbers and a squib, has fallen prey to a retail credit card on which he carries a balance at the zaftig rate of 29.9 per cent. Regular folk. Bill Morneau may not be paying attention to such common hardships as he continues to defend his share-selling actions in the family firm and his objectivity on Bill C-27. That he suffers two of the country’s most-maligned characteristics — he’s from Toronto and he’s rich — should be enough of a reminder that it never hurts to be seen standing up for the average Joe, particularly now, when his personal optics are poor. The banks have just completed their 2017 reporting cycle. The numbers don’t mean much anymore. Five billion. Six billion. Seven billion dollars in profit. Once the billion-dollar barrier was broken, the only earnings report that would surprise would be a decline in profits. That has not been the experience of the Big Six.

But a fair question to be asked, again, is whether consumers are receiving banking services at a fair price. Duff Conacher at Democracy Watch has been grinding on this for decades, almost to the point of drawing sighs of unconcern from the media. Oh, there he goes again. But he’s right, again. “Government is there to ensure that businesses treat people fairly and at fair prices and no finance minister or federal government has done anything to ensure that for financial consumers in the past 30 years,” Conacher says.

We accept the oligopolistic business environment the banks have set for themselves, with federal oversight attuned to the stability of the system and not to its effects on consumers.

Occasionally there’s a bit of noise — NDP leader Jack Layton’s call for a prime-plus-five cap on credit-card interest rates in 2011 comes to mind — but a sense of slumber soon returns. If Morneau wants to authenticate his worries about inequality and consumer protection he has an opportunity now, with the ongoing review of the Bank Act. He should be moving aggressively on this front, yet inexplicably, in the 2016 budget, the government announced that it was extending its mandatory review to the end of March 2019.

In the 2016 budget, it was announced that attention would be paid to ensuring that consumer protection would be modernized through a new chapter in the act. What we don’t know is whether that means simply gathering together all the disparate consumer protection pieces currently scattered throughout the act. Or whether something truly new will emerge in its place.

Dishearteningly, Finance confirmed that the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) “will continue to oversee compliance with the regulatory framework and work with stakeholders to enhance consumer education and financial literacy initiatives with a focus on managing household finances and debt.”

That sounds an awful lot like putting the onus on the shoulders of consumers. “Protect yourself,” is Conacher’s interpretation. “As if you can.” And he asks this question: How many Canadians even know of the existence of the FCAC?

Democracy Watch is pushing for the creation of a national Financial Consumer Organization, as recom- mended by the MacKay Task Force in 1998. Consumers would be members, via donation, and the FCO’s mandate would be to assist with problems experienced with their financial institutions. “This is the best way to empower and inform the consumer,” Conacher says.

All banks, trust and insurance companies would be required to note consistently the presence of the FCO in their written communication — emails, mailings — to consumers.

Democracy Watch rightly highlights the weakness of the FCAC. It advocates that the agency should be conducting “mystery shopper” audits. It advocates too for an independent auditing mechanism for individual banking divisions. Banks will roll their eyes at that last point.

The question the finance minister should ask himself this festive season: Are the banks serving consumers fairly and well and at the best prices? Or have they been given too easy access to uncontrolled profits? A wise finance minister would ask those questions on behalf of all Canadians. jenwells@thestar.ca