Canada’s banking system is often lauded for being one of the world’s safest. But an analysis by CCPA senior economist David Macdonald found that Canada’s major lenders were in a far worse position during the downturn than has ever been previously believed.
Macdonald pored over data provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and the big banks themselves for his report published Monday.
It says support for Canadian banks from various agencies reached $114 billion at its peak. That works out to $3,400 for every man, woman and child in Canada, and also to seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product in 2009.
The figure is also 10 times the size of the amount Canadian taxpayers spent on the auto industry in 2009.
It gets better/more awful:
“Indeed, the scale of the funding is eye-opening.
At its peak, CIBC received $21 billion in support — almost 1.5 times the value of the company at the time. BMO maxed out at $17 billion or 118 per cent, Scotiabank peaked at $25 billion or 100 per cent of its value, while TD and RBC maxed out at $26 billion and $25 billion — good enough for 69 and 63 per cent, respectively, of the total value of those companies at the time.
“It would have been cheaper to buy every single share in these companies,” Macdonald said.”
With the media busying themselves carrying the zeroes on their calculators, Doctor Michael Rachlis from Doctors For Taxation was left to make the MORAL argument for taxing the rich. I had to find the audio and edit/upload it myself since – for some reason – Metro Morning didn’t post it as a stand alone audio post as they did with every other interview that day.
Doctor Rachlis denounces Dalton McGuinty’s dismissal of Horwath’s idea as “immoral.”
“[The officers said:] ‘Oh you’re part of the gay community? Well, the people in here don’t take to kindly to your type so I recommend you act straight during your visit here and once you leave you can act the way you choose. Actually I’m going to put you and your boyfriend in a segregated room.’ It was a little stall, it looked like a dog pen. There was a whole line of just gay people in these one person things. The entire group [of detainees] was NOT homophobic whatsoever. The only homophobic people in that building were the police. Everyone else was so peaceful, loving and kind.”
Hours before being kettled blocks from my home Toronto Police retweet my jab at Stephen Harper. TPS tweeter and I were chummy on the networking site as I’d met Constable Scott Mills (the TPS tweeter) a year before when I met with him to explain the idea behind the #PrideTO hashtag. Though, since being kettled and called a criminal by Chief Blair (who I really admired before all this), I’ve had to unfollowed them. Seems fair.
“While the monetary value of this violin is small, the educational value is great, the violin was donated to the Board after its owner, a high school student committed suicide. The suicide was in part precipitated with bullying, that can be seen on the back side of the violin, scratched in it reads “NAME WITHHELD is a fag.”
As one participant put it, “it’s more fun to protest with the gays, cause we’ve got the attitude and we know how to dance.”
I want to move to San Francisco. I visited many years ago after traveling through the US on a ‘drive away’. I wasn’t out yet, though it’s doubtful my companions, two lesbians and a gay man, were buying my straight act.
By the number of posts on this Facebook Group’s wall it seems like I’m not the only who’s taken to it.
UPDATE: To commemorate the First Annual Harvey Milk Day, I tweet this clip to both @CBCPolitics and @MPJamesMoore. No response from CBC, but here’s what Minister James Moore had to say.
@MPJamesMoore: @UnionSt Um… Anyway..
Sniff.
“CBC News has contorted itself in order to appear more populist, mainstream and appealing to everyone. It has been terrorized into avoiding any appearance of political bias.” John Doyle (The Globe and Mail), April 28, 2010:
Back in January 2010 Conservative Minister James Moore appeared on CBC Power + Politics to discuss his top political films of the decade. His first choice: Milk. Yes, the Oscar-winning film Milk. Yes, a Minister from the Conservative Party of Canada Minister choose a film about a … well I’m not sure exactly.
Here’s how Moore describes the film in the clip: “the story of Harvey Milk and what he confronted running for comptroller down in the city of San Francisco. He’s a man who, as the trailer said, a man who inspired controversy but also inspired a whole group of people to stand up for civil rights in a way that had never been done before in the city of San Francisco.”
They way he uses “San Francisco” I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s quip about the rest of America looking at New Yorkers like they’re “left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers.” Though, from what I know about San Francisco, Moore could be saying Harvey Milk is a “hippie, liberal, tree-hugging fan of handlebar mustaches.”
Talking about Harvey Milk and the film Milk without mentioning his homosexuality is quite an accomplishment really. It’s like talking about JAWS and instead of saying “shark” you point at your teeth and, wide-eyed, gyrate in the direction of the nearest large body of water.
So he avoids it. But that’s a Conservative Minister for you – always thinking about their base. Have you meet their base? *makes twirling circle around temple and, wide-eyed, gyrates in the direction of the nearest knuckle-dragger.* He knows he can’t be quoted saying anything particularly kind about “gays” or “homosexuals” so he leaves it at “San Franciscan”.
It’s lame, but much worse is that the host of the show, Evan Solomon, not only lets him get away with it, but avoids saying it too. He plays Moore’s game, and given that the film is about the process of an invisible minority asserting itself and finding political and personal liberation by “coming out” and proudly identifying themselves as faggots/queers/cocksuckers/gays/homos, without fear or shame, in the streets, to their families and to themselves their omission is offensive. Watch the film again, fellas.
They end their Milk discussion with a mention of Sean Penn’s role as Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High as though this discussion is happening at a kegger. I can’t see the floor of the studio but I imagine it’s covered in peanut shells at this point.
Also odd that Solomon didn’t call Moore out about his party’s long record of homophobia, especially after his remark about Anita Bryant being a “venomous bigot.” I realize Gus Van Sant hasn’t made a film about it, or any filmmaker for that matter, but at one point during the same-sex marriage debate the Conservative party hosted rallies in a bid to stir up anti-gay sentiment and gain political power. I attended one where Minister Jim Flaherty gave a speech about the “slippery slope a gay marriage” to a crowd of thousands. So Moore might also want to re-watch the “List” film he mentioned.
Anyway, I like Evan Solomon and I want to like his show, but watching this new misshapen CBC is painful.
