News / Brèves Glass-Steagall Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente Canadians in Uproar Over Proposed Stealing of Their Deposits 4 April 2013 The inclusion of a "bail-in" provision in the Canadian budget ("Economic Action Plan 2013"), released by the Ministry of Finance on March 21, set off a storm when details of the Cyprus "bail-in" bank heist emerged only days later. The provision, appearing on page 145, reads: "The Government proposes to implement a ’bail-in’ regime for systemically important banks. This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital.... The Government will consult stakeholders on how best to implement a bail-in regime in Canada...." So much for Canada’s reputation as one of the safest bank regimes in the world! The hot topic now is just what "certain bank liabilities" are contemplated for confiscation. The Finance Minister’s Press Secretary, Kathleen Perchaluk, issued a statement on April 2 insisting that "the bail-in scenario described in the Budget has nothing to do with depositors’ accounts and they will in no way be used here. Those accounts will continue to remain insured through the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, as always." Canadian Broadcasting Corporation senior Washington correspondent Neil Macdonald pointed out, however, in his article the next day ("Canada’s ’Cyprus solution’ for Bank Defaults"), that the Finance Ministry did not chose to include that guarantee in the text of the budget, while the Europeans and the IMF had made clear in Cyprus that they "had been prepared to do the unthinkable... The fact is, if Ottawa is seriously contemplating the failure of a Canadian bank, ordinary Canadians might want to do the same, and govern themselves accordingly," MacDonald advised.