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Gag Order
TORONTO, Aug. 26 /CNW/ - Do you know if your financial institution is in
trouble? The Canada Deposit Insurance Corp. (CDIC) does. But guess what? It
won't tell.
Created to protect depositors, CDIC has examined its 111 members --
primarily banks, trust companies and mortgage loan companies -- to determine
which are well managed and which are on shaky ground. It has vital information
about whom you should trust with your money, but it's not about to share it
with the public. It's even slapped a gag order on its members to prohibit them
from talking about the ratings.
Why the silence? One of the concerns is that customers may flee the
companies with the worst scores and cause an unjustified run on their
deposits, says Jean Pierre Sabourin, CDIC's president and CEO. Sabourin's
explanation, however, doesn't hold water. CDIC covers all losses up to $60,000
and since most people keep far less than that in their bank accounts, there's
no reason to believe that they would all withdraw their money at the first
sign of trouble.
Until this year, CDIC charged each institution the same premium, so
deposit-taking companies had no incentive to stay away from high-risk loans
and investments. CDIC encouraged risk and the results were predictable, argues
Jack Carr, an economics professor at the University of Toronto. Since its
inception in 1967, 43 banks, trust companies and mortgage loan firms have gone
belly-up, while not one Canadian chartered bank failed between 1924 and 1966.
Even if CDIC released its ratings, would it reveal anything other than
that our money was in good hands -- with or without deposit insurance? Perhaps
the real reason CDIC is keeping us in the dark is so that we won't question
why we need the Crown corporation at all. The full story, Some Gag by Senior
Writer Derek DeCloet, appears in Front & Centre.
Canada's next retail war is shaping up as a battle for Eaton's best real
estate. As the details of the retail giant's closing are being worked out, a
long list of players is getting ready to carve up its remains -- 64 stores and
13 million-sq.-ft. of real estate. In the cover story, Life After Eaton's,
Senior Writer Sean Silcoff examines how the death of Eaton's will blast open a
huge logjam of prime, underperforming retail space, spark a massive round of
musical stores and allow truly innovative merchants to reshape the entire
Canadian retail landscape.
The September 10, 1999 issue of Canadian Business will be available on
newsstands on August 27. Visit www.canbus.com for the text-only reports. The
editorial staff of Canadian Business is available for comment and/or more
information. |
