Political Debanking in Canada: A 150-Year Pattern of Protection Without Accountability

When Power Decides Who May Bank

For many Canadians, the term “political debanking” sounds like something new,  a troubling by-product of modern polarization or digital financial control. It is neither. What has changed is not the behaviour, but the visibility.

For more than a century and demonstrably for at least the past 40 to 50 years, access to banking power in Canada has been shaped not merely by risk, law, or market forces, but by political alignment, elite consensus, and regulatory discretion exercised without consequence. When financial exclusion occurs for political, ideological, or identity-based reasons, no one is charged. No one is sanctioned. And no one at the top is held accountable.

This is not a theory. It is a pattern — documented, repeated, and protected.

Canada’s Original Banking Compact

Canada’s banking system was never designed as a neutral marketplace. From its inception, it was a centralized, politically managed instrument of stability, one that explicitly favoured concentration over competition.

The Bank Act of 1871 granted the federal government exclusive authority over banking, ensuring a small number of large chartered banks would dominate the financial landscape. This centralization was justified as a safeguard against instability. In practice, it created institutional intimacy between political power and financial power.

Long before Confederation, this dynamic was already visible in Upper Canada. The Bank of Upper Canada, closely aligned with the colonial elite known as the Family Compact, functioned as a financial arm of political authority. Loans, credit, and access flowed disproportionately to allies. Reformers and outsiders were excluded. When the bank collapsed in 1866 amid mismanagement and favouritism, no senior figures were charged. They controlled the system that would have judged them.

The precedent was set early: political banking without political consequences.

The Campeau Affair: A Modern Exposure (1980)

If one moment crystallizes modern Canadian political banking, it is Robert Campeau’s 1980 hostile bid for Royal Trustco, then Canada’s largest trust company.

Campeau, an Ottawa-based real estate developer, launched a $413 million bid, later raised, in what should have been a straightforward market contest. Instead, it exposed how power actually operates.

Royal Trustco’s leadership, alarmed not by illegality but by who was bidding, mobilized what became known as “the friends” — a coordinated group of major Canadian corporations that quietly accumulated shares to block the takeover. The establishment justification was couched in public-interest language: a trust company should not be controlled by one individual; a real estate developer posed conflicts.

Yet market behaviour told a different story. Roughly 60 percent of Royal Trustco shares traded during the bid period, many below Campeau’s offer price, an economic irrationality unless market dynamics were being distorted. Campeau demanded a full investigation into unusual trading, openly questioning whether securities laws had been abused.

The Ontario Securities Commission investigated.

No charges were laid.

No executives were sanctioned.
No coordinated action was penalized.
No political actors were questioned.

Campeau was not Jewish, but he was an outsider — French-Canadian, non-Bay Street, insufficiently networked. The lesson was unmistakable: control is permitted only with elite consent.

Legislative Normalization, Not Accountability

Rather than scrutinizing conduct, Ontario’s political system moved swiftly to normalize corporate restructuring through legislation.

In 1980, Bill Pr7 (Montreal Trust Company of Canada Act) was introduced to formalize substitutions between trust entities, ensuring continuity of business and liability on paper. These private statutes were legal housekeeping, but they reflected a deeper instinct: to stabilize institutions, not question power.

Over time, Montreal Trust itself would be absorbed by Scotiabank. The market consolidated. The moment passed. Accountability never arrived.

The Pattern Repeats: Income Trusts and Market Interference

Fast-forward to 2005, when income trusts, a structure allowing companies to distribute earnings tax-efficiently, came under sudden political scrutiny.

Hints of policy change triggered violent market swings. Accusations of political leakage followed. The RCMP investigated. Once again:

No charges.

Critics noted that income trusts competed directly with large banks for investment capital. Whether the motive was fiscal prudence or protectionism, the result was the same: political signalling reshaped markets, and no one paid a price.

From Interference to Exclusion: The Modern Debanking Era

In the 2010s, the language changed. The mechanism did not.

Banks began closing or freezing accounts under the banner of “risk-based compliance,” citing anti-money-laundering laws, reputational risk, or opaque internal policies. Customers were rarely given reasons. Appeals were limited. Transparency vanished.

Complaints to the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments rose sharply. Still, accountability remained elusive.

The 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act, resulting in the freezing of dozens of accounts linked to protest activity, brought the issue into public view. In 2024, a federal court ruled the invocation unconstitutional.

Yet again:

• No political leader charged

• No senior official sanctioned

• No systemic reform was enacted

The state acted. The courts rebuked. The system moved on.

Where Antisemitism Fits and Why It Rarely Appears as a Charge

Canada’s banking history includes documented antisemitism, particularly in hiring, promotion, and professional exclusion, through much of the 20th century. Jewish Canadians were systematically underrepresented in financial institutions long after legal equality existed.

What is striking is not merely that discrimination occurred, but that it rarely produced criminal accountability. Bias was cultural, institutional, and therefore legally diffuse. The system did not see it or chose not to.

Today, antisemitism manifests less openly, but concerns persist that ideological or identity-based judgments are quietly folded into “risk” assessments. Because decisions are private and shielded by compliance language, discrimination becomes unprovable — and therefore unpunishable.

Why No One Is Ever Charged

Across eras, a consistent accountability vacuum emerges:

1. Diffuse Responsibility
   Decisions are spread across boards, regulators, and ministers, no single hand to indict.

2. Regulatory Discretion
   Agencies are empowered to interpret “public interest” broadly, insulating outcomes from legal challenge.

3. Political Deference
   Prosecutorial and investigative bodies operate within the same political ecosystem.

4. Stability Doctrine
   The preservation of institutional confidence is prioritized over individual justice.

In short, the system protects itself first.

Conclusion: Power Without Consequence

Political debanking in Canada is not a left-right issue, nor a transient excess of modern governance. It is a structural feature of a system that merged financial power with political authority and never meaningfully separated them.

Outsiders are resisted.
Insiders are protected.
Investigations are conducted.
Charges are not.

Until transparency, due process, and genuine accountability are imposed on financial-political decision-making, Canadians will continue to live under a quiet truth:

Access to banking is not merely economic — it is political.

And politics, in Canada’s financial history, has rarely faced justice.

What Canadians are witnessing is not a failure of banking, but the success of a system designed to protect itself. When financial access can be denied without explanation, when investigations produce no charges, and when political authority merges seamlessly with regulatory silence, the result is not stability; it is unaccountable power. 

A society that allows banks to punish first, explain never, and face no consequence is not safeguarding democracy; it is outsourcing coercion. Until financial exclusion is subjected to the same standards of due process as any other deprivation of rights, political debanking will remain exactly what it has always been in Canada: a quiet instrument of control, wielded without fear of justice.

When Courts Begin Governing: A Quiet Democratic Drift in Canada

January 13, 2026

Canada prides itself on being a stable parliamentary democracy governed by the rule of law. Courts are respected, judges are independent, and constitutional rights are protected. All of this is true and essential.

But there is a question Canadians are increasingly failing to ask, even as its consequences grow more visible:

At what point does judicial review become judicial rule?

This is not a partisan concern, nor an attack on judges. It is a structural question about democratic accountability in a system where lawmakers are elected, governments are responsible to Parliament, and courts are deliberately unelected.

Yet in recent years, Canadian courts have moved beyond interpreting law toward shaping policy outcomes, often with real fiscal, administrative, and social consequences. This shift has occurred quietly, incrementally, and largely without sustained public debate.

That silence is the real danger.

What Courts Are Meant to Do in Canada

Canada is not a constitutional republic with elected judges. It is a parliamentary democracy rooted in legislative supremacy, constrained but not governed by constitutional limits.

Courts exist to:

1. Interpret legislation passed by Parliament and provincial legislatures
2. Review laws for constitutional compliance, particularly under the Charter
3. Protect individuals from unlawful or arbitrary state action

Judicial independence is essential to these functions. But independence does not confer policy authority.

Courts are not designed to:

• balance national or provincial budgets amid inflation and rising debt
• allocate scarce public resources across healthcare, infrastructure, and immigration systems
• manage regulatory backlogs or settlement capacity
• weigh competing policy priorities with long-term fiscal consequences

Those are inherently political judgments. In a democracy, such trade-offs must be made by those who answer to voters.

From Constitutional Review to Policy Direction

The line is crossed when courts do more than determine whether a law is permissible and begin directing how governments must govern.

This drift often appears in subtle but powerful ways:

• Laws are invalidated and suspended, leaving governments in legal limbo
• Legislatures are given court-imposed timelines to redesign complex policy frameworks
• Acceptable policy options are narrowed by judicial reasoning
• Administrative decisions are repeatedly sent back for reconsideration

At that point, the court is no longer merely reviewing constitutionality. It is reshaping policy space without electoral accountability and without responsibility for outcomes.

A Recent Illustration: The Durmus Refugee Case

This democratic drift is not theoretical. It is unfolding in real time.

In the Durmus refugee case, the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) ruled that the claimant’s refugee status had ceased due to “reavailment” of protection from their country of origin. The Federal Court later quashed that decision—not on constitutional grounds, but on the basis that the RPD’s reasoning was inadequate.

On its face, the ruling appears narrow and procedural. Its consequences are not.

By ordering a fresh review, the court compelled the federal government to reallocate administrative resources, reopen the case, and potentially alter an immigration outcome—without the court bearing any responsibility for the fiscal, operational, or downstream settlement impacts of that decision.

Here, the court did not merely assess legality. It directed a redo, intervening in how immigration policy is applied and prioritized. As reported in the National Post on January 13, 2026, such remands are increasingly common, contributing to backlogs, uncertainty, and inconsistent outcomes in a system already under strain.

While rulings like Durmus undeniably promote procedural fairness, especially vital for vulnerable refugee claimants, they also illustrate the broader tension. Judicial correction, case by case, can compel governments to focus on court-driven fixes rather than on clear legislative standards that would provide predictability and accountability across the system.

This is authority exercised without accountability: courts shape outcomes and priorities, while elected governments absorb the cost, capacity strain, and political consequences.

Real-World Illustrations of a Broader Pattern

The Durmus case is not isolated.

In 2025, an Ontario court blocked the province from removing designated bike lanes, effectively intervening in municipal infrastructure and transportation policy. Regardless of one’s view on bike lanes, the ruling narrowed policy options and imposed administrative constraints traditionally reserved for elected officials.

In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down large portions of the federal Impact Assessment Act as unconstitutional overreach. While welcomed by some on federalism grounds, critics noted the irony: in defining how Ottawa must redesign its regulatory framework, the Court itself ventured deeply into policy architecture, again exercising authority without accountability.

Earlier still, in Carter v. Canada (2015), the Supreme Court not only invalidated the Criminal Code prohibition on assisted dying but imposed a specific timeline for Parliament to enact new legislation. This moved the Court beyond constitutional judgment into active policy direction on one of the most sensitive moral issues in Canadian life.

Different cases. Same structural effect.

The Democratic Accountability Gap

Democracy depends on a simple principle: those who make decisions must answer to the people affected by them.

In Canada:

• MPs can be voted out
• Ministers can be questioned or dismissed
• Governments can fall

Judges cannot and should not be subject to political retaliation. But when courts assume policy-shaping roles, they wield power without reciprocal accountability.

The effects ripple outward. Immigration decisions, for example, do not end in Ottawa. Provinces like Ontario bear responsibility for settlement services, housing pressures, healthcare access, and social integration. Court-ordered remands can strain local systems that had no role in the original decision and no ability to influence the judicial outcome.

Charter Rights and the Expansion of Mandates

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was designed primarily to protect negative rights—freedom from unjust state interference. Increasingly, Charter interpretation has expanded toward positive entitlements, requiring governments to act, fund, regulate, or redesign systems.

Supporters argue this protects vulnerable groups when politics fails. That concern is legitimate.

But positive rights are not cost-free. They require spending choices, prioritization decisions, and trade-offs between equally compelling needs. When courts constitutionalize these choices, they risk prioritizing judicial mandates over electoral ones, quietly reshaping policy without public consent.

The Long-Term Risks

If left unexamined, this drift carries serious consequences:

1. Erosion of Parliamentary Sovereignty — not by law, but by practice
2. Policy Paralysis — governments legislate defensively, for courts rather than citizens
3. Public Distrust — courts begin to appear ideological rather than neutral
4. Democratic Hollowing-Out — elections matter less when decisions migrate to courtrooms

Restoring Democratic Lane Discipline

Canada does not need weaker courts. It needs properly bounded courts.

That means:

• Courts interpret and enforce constitutional limits
• Legislatures write clear laws
• Governments govern within those laws
• Voters judge the results

Parliament is not powerless. In response to cases like Durmus, it could clarify reavailment and cessation standards in legislation, reducing ambiguity that invites judicial micromanagement and restoring predictability for applicants, administrators, and provinces alike.

This would reaffirm the proper democratic sequence: law first, policy next, courts last.

The Question Canadians Must Finally Ask

Who governs Canada?

If the answer is Parliament, then Parliament must be allowed to govern subject to constitutional limits, but free from judicial micromanagement.

If the answer is courts, then Canadians deserve an honest debate about democratic legitimacy.

Silence is not neutrality. Silence is consent.

And consent, in a democracy, should never be assumed.

Timeline Graphic Text

The Durmus Refugee Case — From Decision to Remand

Stage 1 — Refugee Status Granted: Claimant recognized as a refugee under Canadian law.

Stage 2 — RPD Cessation Decision: Refugee Protection Division rules status has ceased due to “reavailment” of protection from the country of origin.

Stage 3 — Federal Court Review: Court finds RPD reasoning inadequate (procedural flaw, not constitutional breach).

Stage 4 — Decision Quashed: RPD ruling set aside.

Stage 5 — Court-Ordered Redo: Government required to reopen the case, reassign resources, and conduct a fresh review.

Stage 6 — Systemic Impact: Administrative delay, increased backlog, fiscal and settlement implications borne by governments—not courts.

 

Canada Cannot Call for Arctic Restraint While Avoiding Arctic Responsibility

Canada frequently urges calm and restraint when Arctic security concerns arise, particularly when the United States focuses on Greenland.

Restraint is wise.
Avoidance is not.

In 2026, Canada remains the world’s second-largest Arctic nation, yet behaves as if Arctic security is someone else’s problem.

The Arctic is no longer a frozen buffer. Climate change has extended navigation seasons, increased foreign military presence, and intensified competition over shipping routes such as the Northwest Passage. Russia has militarized its Arctic flank. China seeks influence through investment, research, and infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, Canada’s posture is increasingly contradictory.

We assert sovereignty over Arctic waters, but lack sufficient patrol capacity.
We rely on NORAD, but delay modernization.
We urge alliance unity while underinvesting in the very capabilities that unity depends on.

Diplomacy without capability is not leadership. It is a dependency.

Canada is right to reject coercion and annexation as tools of policy. But credibility requires more than moral positioning. It requires presence, infrastructure, surveillance, and sustained investment.

If Canada truly believes Greenland can remain secure through cooperation alone, then Canada must demonstrate its own seriousness by:

• Accelerating NORAD Arctic modernization

• Expanding icebreaker and patrol fleets

• Investing in northern infrastructure and domain awareness

• Leading, not observing, NATO Arctic coordination

Failure to act shifts pressure onto allies and invites the very unilateralism Canada claims to oppose.

The Arctic does not reward denial.
It rewards preparedness.

Canada can be a stabilizing Arctic power, but only if it accepts responsibility commensurate with its geography.

Greenland Is Not the Issue — Credibility Is

Canada often frames U.S. interest in Greenland as destabilizing or excessive. What’s missing from that critique is self-reflection.

Greenland anchors the North Atlantic and Arctic security architecture, including Canada’s own defence perimeter. If Canada truly believes:

• Ownership is unnecessary

• Treaties suffice

• Alliances are strong

Then Canada should be demonstrating that confidence with material investment, not op-eds.

Strategic reassurance must be earned.

Sovereignty Requires Presence, Not Press Releases

Canada insists the Northwest Passage constitutes internal waters. That claim is only as strong as Canada’s ability to:

• Monitor

• Patrol

• Enforce

Right now, enforcement capacity does not match the assertion.

Sovereignty is not a legal argument alone, it is a capability statement.

If Canada does not fill that space, others will test it.

 Canadian Voters

You are being told that Arctic security concerns are exaggerated, that geography no longer matters, and that alliances alone are enough.

History says otherwise.

Peace has always been preserved not by denial, but by preparedness shared among allies.

Canada can be:

• A serious Arctic nation

• A trusted NATO partner

• A stabilizing force in the High North

But not while pretending capability is optional.

Source: 

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-case-for-american-ownership-of-greenland-is-weak

Do Women Deserve to Feel Safe on Our Streets, or Has the State Decided They Don’t?

 December 23, 2025

In a functioning democracy, some questions should never need to be asked. “Do women deserve to feel safe on our streets?” is one of them.

And yet here we are asking it anyway, not because the answer is unclear, but because the actions of the state increasingly contradict it.

When Bail Stops Being Justice and Starts Being Negligence

Canadians are now being asked to accept the following reality as normal:

An 18-year-old Toronto man, Osman Azizov, faces 14 serious criminal charges, including:

• Sexual assault with a weapon
• Attempted kidnapping
• Impersonating a police officer
• Unauthorized possession of firearms
• Alleged hate-motivated offences
• Alleged links — indirect or otherwise — to extremist terrorism via a co-accused charged by the RCMP

Police allege that women were:

• Chased
• Threatened with guns and knives
• Nearly forced into vehicles
• Saved only by the intervention of passersby

And yet astonishingly, Azizov is out on bail.

This is not a close call. This is not a grey area. This is a catastrophic failure of judgment.

Presumption of Innocence Is Not a Suicide Pact

No serious democracy confuses presumption of innocence with obliviousness to risk.

Presumption of innocence governs verdicts, not pre-trial risk management. Courts are explicitly empowered — and morally obligated — to detain individuals when:

1. The risk of reoffending is credible
2. Public safety is threatened
3. Confidence in the justice system would be undermined by release

All three apply here.

Releasing an accused individual facing armed sexual violence and attempted kidnapping is not enlightened justice. It is institutional denial.

Women Are Being Forced to Carry the State’s Risk

Let’s speak plainly.

When courts release individuals accused of extreme violence:

• The danger does not disappear
• It is transferred
• And the recipients of that transfer are innocent citizens

Primarily:

• Women walking alone
• Jewish communities are already under heightened threat
• Ordinary Canadians going about their daily lives

This is not compassion. This poses a danger to the public through outsourcing.

The state knows the risk and chooses release anyway.

Electronic Monitoring: A Security Blanket, Not Security

Ankle monitors are often invoked as reassurance.

But the record is clear:

• They are easily removed
• They do not prevent violence
• They do not stop weapons use
• They do not protect victims

Ontario alone has seen multiple accused individuals simply cut them off and flee, including those charged with sexual crimes, weapons trafficking, and violent offences.

Electronic monitoring comforts judges and policymakers, not women on the street.

Woke, Ideology Has Overridden Judgment

Even organizations committed to reform, such as the John Howard Society, understand that violent, high-risk offenders are not the population reform is meant to protect.

When reform ideology refuses to draw lines, when everyone is treated as equally safe to release, reform collapses into recklessness.

Ironically, these cases do more to discredit criminal justice reform than any conservative critique ever could.

The Same Gaslighting Used Against Women Is Being Used Against Jewish People

This case also exposes a parallel failure.

Some public voices insist that concerns about antisemitism are exaggerated, even as police acknowledge hate-motivated targeting.

Figures such as Avi Lewis have dismissed warnings as hysterical or manipulative.

This is the same rhetorical pattern long used to dismiss women’s fears:

• “You’re overreacting.”
• “Statistically, you’re safe.”
• “Stop making people uncomfortable.”

That is not moral leadership. That is elite gaslighting.

When No One Supports the Outcome, Democracy Is Broken

Here is the most damning fact of all:

• No serious law professor believes this release was appropriate
• No defence lawyer would want this person living next door
• No political party defends the outcome
• No citizen supports it

And yet the system produces it anyway.

That is not democracy. That is unaccountable power hiding behind procedure.

This Is Not About Vigilantism, It’s About Responsibility

Canadians are peaceful, law-abiding people. That restraint is a virtue — not an invitation for abuse.

But when:

• Violent accused individuals are repeatedly released
• Clear risks are ignored
• Common sense is treated as reactionary

Public trust does not erode, it is betrayed.

A democracy cannot survive long if it asks its citizens to absorb preventable danger in the name of ideological purity.

The Only Conclusion That Matters

• Women deserve to feel safe.
• Jewish people deserve to feel safe.
• Canadians deserve to feel safe.

And individuals accused of armed sexual violence, attempted kidnapping, and hate-motivated crimes Do Not belong on the streets awaiting trial.

That is not authoritarianism. That is the minimum standard of civilized governance.

And yet, incredibly, here we are. Judges and the justice system are out of touch with the people, time for change.

SOURCE:

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/selley-do-women-deserve-to-feel-safe-on-our-streets-or-not#comments-area