Is Ottawa Bedding Down With Crooked Bankers? (Letter)

Dear Editor,

Crooked bankers of the world, rejoice! 

Wikileaks has revealed that negotiators from 50 countries, including Canada, have been meeting in back rooms, cooking up ways of making it even easier for these financial titans to fleece their customers, everywhere!

It's all part of the ('til now) super-secretive "Trade in Services Agreement" (TISA), a massive deal that would affect the way the big banks are allowed to do business, world-wide.

According to the confidential draft text, TISA would "further deregulate global financial services markets." 

Not only that, it would prevent these nations, including Canada, from ensuring that sensitive customer data remains in the country of origin! I'm no financial whiz. But, if we want to keep our precious banking records secure, this can't be good!

Why is all of this happening? According to the text, "To assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers."

Have we learned nothing from the past? Weak to non-existent regulations, deception and conflict of interest in 2008 allowed crooked financial marketeers, mainly in the 'States, to commit countless crimes against their customers, burst the financial bubble worldwide and force many ordinary citizens into ruin. These disgusting crimes have gone pretty much unpunished to this day. 

Wikileaks notes that the draft was supposed to have been kept secret, not just during the negotiations, but for five years after the TISA enters into force! This kind of secrecy borders on the criminal. It is more befitting of a tin pot dictatorship than a western democracy!

So why does Prime Minister Harper seem so willing to play fast and loose with Canada's reputation as a sound and safe place to bank, by flirting with the notion of actually perpetuating and expanding an already failed, discredited system of "deregulation?" 

Maybe we should ask him this when he comes 'round, wanting our vote!

Larry Powell 

Neepawa, Manitoba.
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