Banks on Earth Day

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Apr 21

RE:  Canadian banks: stop stalling climate action

RE:  Stop propping up fossil fuel producers

An op-ed and a letter to the editor obviously coordinated for effect on Earth Day, a cultish day of worship that takes place tomorrow.  The Hannon Times was in full People’s Daily mode today.

The founder of GASP reports that Canada’s top five banks have in the last five years lent over $500 Billion dollars to the fossil fuel industry, as if this were a bad thing.  She did not say how the banks were to replace the income earned from these loans if they weren’t made.  Many retirement funds and individual retirement investment plans include Canadian banks in their portfolios.  It simply isn’t a matter of the banks taking a hit by not lending to Big Oil, it’s really the people who count on the banks earning money that are taking the hit for moral posturing.

A writer from ordinarily sensible Dundas wants us to pressure Canadian banks not to fund future fossil fuel developments.  That’s a shot at Alberta and Saskatchewan, but never mind.  Bank loans form only a small part of the funding for energy development projects, most of the money comes from internally generated revenue and the sale of bonds and stocks.

If it came to it, Big Oil could easily create their own bank in Canada, or make use of the banks of friendly provincial governments, to the detriment of Canada’s big national banks.  Moral posturing gains you nothing.

These criticisms come from people unaware that the food they eat is planted, cultivated, harvested, processed,, and delivered to their supermarket by fossil fuel powered trucks and equipment.  They travel by fossil fuel, and live in homes heated by natural gas.

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