Opinion
Profiting from the pandemic
By Carlo Fanelli and Heather Whiteside June 1, 2020
If there is a crisis to be found in the earnings of Canada’s Big Six banks, it isn’t in how much their profits have been reduced, but rather how high they’ve remained in the face of a global health and economic emergency.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau last month announced $300-million loan program for large corporations. The feds say that companies convicted of tax evasion won't be eligible for the bridge loans. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Canada’s Big Six banks released their second-quarter earnings last week, and with profits cut in half, alarm bells were quick to sound in the business press. A closer look shows that most banks remained very healthy, with many earning well over a billion in the last three months. It bears reminding that 2011 to 2018 were banner years, bringing year-over-year record annual profits, which peaked at a staggering $45-billion in 2018—that’s $22-million per hour in profits, more than double what they were earning a decade earlier.
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