Corruption in Canadian Banks: Is There No Alternative?

In this episode, Kiegan Irish, Alex Boos and Alex Edwards discuss reporting from 2017 and 2018 on corruption in Canadian banking culture and embed these reports in the wider context of our capitalist economy with a reading of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. We look at the banking practices of Canada’s banks and the federal government’s response to these banking practices and draw from Fisher’s concepts of market Stalinism and bureaucratic anti-production. What constitutes the discourse around “legitimate” and “realistic” banking practices? How have technologies changed the face of Canada's banking industry? Are there alternatives? We discuss all this and more. 

Books:
Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism. Hants: 0 books, 2009. 

FCAC report: 
https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/programs/research/bank-sales-practices.html

Media reports:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/td-bank-employees-admit-to-breaking-law-1.4016569

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/td-tellers-desperate-to-meet-increasing-sales-goals-1.4006743


Special thanks goes out to Jacob Irish and Daniel Boos for post-production work