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Banks let Canada down

Banks let Canada down Open letter to all the Canadian banks: I am writing to express my extreme displeasure at the news, as reported by CBC, that Canadian banks have been outsourcing jobs to foreign workers. This is unacceptable, and in light of the $100

Open letter to all the Canadian banks:

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure at the news, as reported by CBC, that Canadian banks have been outsourcing jobs to foreign workers. This is unacceptable, and in light of the $100 billion Canadian taxpayers spent to refinance Canadian banks in return for loosening lending practices to stimulate the Canadian economy and create employment, the fact you have been doing exactly the opposite is unconscionable.

Bank executives receive lucrative compensation plus generous severance packages when they leave. So, how much severance did you pay your Canadian employees and contractors when you turfed them in favour of cheaper foreign workers? Did you pay them bonuses when you forced them to train the foreign workers you hired to take over their jobs? Did you make any effort to retrain and redeploy the Canadians you dismissed so you could make more money by outsourcing their jobs to lower paid foreigners?

Profits for Canadian banks have long been quite robust. How about reinvesting those profits in Canada and in Canadians? Believe it or not, you are part of the economic and social fabric of our country and what you do matters to all of us. A great many Canadians have sacrificed and contributed a great deal towards the building of Canada. Should you not do the same? Banks are the backbone of our country’s financial system and business community. Ought you not to be showing leadership and setting an example for all businesses to follow?

I am not against banks or any business making healthy profits for, if there is no profit, soon there is no business, and that is not in anyone’s interest. I also accept that banks are businesses, not charitable institutions. Nevertheless, you have an obligation to the Canadian community at large. Moreover, you have a particular obligation to those employees you discarded in favour of cheaper foreign workers. Fulfill it!

Another way for Canadian banks to increase their profits would be for the executives, directors and managers to take less pay. How about that?

Don’t do it on the backs of employees whose service and overall performance is fully satisfactory and whose only “fault” is that their jobs can be done cheaper by foreigners. How can you justify treating any of them with anything less than the respect and fair-minded consideration they deserve? It’s just the same as bank management and executives expect for themselves.

Certain values can get overlooked in day-to-day busyness and in the ongoing drive for efficiencies, but efficiency and bulging profits are not the only values that count. I do hope you directors and policymakers of all the Canadian banks will reconsider your values and obligations and begin to operate once again as good corporate citizens, caring members of the Canadian community at large, and as considerate and fair-minded employers of our people. I urge all of you to do so.

Rick Tone

Whitehorse