Poilievre says Canadian banks need to compete for, and not buy, customers
Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal government to block the merger between RBC and HSBC, saying that such a move would only add to the already absurd levels of consolidation in the Canadian mortgage market.
“We have an overly concentrated government-protected banking sector that gives too much power to too few players already,” Poilievre said in a statement released Friday (October 20). “We need Canadian banks to compete for customers, not buy them.”
The merger represents the possible death of healthy competition in Canadian banking, Poilievre warned.
“HSBC has been offering rate advantages relative to RBC – now, this will be lost, removing the downward pressure on lending rates and forcing Canadian households to pay even more,” he said. “Conservatives want the big whales to compete with each other, not just swallow up the small fish.”
In an interview with BNN Bloomberg, Poilievre warned that currently, the Canadian mortgage space already has “far too much concentration.”
“We have these monstrous, government-protected behemoths that dominate 90% of the mortgage market, meaning very little choice for consumers,” Poilievre said. “Competition does not happen when the biggest player simply swallows the seventh-biggest player and Canadians are left paying the price.”
Mortgage applications took a significant hit, hitting a 28-year low, as mortgage rates continued their upward climb.
— Canadian Mortgage Professional Magazine (@CMPmagazine) October 18, 2023
Read more: https://t.co/C3d8ZAQB0P#MortgageIndustry #MortgageRates #MortgageApplications
Trudeau’s fiscal policies are significantly to blame, says Poilievre
The Conservative leader said that eight years of the Trudeau administration’s inflationary spending and debt played a major role in driving up inflation and interest rates.
“The number one thing the government can do to bring rates down is to balance the budget,” Poilievre said.
“Trudeau’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, has the power to stop this merger. The Competition Bureau found that HSBC’s mortgage business was a rate disruptor in the Canadian market. If you have a smaller competitor pulling down rates, then we should want them to remain in place. Instead, this merger lets the biggest bank in Canada gobble up 800,000 customers without having to offer those customers anything for their business.”
