As I said, I want to see more information before I commit to an opinion. I know that these decisions would have been made based off far more information than I presently have access to or knowledge of, and that a lot of technical expertise would have gone into offering options. We’re I to make a decision on my position right now it would be based on emotion, not a proper appreciation of the facts and evidence.
Your wife may not have told you that the banks interface with government all the time and already have a massive regulatory compliance framework to work in. Ever done a transaction over $10,000? FINTRAC likely has it. Even at the teller level they regularly identify suspicious transactions that get flagged, written up, sent to FINTRAC and, yes, can be and regularly are shared with law enforcement. I’ve been eyeballs deep in that (on a completely unrelated matter). So, the measures that were taken with regards to the convoy were not exactly unprecedented; they were based off existing tools, but then were extended and applied in an emergency. I remain to be convinced one way or the other as to the need for them, and to be honest once I do have an opinion on that particular government policy I may be more prudent to keep it to myself anyway.
EDIT TO ADD: I absolutely will concede that whatever justification there may have been for use of certain financial sector tools, once actually applied they ended up capturing people more broadly than I expect was the intent. The government may also not have adequately considered the additional unilateral steps banks will take to ‘de-risk’ by speculatively closing off products and services to individuals if the bank is concerned it may subject them to liability. They can, will, and regularly do do that even just based on a suspicion that a customer’s financial dealings may be dirty- and the definition of what could legally be ‘dirty’ was briefly very uncertain and in flux last winter.
