Nonetheless, I think the corporate masters behind both parties are more interested in maintaining their hegemony and the transaction fees that come with it than they are about weaponizing it. If anything the very threat of weaponization is enough to inspire other countries to ameliorate the threat, which is decidedly not in their interests. The deranged narcissist is not working in their best interests but he doesn't care because he's a deranged narcissist.

@santi

@alan

Or, will his loyalties to the establishments of Bay Street and Wall Street prevail?

@alan

Given its historic links with France, perhaps one solution would be for Canadian banks to join the French Cartes Bancaires network, which processes card transactions in France - and most CB cards are co-branded with the Visa and Mastercard anyway.

CB operates as a cooperative owned by its member banks. Unlike Visa or Mastercard, CB is a non-profit, so its focus is on serving the French financial system and its users, rather than maximising shareholder profits.

Note there are EU payments processing systems in development, including the digital euro - but Canadian banks joining the Cartes Bancaires co-op would provide a quicker and easier exit from US payments processing.

Sure, until the Euro.

Yes, that's correct. ASAP is not next week. And yes joining is the goal.

Even if Canada started negotiations with the EU on joining tomorrow it would still require agreement on all 33 accession chapters plus the agreement of all 27 existing EU members and a referendum in Canada because constitutional amendments would be required.

That process would take years, realistically probably closer to a decade, and we as a nation simply cannot wait that long to separate ourselves from the US. Thus in the meantime we need to continue proceeding as a singular entity.

Just what happens when any member uses it. Canada should join the EU.

Let's sort this out.

Not if we are EU members, then it is ours.

Sorry if you relied on bank fees.

Any international payment system that is under the jurisdiction of one nation (or bloc) is always going to represent a risk for Canada to rely on. The best option is to maintain our own domestic national system with international agreements to allow for wider usage. This would mean we could only ever be cut off from a single entity, and even then only by our own choice or by the choice of that entity, without a 3rd party playing any role.

I'm hoping on joining the EU, and getting the Euro, and ending the dollar and No Longer paying banks, in the short term.

A no fee and not involving banks is the gold standard but right now I think separating our financial systems from the US should be the top priority

I like the European solution with no fees and no payment to banks.

All Canada needs to do is put in legislation to ensure that Interac remains Canadian; require that it's infrastructure and governance are 100% Canadian, as well as prohibiting any transaction data from being exported. Then allow Canadian financial institutions to issue credit products that utilise the Interac network (they sort of already do as anyone with over draft protection and in many cases lines of credit can utilise those with Interac)

Europe is replacing visa and MasterCard and PayPal with a system that has no fees.

VISA and the rest have been scraping every transaction, like a grater on cheese, in Europe, now European citizens are going save billions. Actual billions.

Europe just gave everyone a raise. And American banks a reduction.

Canada should join Europe now, sooner.

#cdnpoli #visa