Opinion
Our country has lost its way
March 7, 2019 – Red Deer, AB
Opinion from Terry Loewen
Canada has lost its way in so many different areas. I’m not sure what the brave men and women that fought 2 world wars would be thinking right now, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be impressed and probably heart broken!
I’m not sure how this country has become so divisive in such a short period of time, but it is extremely concerning to me. There is plenty of room to disagree and debate with each other, but this pure hate is something I’ve never seen in my 48 years on this earth. It seems people have fallen so far right or so far left, there is no common ground. I believe all common sense has vanished and I consider common sense one of the most important tool per see that one can use in most situations. Whether its business, personal, political, environmental or any other decisions you may make or think about, common sense will usually lead you to the right answer.
Whether it is in Canada or the U.S., people are throwing absolute non-sense ideas around, trying to persuade their Countrymen to come to their far tilted side and its wrong in my opinion. If you believe full-heartedly that Climate Change is a major issue, fine, but do your research and come up with a sensible solution. Don’t come out as a leader and say no more fossil fuels in 10 years and no more cattle! If you believe that the Oil Sands in Alberta are an issue, then do your research on the project and come up with solutions rather than just protest its existence.
All parts of Canada have major challenges, whether its economical, social, environmental or anything else, that need to be addressed. Being stubborn and divisive is not going to help the best interests of society. Let’s come together as a nation and show empathy to one another, use common sense, find common ground. Find and implement solutions! That’s what Canada is about. Not what is happening right now.
What is disgraceful is the actions of our leaders! They have taken an Oath to do what’s in the best interest of the people they serve, and may I remind them, pay their salary. They may belong to a political party and I understand that parties have certain beliefs, but that doesn’t mean every belief is a fit for your Constituents! They are to vote what is best for their people, not their party! That is what they took the Oath to do and if they don’t do it, they should be thrown out of office. Yes, there are times that the people don’t have all the facts and may not understand all the issues, but not many and certainly not all are that way.
The very fact that there are Premier’s and a Prime Minister in this Country that are not only NOT following the Oath they’ve taken, but they are outright lying to the people they serve. Its frankly extremely insulting! For them to think they can stand up in public and try and shove so many untruthful remarks to us Canadians down our throats is repulsive.
The Prime Minister is now using the words “erosion of trust”! He’s not talking about himself if you can belief that? The situation that is at the forefront now is should the government let a company off the hook for illegal activities to save jobs? Are we in a corrupt country? It seems like a dream to me that this is the basis of this most recent lie and deception of the people of Canada. The answer is extremely simple, NO! NO, it is not alright to give a free pass to a company on illegal activity. It sets precedent for every other company in this country to do the same thing. As well, if the government is going to protect 9000 jobs for this company, it damn well better protect every other job in Canada, big or small! We all know this isn’t possible so follow the laws. Its unbelievable that the people in power, that are responsible to make and uphold the laws are trying to give free passes to people breaking the law. UNBELIEVABLE!
It is truly time for the people of this Country to stand up and take our rights back to fair and honest representation. I don’t have all the solutions, but I believe if someone is sworn into office and they are dishonest and corrupt in anyway, they should be removed from power immediately and put in jail! This isn’t a case of a person going to work and not doing their job, this is outright criminal in my opinion.
In conclusion, it’s time for our leaders to come clean, do what’s right for all provinces and territories; all Canadians. Let’s get on with rebuilding this Country that millions of human beings gave their life for. I’ve always been extremely proud to say I’m a Canadian, but right now I’m embarrassed! Enough self interest and everyone from the top down, need to use some common sense and get this Country back to being Proud, Strong and Free.
Banks
Welcome Back, Wells Fargo!

Racket News
By Eric Salzman
The heavyweight champion of financial crime gets seemingly its millionth chance to show it’s reformed
The past two decades have been tough ones for Wells Fargo and the many victims of its sprawling crime wave. While the banking industry is full of scammers, Wells took turning time honored street-hustles into multi-billion dollar white-collar hustles to a new level.
The Federal Reserve announced last month that Wells Fargo is no longer subject to the asset growth restriction the Fed finally enforced in 2018 after multiple scandals. This was a major enforcement action that prohibited Wells from growing existing loan portfolios, purchasing other bank branches or entering into any new activities that would result in their asset base growing.
Upon hearing the news that Wells was being released from the Fed’s penalty box, my mind turned to this pivotal moment in the classic movie “Slapshot.”
Here are some of Wells Fargo’s lowlights both before and after the Fed’s enforcement action:
- December 2022: Wells Fargo paid more than $2 billion to consumers and $1.7 billion in civil penalties after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found mismanagement — including illegal fees and interest charges — in several of its biggest product lines, such as auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts.
- September 2021: Wells Fargo paid $72.6 million to the Justice Department for overcharging foreign exchange customers from 2010-2017.
- February 2020: Wells Fargo paid $3 billion to settle criminal and civil investigations by the Justice Department and SEC into its aggressive sales practices between 2002 and 2016. About $500 million was eventually distributed to investors.
- January 2020: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) banned two senior executives, former CEO John Stumpf and ex-Head of Community Bank Carrie Tolstedt, from the banking industry. Stumpf and Tolstedt also incurred civil penalties of $17.5 million and $17 million.
- August 2018: The Justice Department levied a $2.09 billion fine on Wells Fargo for its actions during the subprime mortgage crisis, particularly its mortgage lending practices between 2005 and 2007.
- April 2018: Federal regulators at the CFPB and OCC examined Wells’ auto loan insurance and mortgage lending practices and ordered the bank to pay $1 billion in damages.
- February 2018: The aforementioned Fed enforcement action. In addition to the asset growth restriction, Wells was ordered to replace three directors.
- October 2017: Wells Fargo admitted wrongdoing after 110,000 clients were fined for missing a mortgage payment deadline — delays for which the bank was ultimately deemed at fault.
- July 2017: As many as 570,000 Wells Fargo customers were wrongly charged for auto insurance on car loans after the bank failed to verify whether those customers already had existing insurance. As a result, up to 20,000 customers may have defaulted on car loans.
- September 2016: Wells Fargo acknowledged its employees had created 1.5 million deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts between 2002 and 2016 that “may not have been authorized by consumers,” according to CFPB. As a result, the lender was forced to pay $185 million in damages to the CFPB, OCC, and City and County of Los Angeles.
Additionally, somehow in 2023 Wells even managed to drop $1 billion in a civil settlement with shareholders for overstating their progress in complying with their 2018 agreement with the Fed to clean themselves up!
I imagine if Wells were in any other business, it wouldn’t be allowed to continue. But Wells is part of the “Too Big to Fail” club. Taking away its federal banking charter would be too disruptive for the financial markets, so instead they got what ended up being a seven-year growth ban. Not exactly rough justice.
While not the biggest settlement, my favorite Wells scam was the 2021 settlement of the seven-year pilfering operation, ripping off corporate customers’ foreign exchange transactions.
Like many banks, Wells Fargo offers its corporate clients with global operations foreign exchange (FX) services. For example, if a company is based in the U.S. but has extensive dealings in Canada, it may receive payments in Canadian dollars (CAD) that need to be exchanged for U.S. dollars (USD) and vice versa. Wells, like many banks, has foreign exchange specialists who do these conversions. Ideally, the banks optimize their clients’ revenue and decrease risk, in return for a markup fee, or “spread.”
There’s a lot of trust involved with this activity as the corporate customers generally have little idea where FX is trading minute by minute, nor do they know what time of day the actual orders for FX transactions — commonly called “BSwifts” — come in. For an unscrupulous bank, it’s a license to steal, which is exactly what Wells did.
According to the complaint, Wells regularly marked up transactions at higher spreads than what was agreed upon. This was just one of the variety of naughty schemes Wells used to clobber their customers. My two favorites were “The Big Figure Trick” and the “BSwift Pinata.”
The Big Figure Trick
Let’s say a client needs to sell USD for CAD, and that the $1 USD is worth $1.32 CAD. In banking parlance, the 32 cents is called the “Big Figure.” Wells would buy the CAD at $1.32 for $1 USD and then transpose the actual exchange rate on the customer statement from $1.32 to $1.23. If the customer didn’t notice, Wells would pocket the difference. On a transaction where the client is buying 5 million CAD with USD, the ill-gotten gain for Wells would be about $277,000 USD!
Conversely, if the customer did notice the difference, Wells would just blame it on the grunts in its operational back office, saying they accidentally transposed the number and “correct” the transaction. From the complaint, here is some give and take between two Wells FX specialists:
“You can play the transposition error game if you get called out.” Another FX sales specialist noted to a colleague about a previous transaction that a customer “didn’t flinch at the big fig the other day. Want to take a bit more?”
The BSwift Piñata
The way this hustle would work is, let’s say the Wells corporate customer was receiving payment from one of their Canadian clients. The Canadian client’s bank would send a BSwift message to Wells. The Wells client was in the dark about the U.S. dollar-Canadian dollar exchange rate because it had no idea what time of day the message arrived. Wells took advantage of that by purchasing U.S. dollars for Canadian dollars first. For simplicity, think of the U.S. dollar-Canadian dollar exchange rate as a widget that Wells bought for $1. If the widget increased in value, say to $1.10 during the day, Wells would sell the widget they purchased for $1 to the client for $1.10 and pocket 10 cents. If the price of the widget Wells bought for $1 fell to 95 cents, Wells would just give up their $1 purchase to the client, plus whatever markup they agreed to.
Heads, Wells wins. Tails, client loses.
The complaint notes that a Wells FX specialist wrote that he:
“Bumped spreads up a pinch,” that “these clients who are in the mode of just processing wires will most likely not notice this slight change in pricing” and that it “could have a very quick positive impact on revenue without a lot of risk.”
Talk about a boiler room operation. Personally, I think calling what you are doing to a client a “piñata” should have easily put Wells in the Fed’s penalty box another 5 years at least!
Wells has been released from the Fed’s 2018 enforcement order. I would like to think they have learned their lesson and are reformed, but I would lay good odds against it. A leopard can’t change its spots.
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International
Woman wins settlement after YMCA banned her for complaining about man in girls’ locker room

From LifeSiteNews
Julie Jaman will receive $65,000 as part of the settlement after being banned from a local swimming pool for objecting to a man in a female shower with little girls present
A Washington State grandmother won a $65,000 settlement from the City of Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula YMCA after she was banned from a swimming pool for objecting to a cross-dressing man watching small girls change clothes.
As covered by LifeSiteNews in 2022, Julie Jaman testified before the Port Townsend City Council about her experience showering in the local pool’s facilities when she heard “a man’s voice in the women’s dressing area.” When she investigated, she said that she saw “a man in a women’s swimsuit, watching little girls pull down their bathing suits in order to use the toilets in the dressing room.”
She also told a local newspaper, “There were gaps in the curtain and there I was, naked, with soap and water on me, and this guy, right there very close to me. I asked, ‘Do you have a penis?’ He said, ‘That’s none of your business.’ That’s when I told him, ‘Get out of here, right now.” She appealed to a nearby female manager, who she says replied, “you’re discriminating and you can’t use the pool anymore and I’m calling the police.”
After speaking to police and reviewing police reports, the Port Townsend FreePress reported that Jaman had an “emotional response to a strange male being in the bathroom and helping a young girl take off her bathing suit,” and was described as “screaming” by a complainant.
“In an effort by the city and the YMCA to apply the neo-cultural gender rules at Mountain View Pool dressing, shower room facilities, women and children are being put at risk,” Jaman declared at the time.
A YMCA marketing and communications manager responded at the time by disputing her version of events, claiming the male was not “engaging” with the young girls but was simply escorting them to the dressing room, and that the confrontation was just one in a series of many that led to her ban.
She sued, however, and on June 30 the group representing her, the Center for American Liberty (CAL), announced that the city and the YMCA chapter had agreed to a $65,000 settlement, which also provides that the city will “remove certain information about Ms. Jaman from its website, further underscoring the baselessness of the actions taken against her.”
“This case was never just about one woman being banned from a publicly owned pool, it was about the fundamental right of every American to speak truth without fear of retaliation,” said Mark Trammell, CEO of CAL. “Julie Jaman bravely stood her ground, endured attacks on her character, and today’s settlement affirms that government officials cannot silence dissenting voices through intimidation or retribution.”
“I never imagined that expressing concerns about the safety and privacy of women and girls would lead to me being shunned and banned,” Jaman added. “I’m grateful that justice has been served and that my voice was heard. This is a victory for common sense, women’s rights, and the right to speak the truth.”
Despite being demanded by LGBT activists as a matter of “fairness,” policies forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with males who “identify” as the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives potential male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.
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