To: RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC, and Desjardins
Banks: Your $60 Billion Profit Is Fueling a Housing and Climate Crisis You Can Help End
The Shift
Last year, you extracted $60 billion in profits, part of which came from lending practices that drive up the cost of housing and push people out of their homes. At the same time, you walked back your climate commitments; commitments that were put in place to help protect Canadians and the world from unsustainable business and finance practices.
It's time to be part of the solution to the housing and climate crises.
Why is this important?
The Truth About Your Role:
Your mortgage lending drives up house prices, making homeownership unaffordable. You finance landlords who evict long-term tenants to maximize rents, while your commercial lending criteria reward displacement over affordability. You've erected barriers that block non-profit housing providers from building the homes we desperately need; requiring 35% equity and loan guarantees that corporate landlords never face.
And while you've abandoned climate commitments by leaving the Net Zero Banking Alliance, you continue financing sprawl and energy-inefficient buildings without assessing their carbon footprint; locking in decades of emissions while calling real estate "green investment."
What We Demand:
- Reform your commercial lending practices and risk assessments. Stop incentivizing corporate landlords who raise rents, evict tenants, and reposition buildings from affordable to luxury. Deny financing to those who use evictions as a common business practice, or where patterns of tenant displacement are evident or likely to occur especially as a means of debt financing.
- Publicly disclose to your customers if their mortgages are packaged and sold to investors.
- Level the playing field for non-profit housing providers so that they can secure loans to purchase, retrofit or build truly affordable housing.
- Invest in solutions by directing 15% of annual profits above $1 billion toward financing affordable housing construction, acquisition, and deep retrofits that maintain affordability in perpetuity.
- Honor your climate commitments by assessing and publicly disclosing the climate impact of all residential real estate lending. Stop financing projects that increase emissions and prioritize conversions and adaptive reuse projects that are energy-efficient, and connected to public transit.
Canada doesn't just need more housing, we need a banking system that builds communities instead of destroying them. Read more about the role that Banks have to play in Canada’s housing crisis here.
Sign if you believe banks should be part of the solution, not the crisis.