But surely there are limits. The millions of Canadians who are our shareholders directly or indirectly have not purchased our shares in order to see us run surrogate governments. They want us to run a competitive, successful bank. The millions of Canadians who entrust their money to us want us to invest it and safeguard it in a way that enhances their financial well being. What is more, we are ill-equipped to function as social agencies and would probably fail if forced to do so.
Social policy is the role of government.
Surely we have learned enough from the experiments and the errors of the '60's and '70's and early '80's to have a clear understanding of what the respective roles of government and the private sector ought to be. I would ask others in the private sector in this country to consider what is at stake here. This is about their future too. There is something called precedent. The imposition of enforced competitive weakness is a very odd approach to employment and service delivery.