By Gerald Heinrichs

Alberta-based North Economics reports that in 2022, Canada’s five largest banks had $7.73 billion in non-interest retail bank profits. That’s about $250 for each and every Canadian. North Economics’ managing director, Alain de Brossart, broke it down, stating, “Canadian banks have done a very good job of extracting as many fees out of people as possible.”

But banks don’t get anything when Canadians pay with cash. A profit-obsessed banker would say that every cash transaction is a lost bank fee, and getting rid of cash would be a jackpot dream.

In 2024, the US Federal Reserve reported that 6% of adults had no bank account at all. This group, sometimes called the “unbanked,” isn’t the only one that relies a lot on cash. For many different reasons, elderly people, rural dwellers, simple-life people, libertarians, and people who distrust banks also choose to be big users of cash.

And cash is absolutely necessary for businesses like farmgate and stall vendors. It’s likewise necessary for all manner of small start-up businesses, from T-shirts to tech support. Cash is the grease on many wheels of enterprise.

Moreover, from time to time, every Canadian might have their own personal reason for being cash reliant: investment, security, privacy or fear.  It is one of those freedoms in your back pocket. Just because you don’t use it today doesn’t mean you won’t want it in the future.

Among these countless citizen activities, none of them involve illegal things like selling drugs or money laundering. Only people who are mindless of these many legitimate purposes would ask the government to do such a radical thing as restrict how Canadians can use their cash.

There is, however, a circle of people who want to eliminate cash as soon as possible. Kenneth Rogoff, a former International Monetary Fund (IMF) bureaucrat, is one of them.  His book, The Curse of Cash, claims cash is nothing but the dirty stuff of crime and tax evasion. And his book is a hit with those who care little about individual freedom and small business.

But there’s another important thing. Electronic transactions, unlike cash, create a record. It is a record of the things you buy, the places you go, and the people and causes you support. What you do with your money is an intimate window into your privacy.

That giant privacy invasion is well underway in communist China. The CCP’s monitoring system is called Social Credit. It is government surveillance that monitors citizen behaviour and then dishes out a government reward or punishment based on good or bad conduct.  According to The Economist, it is a “new form of social control” by a “digital dictatorship.”  And spying on money transactions is part of this disturbing government plan.

Therefore, it is very unsettling that one of the first priorities of the Carney government is to start limiting how Canadians can use their cash.

Bill C-2 had its first reading in Parliament on June 3, 2025. Under the banner of security and Public Safety, Part 11 of the Bill makes it a crime for any Canadian to receive “a cash payment, donation or deposit of $10,000 or more.” And just to be sure, the crime covers “foreign currency” and “a single transaction” or a “series of related transactions.” The government says it needs to impose these laws on Canadians for a new and hazy purpose called “disrupting illicit financing.”

How many Canadians were previously aware of this imminent threat, let alone that it required drastic action against each and every Canadian?

Our police already have the power to find, seize, and capture criminal stores of cash. This power includes search warrants and electronic surveillance, all financed by an almost bottomless public purse. Mafia criminals may appear powerful, but they are pipsqueaks compared to what the state can bring to bear.

Canadians want the police to fight crime and would support greater police enforcement against criminal suspects, such as special police squads and stronger search warrants for criminal cash.

The right solution is better police resources. The wrong and twisted solution is what the Carney government is doing.  They are attacking every Canadian and making criminal what was never before a crime. If it’s more than $10,000, it will soon be a crime to use cash to buy your car or pay for your home renovation. And business contracts involving cash payments of more than $10,000 will be a new type of commercial crime.

The Liberal government’s claim that this drastic law is needed for public safety is hard to believe. How many rotten leaders of the past have used the pretext of security to take away freedom? One of the worst was Hermann Goering, who infamously said, “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked.” 

In recent months, many have been asking what defines Canada. If this bad law becomes real, it will support an unfortunate and growing answer: Canada is the place where the government takes away freedom, and the people let it happen.

Gerald Heinrichs is a lawyer in Regina, Saskatchewan.