Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is an invited guest here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, shared minutes of her meeting with banking executives on the eve of the federal government's invocation of the Financial Emergency Act just shy of one year ago. And in those meeting minutes, Minister Freeland noted that Daryl White, the CEO of BMO, had actually called for the convoy organizers to be classified as terrorists under Canada's terrorist financing measures so that banks could intervene and freeze their accounts and seize their assets.
00:00:00.000Andrew Lawton here in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023.
00:00:05.140The world's global elites, banking leaders, national leaders all meeting in the Congress Centre just a little bit over there.
00:00:11.640You may recall during the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings in Canada,
00:00:15.200Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is an invited guest here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting,
00:00:22.140shared minutes of her meeting with banking executives on the eve of the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act just shy of one year ago.
00:00:30.240And in those meeting minutes, Minister Freeland noted that Daryl slash BMO, a reference to Daryl White, the CEO of BMO,
00:00:37.460had actually called for the convoy organizers to be classified as terrorists under Canada's terrorist financing measures
00:00:43.880so that banks could intervene and freeze their accounts and perhaps seize their assets.
00:00:48.960Now, I've asked BMO to comment on this and have not received any response whatsoever.
00:00:53.440But I did run into BMO CEO Daryl White on the streets of Davos and decided to ask him directly
00:00:58.320why he wanted to label convoy protesters as terrorists.
00:01:01.980Minister Freeland said during the Public Order Emergency Commission that you had wanted to call the convoy protesters terrorists
00:01:07.660to deal with their financing. Why was that?
00:01:09.820So I would never call the convoy protesters terrorists. What was said was that in order for the banks to be helpful,
00:01:23.960there are certain protocols. And those protocols include a sanction where we can, in fact, help in that case.
00:01:32.740Otherwise, it's not our business to interfere in the affairs of anyone's finances, truckers or otherwise.
00:01:39.280One of the other banking executives on that call had pushed back a little bit and said that they didn't want the banks
00:01:44.080to be weaponized. Was that a view you shared?
00:01:46.640Oh, it's always a view I shared. I don't think banks should be weaponized any more than any other industry.
00:01:51.620I think we have jobs to do and we do it for Canadians. And I think generally, in fact, more than generally,