With the parliamentary clock ticking down and the government yet to pass their ‘affordable housing and groceries’ bill—the first piece of federal legislation tabled in the fall sitting—the NDP have agreed to help the Liberals advance Bill C-56 in exchange for a series of amendments inspired by a similar bill from Leader Jagmeet Singh, CTV News has learned.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? Any large corporation will happily eat fines all day long if they are still turning a profit from whatever crime they are committing.
This is why Facebook and Google continue to commit privacy violations. Why Bell Canada still practices deceptive marketing and sales. And why Loblaws and friends are reporting record profits each new year.
If the fines don’t HURT these companies, they are ineffective.
The moment corporations outgrew fines was the moment capitalism seriously turned sideways. Not that there weren’t always serious issues, but it’s insane that we allow these entities to exist entirely outside of meaningful legal prosecution.
I’d prefer to see fines linked to profits AND length of time they were stealing, ie: $20 mil x 44 months of theft = $968 million fine
That will get their immediate attention.
Fines of any sort for large corporations are literally just legal bribery to get some responsible party out of facing prosecution. Corporate bad actors have the power to do far more damage to people and land than an individual can, yet they get to buy their way out.
That’s exactly why any punishment has to do damage. And it needs to be swift and severe.
An individual who ruins lives tends to have their lives ruined buy the justice system in most cases. The same needs to apply to companies, or at least, the people running those companies.