The potential finality of the financially-fittest rule ...
Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 10:01 pm
Vancouver: Group calls on Burnaby, province to limit payday loan outlets
Burnaby Acorn held a rally outside a newly opened money lending store Tuesday to raise awareness about the dangerous proliferation of these types of businesses and to put pressure on the city and province to do something about it.
Payday lenders in B.C. can charge up to 23% interest on loans for every pay period, which means a $100 loan, if left unpaid for six months, can inflate what the borrower owes dramatically, according to Burnaby Acorn.
Last February, the group presented to Burnaby council and asked for a licence limit to payday lending establishments.
Nearly one year later, they’re urging the city to make a decision, said Monica McGovern, Burnaby Acorn chapter chair.
McGovern said payday businesses “set people up for failure,” particularly low-income residents who rely on the loans to make ends meet.
Payday loan businesses are licensed through Consumer Protection B.C. (CPBC). From 2011 to 2013, 54 investigations were conducted on payday lenders in B.C.
Of those, 11 received administrative penalties and six compliance orders were issued.
In 2013, B.C. residents borrowed about $351 million through the 800,000 payday loans taken out. The average size of a loan is nearly $450. An average of 100,000 British Columbians use payday lenders and the average borrower takes out eight loans annually.
Burnaby Coun. Dan Johnston said the matter is still being reviewed by staff on whether or not the city can do anything to regulate or influence payday loan operations in Burnaby.
Johnston said he expects staff to come back with recommendations in a report this spring.
“The effective way to regulate them would be for the province to do something that would allow municipalities to either ban them, or the province should really step in to set up parameters for how they operate so people aren’t at risk,” he said. “We would support that.”
Guidelines like that is what allowed New York State to outright ban payday loan businesses, according to Craig MacFarlane, City of Surrey’s city solicitor.
Last April, Surrey implemented a zoning bylaw, at B.C. Acorn’s request, which regulates cheque cashing centres and payday loan stores to maintain a 400-metre distance from each other when opening up shop, MacFarlane said.
Surrey had a similar bylaw requiring a specific separation distance with small drug stores when a problem arose around methadone use, according to MacFarlane.
“It’s a pretty simple amendment,” he said. “It didn’t take me long at all.”
What’s omitted in this recent news story is the legitimate concern, what do such morally corrupt money marts indicate for poor folks’ future?
The ideology behind the money marketers’ exploding wealth is that of a governing, news-media and societal common philosophy that’s gradually replacing both the original left-wing and right-wing camps. In its most fundamentalist form this ideology, libertarianism in its most extreme, essentially translates into frighteningly ugly socio-economic Darwinism—i.e. survival of the richest and the fully well-employed.
From what I’ve observed via news-media locally, provincially, nationally and internationally over the last two decades or so, it’s only a matter of time before the collapse of the social safety net or, rather, what’s left of it.
Burnaby Acorn held a rally outside a newly opened money lending store Tuesday to raise awareness about the dangerous proliferation of these types of businesses and to put pressure on the city and province to do something about it.
Payday lenders in B.C. can charge up to 23% interest on loans for every pay period, which means a $100 loan, if left unpaid for six months, can inflate what the borrower owes dramatically, according to Burnaby Acorn.
Last February, the group presented to Burnaby council and asked for a licence limit to payday lending establishments.
Nearly one year later, they’re urging the city to make a decision, said Monica McGovern, Burnaby Acorn chapter chair.
McGovern said payday businesses “set people up for failure,” particularly low-income residents who rely on the loans to make ends meet.
Payday loan businesses are licensed through Consumer Protection B.C. (CPBC). From 2011 to 2013, 54 investigations were conducted on payday lenders in B.C.
Of those, 11 received administrative penalties and six compliance orders were issued.
In 2013, B.C. residents borrowed about $351 million through the 800,000 payday loans taken out. The average size of a loan is nearly $450. An average of 100,000 British Columbians use payday lenders and the average borrower takes out eight loans annually.
Burnaby Coun. Dan Johnston said the matter is still being reviewed by staff on whether or not the city can do anything to regulate or influence payday loan operations in Burnaby.
Johnston said he expects staff to come back with recommendations in a report this spring.
“The effective way to regulate them would be for the province to do something that would allow municipalities to either ban them, or the province should really step in to set up parameters for how they operate so people aren’t at risk,” he said. “We would support that.”
Guidelines like that is what allowed New York State to outright ban payday loan businesses, according to Craig MacFarlane, City of Surrey’s city solicitor.
Last April, Surrey implemented a zoning bylaw, at B.C. Acorn’s request, which regulates cheque cashing centres and payday loan stores to maintain a 400-metre distance from each other when opening up shop, MacFarlane said.
Surrey had a similar bylaw requiring a specific separation distance with small drug stores when a problem arose around methadone use, according to MacFarlane.
“It’s a pretty simple amendment,” he said. “It didn’t take me long at all.”
What’s omitted in this recent news story is the legitimate concern, what do such morally corrupt money marts indicate for poor folks’ future?
The ideology behind the money marketers’ exploding wealth is that of a governing, news-media and societal common philosophy that’s gradually replacing both the original left-wing and right-wing camps. In its most fundamentalist form this ideology, libertarianism in its most extreme, essentially translates into frighteningly ugly socio-economic Darwinism—i.e. survival of the richest and the fully well-employed.
From what I’ve observed via news-media locally, provincially, nationally and internationally over the last two decades or so, it’s only a matter of time before the collapse of the social safety net or, rather, what’s left of it.