Liberals’ 2022 Budget Contains Allotment For Chinese Style Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
Opinion
Written By Neil McKenzie-Sutter
It’s squirreled away in a corner of the 2022 Budget for the Canadian government, chapter 9 section 2 features this selection:

‘Budget 2022 announces the government’s intention to launch a financial sector legislative review focused on the digitalization of money and maintaining financial sector stability and security. The first phase of the review will be directed at digital currencies, including cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

Budget 2022 also proposes $17.7 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, to the Department of Finance to lead the review.

The review will examine, among other factors: how to adapt the financial sector regulatory framework and toolbox to manage new digitalization risks; how to maintain the security and stability of the financial system in light of these evolving business models and technological capabilities; and the potential need for a central bank digital currency in Canada.’

While revelation isn’t necessarily considering it was announced earlier this year that the Central Bank of Canada would be conducting CBDC research with MIT.

For those of you who don’t know, this announcement isn’t positive for Canadian citizens or the Canadian economy.

The CBDC acronym stands for Central Bank Digital Currency, and it operates exactly how the name sounds: it’s a digital currency completely controlled by the Bank of Canada, and on most levels, the concept is a copy of the Chinese Digital Yuan, which was rolled out last year.

Due to the totally controlled nature of CBDCs, it was first pointed out by commentators in the Bitcoiner community that these currencies are almost like purpose-built to be human rights violation machines, and so we as Canadians should really push back and fight back against the rollout of this ‘currency,’ almost at all costs.

On top of that, the current Trudeau Liberal government absolutely should not be given a tool to control your bank account with the click of a button, considering their recent and repulsive decision to freeze and seize Freedom Convoy protestors’ bank accounts.

For what it’s worth, no matter what the Trudeau Liberals and Bank of Canada say, there is no real market need or desire for a CBDC, really anywhere.

Bitcoin is a fully functioning decentralized currency that is ready for use today, and as with U.S. stablecoins, the world of private enterprise has proven capable of filling a demand for U.S. digital currencies. In the forms of the DAI and UST stablecoins, too, it’s also possible to create functional, decentralized stablecoins.

In case you were unaware, stablecoins are simply a program made to constantly price-match the U.S. dollar, and potentially a decentralized stablecoin could be created to price-match the Canadian dollar in the same manner.

Given this reality, what purpose or need is there ever for a Bank of Canada-controlled digital currency? There’s absolutely no need for these CBDC products, and so they should be called out for what they are right away: another ugly, power grab by a greedy, authoritarian.

The other problem is that CBDCs would likely be linked to a social credit system or ESG score to coerce people into “ethical” decision-making with their money. The problem is that Central banks, governments, and international NGOs would be the arbiters of morality here. Likely you would be punished for buying meat, gas-powered cars, donating to conservative causes, and a whole host of other things those at Davos would object to.

In the final analysis: the Bank of Canada CBDC research program needs to be stopped immediately or else Canada will be literally following down the same path as the Chinese government.