Banks in Canada should be made to pay their fair share

THE CASE FOR A NEW BANK TAX:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has been in gun-slinging mode recently, striding out to defend Canada's banks against the mandarins at the International Monetary Fund. They want the G-20 governments to impose a new bank tax to help pay for the bailouts and deficits that resulted from the global financial crisis. But Flaherty is having no part of it.

Before a supportive hometown crowd on Bay Street, he denounced the idea of "excessive, arbitrary, punitive" taxes on Canadian banks, who have weathered the financial storm with flying colours. (Of course, that $200 billion low-interest line of credit from Ottawa helped just a bit.) "We're not going to …