Link Verified for Update: March 31, 2024
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Link Updated: July 13, 2023
October 24, 2023 7.20%
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June 8, 2023: 6.95%
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current prime rate 6.70% as of January 28, 2023
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| April 14, 2022 3.20% |
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| March 17, 2020 2.95% |
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Update Prime Interest Rate for CIBC: Current prime rate 3.45% as of January 18, 2018
View Historical Effective Prime Rates
During what is known as the Basi, Virk, Basi trial, a question was posed by Kevin McCullough, the lawyer for Bobby Virk, to Crown Witness Brian G. Kenning, on what was the going interest rate on an indemnity ($255 million), to which the reply came back that he had no idea, besides, the Board of Directors for BC Rail didn't put that into the agreement when it came to clinching the deal on the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail. Who did? The government of Gordon Campbell, of course.
For a layperson to go looking for the going prime rate, whether it be on the internet or even going so far as to ask a bank for such historical data, the first method is FREE, the second..... well I'm quite sure there would be a price tag attached, especially during the trial.
Election BC to the rescue, not that I was looking for that particular data last night, a month and a half after the $6 million payoff, I just found it at their wonderful website while doing some Dry reading where every once in awhile something makes you go WOW!!!!. The reason I was looking for this particular information was because I wanted to know how Elections BC counted political donations. I've kindly highlighted in Bold below, "Prime Interest Rates".
http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/fin/407.pdf Prime Interest Rates
"Prime Interest Rates
If a loan to a political party, constituency association, candidate, leadership contestant or a nomination contestant is made at an interest rate less than the prime rate of the principal banker to the Province of British Columbia at the time the interest rate is fixed, the benefit derived is a political contribution. The interest rates that should be used when completing the Loans and Guarantees Received (S-L1) form to calculate the amount of interest payable at the prime rate are located at the following sites:
Historical interest rates – http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/PT/bcm/histrates.shtml
Current interest rate – http://cibc.com/ca/rates/index.html
If you have any questions, please contact the Electoral Finance program area atI clicked on the Historical interest rates without realizing there was "fin" in the link which took me to this page's contents:
Elections BC."
"The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is considered to be the Province’s principal banker for interest rate reference purposes. As the need to determine the prime rate of the Province’s banker arises under various enactments and instruments across government, the historical record of CIBC’s prime lending rate can be referenced below. The rates are listed from 1974 and will be updated on a periodic basis. Please refer to CIBC's Web site for the most recent rate.
View the Historical Effective Prime Rate table."
I went Hmmmmmm. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and wondered aloud as to whether CIBC World Markets was related to CIBC. Would you make the same observation? Would you be tempted to take the next step in the link to View the Historical Effective Prime Rate Table that goes back to 1974 and is updated on a periodic basis. I did.
On page 2 of the document, top right corner... April 14, 2004, the going interest rate was 3.75%!!!!!
The indemnity that the Executive Council (Cabinet) signed off on the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail was a whopping 9%, and the really interesting thing is that the numbers show that the Prime Rate peaked on July 11, 2007 at 6.25%, and went into a steady decline, all through 2008, till September 9, 2010 at 3.00%.
So could you tell me this again, Premier Gordon Campbell, and Finance Minister Colin Hansen, and all those who are currently in the running to be the next Premier, via the BC Liberal Party, just when did you decide to implement the Harmonized Sales Tax? Just when did the Deputy Minister of Finance become alerted to the need to Harmonize with the rest of Canada?
The government has plenty of graphs, plenty of GDP to compare to various streams of information, but just looking at the Prime Rate is good enough for me.
For more information on the background on how the public was hosed:
http://pacificgazette.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-legitimate-exactly-is-railgate.html The Gazetteer
http://therealstory.ca/2010-09-21/bc-liberals/bc-rail-how-badly-were-we-hosed The Real Story
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Last Update: January 13, 2014 still no change since September 9, 2010 CIBC Current prime rate 2.70% as of July 16, 2015
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