In a call with Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland and Deputy Minister of Finance Michael Sabia on Feb. 13, the day before the government invoked the Emergencies Act to address the convoy protests against COVID-19 restrictions, a group of bank CEOs pressed for financial measures to include non-bank businesses and online platforms as well. (The Logic)

Talking point: The bank CEOs, whose names are redacted in a readout of the call shared Thursday with an inquiry examining whether the government met the bar for invoking the Emergencies Act, also expressed concern about the damage the protests were doing to Canada’s reputation. Some suggested designating the protesters as terrorists, enabling the banks to freeze their funding faster. One CEO took the opportunity to call for regulation of the payment platforms Stripe and PayPal. “Let’s be clear, they will eventually all move to crypto,” one CEO said. “If we listed them as terrorists we could move fast.” Meanwhile, the president of the Canadian Bankers Association in a speech Thursday invoked the collapse of crypto companies FTX and Celsius as an example of why the country needs stronger consumer protections for payment-service providers.