BC’s leading retail industry watchdog, Retail BC, is encouraging retailers to support their fight to convince Ottawa to regulate the Canadian credit and debit card industries.

Retail BC is urging retailers to lend their support to the “Stop Sticking It to Us” Coalition, which is made up of 200,000 Canadian businesses. The Coalition was launched in early 2009 to lobby the Senate, the House of Commons and the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into credit card interchange fees and Canada’s debit system.

According to Mark Startup, President and CEO of Retail BC, “Ottawa’s investigation has only just begun”. He knows it will be a challenging fight and admits that “we’re anticipating a strong response from the credit card companies and the banks which control the debit card system in Canada”.

Startup compared the battle to a similar inequity that negatively impacted B.C.’s retailers in the 1990s. “This battle reminds me of our fight against escalating WCB rates, a battle in which Retail BC was successful, and a ‘win’ that continues to save British Columbian retailers and their customers tens of millions of dollars annually”.

According to Startup, there is no doubt that retailers can prevail in another significant issue that impacts the retail industry. “Retailers everywhere are upset with these increasingly unjust fees that they perceive as nothing more than a money grab. These fees do nothing to improve their services, and ultimately increase the costs of goods and services to the business and the customer.”

Compared to credit card fees in other countries, merchant rates in Canada are grossly inflated.