Canada’s sovereignty call-to-arms has largely been expressed through what we buy. Shoppers fiercely scrutinize labels and corporate ownership to determine whether a product is truly “Canadian.” But while we’re paying closer attention to the origin and composition of the products we’re purchasing, we’re not really thinking about how we pay for them. That needs to change.
Kimberly Prost probably thinks about it every day. The Canadian International Criminal Court judge has been sanctioned by the Donald Trump administration since August 2025 for authorizing investigations into alleged war crimes by American personnel in Afghanistan, as well as cases related to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Those sanctions mean that when Prost goes on vacation, she needs to phone hotels in advance to explain why she can’t pay for her stay with a credit card.
Prost is navigating a financial shadow ban because global commerce moves through an Americanized network. In 2025, Visa and Mastercard controlled 96 percent of Canada’s credit card market. We have a strong domestic debit system with Interac, but even that independence is eroding: Visa and Mastercard have partnered with Interac on co-badged cards, while many consumers pay with Apple-issued iPhones or use terminals run by American companies, such as Chase, Global Payments, Square, and Stripe.
A system that inconveniences a judge today could, in theory, be turned against a whole country tomorrow. The United Kingdom is reportedly exploring a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard over fears Trump could use United States–owned payment providers to freeze its economy. European officials have warned the continent is dangerously exposed to such coercion.
We have Interac. Very few places don’t take it.
Co-badged cards have always existed since the beginning of Interac. Any card from PRE-Interac would have had Plus, Maestro or Cirrus co-badging. That’s not new. Your debit card also being usable as a credit card in no way takes away from what Interac does.
I have had an VISA debit for something like 15 years. I got one almost immediately after they became available. I don’t think I have used it as a credit card maybe ever. Interac only.
The only thing we don’t have at scale is credit run through Interac. If we allowed revolving credit, it would operate exactly the same as a credit card, but that’s currently not allowed.
The other thing is just that people love credit card rewards.
Obviously, the rewards come out of the cut that the CC processors take from the merchants, so it’s not really free, but at this point, if you use debit instead of credit, you’re just paying more for no reason. It will take a big momentum shift of stores refusing to accept credit cards before debit takes over in Canada. Even now, I’ve seen stores who charge 50 cents to use any type of card under a minimum value, whether it’s debit or credit. While that encourages cash for small purchases, it does nothing to encourage debit, which would be significantly cheaper for merchants.
You are basically paying the credit card fees for not using a card. It is a protection racket. “It’d be a shame if you didn’t use our credit card and had to pay extra due to card processing fees”.
We should do what the EU did. Clamp card fees to a small value so that they can’t meaningfully offer customers rewards which creates this twisted incentive.
Or stores just make the customer pay (most of) the card fees. As you said lots of smaller stores do this and I’m more than happy to pay with debit.
There are actually laws in some places in Canada against providing different pricing based on payment method. I worked at a store years ago that gave discounts for random things that were not payment methods that coincidentally only applied to people who paid cash.
The rewards thing, I run things through my credit card because of that. The only thing that the CC company makes money off of me directly for is the yearly charge.
I don’t think there’s any laws against this. What I found specifically says:
I know that historically, Visa and Mastercard have prohibited merchants from charging fees for using a credit card, but couldn’t do anything about offering discounts if they didn’t use a credit card. I believe they removed that from their merchant agreements a while ago, because it was mostly performative, and I don’t think they enforced it very well.
I was specifically referring to charging a fee for using a credit card. But that apparently went away in 2022.
I dumped reward cards because they began to show no added value and many required an annual fee that erased the reward benefit. With TD points (as one example) as you reached a point level they’d remove those awards out of your options and show you awards outside of your bracket. I had to do some cookie trckery to get rewarded.
West jet dollars now became points so it’s not a dollar for dollar payback now.
There are plenty of credit cards with rewards and no fees, and some (like TD) have no fees conditionally if you meet a certain minimum balance threshold.
I’ve always just done cashback rewards though. I know it’s theoretically “worse” than points, value-wise, but they can’t change how much a dollar is worth, just the percentage (which they’ve never done to me yet).
Not to mention insane interest rates.
IDK if it’s available in Canada but you might want to check out the Fidelity rewards card. It shoves 2% into your Fidelity investment account each quarter. No fees, no fuss, no faffing around with points and tiers and other bullshit.
I mean that could seem good if you spend enough to cover yearly fee, however there is no free money; that 2% they give you is from their profit of charging merchants a larger percent to use the credit system, and that merchant passes that cost onto you with higher prices. So say a 4% merchant increase and we’d get 2% back of overpaying.
There is no annual fee. I only use it at places where there is no surcharge for using a credit card. And this is only worthwhile if you pay it off every month so you aren’t paying interest.
You’re right that there is no free money and it is a cut of the merchant fees. It’s kinda fucked because places that charge the same for cash and credit have to charge more to cover the merchant fees and then people with good credit and good credit cards get a kickback while everyone else pays the inflated prices or even worse, get hit with ripoff fees and interest.
I try to use cash or debit at small local businesses so they aren’t getting slammed with fees, but places like that are usually pretty quick to add surcharges for credit cards.
Side note, in the US the CC companies used to be able to refuse to do business with anyone who charged a different price for cash vs credit. Since losing the ability to take payments via Visa or Master Card would be super detrimental to most businesses, only the most under the radar mom and pop shops added CC surcharges. There was a recent court case where this was basically struck down so now we’re seeing CC surcharges getting added on at all kinds of places. We seem to be in a weird transition but I think this will eventually get us away from this situation where poor people end up subsidizing the credit card rewards for rich people.
Now stores were lobbying for surge pricing , Ugghhh
It would cut into a multi-trillion dollar market for short term credit. No way “Business Friendly” MPs would allow that.