Angry about the latest round of bank fee increases? Don’t look at the Big Banks’ latest profit margins. It will be bad for your health.

TD Bank quadrupled non-TD ATM fees from 50 cents to two dollars each use. Even though it made over $2 billion in profit in just three months. CIBC also hiked fees for its everyday chequing account -- it made almost $1 billion. Scotiabank and BMO both raised credit card fees too. Together, they made more than $2.5 billion over the same period.

Those aren’t total earnings -- that’s profit. Over just three months -- and it happens quarter after quarter, year after year. Combined, Canada’s five biggest banks made over $8 billion in the second quarter of 2016. Remind me again why we’re paying banking fees at all?

That’s not overhead, that’s highway robbery. Tell Canada’s banks to cancel their fee hikes.

It can be done, you know. Last year, when RBC tried to introduce a whole whack of transaction fees, its clients were outraged -- and said so. Royal Bank backed down and reversed the increases. And this year? It’s the only Big Bank not to raise personal banking fees.

We have got to stop giving one of the most profitable industries in the country a free ride to gouge us whenever it wants to. Not only do these banks charge astronomical fees to access our own money while they get rich off our investments, they continue to layoff workers and outsource services. RBC was even caught abusing Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers’ program in 2013.

Meanwhile, Canadian banks made $34.8 billion in profit in 2015. Banks are richer than you think. A lot richer.

Make the banks give us our money back. Reverse the fee hikes now.

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