CBC Digital Archives

Loan sharks: desperation, danger and debt

In 1968, Canadians first got their hands on credit cards, making it faster and easier to spend money they didn't necessarily have. Aside from their plastic, many Canadians also deal with the varying burdens of student loans, mortgages and all the other factors that contribute to personal debt. The CBC Digital Archives looks back on the times and troubles of personal debt in Canada, exploring how we get into debt and how we might avoid it.

Strapped for cash and in need of a loan, some Canadians can't turn to the traditional sources. A bad credit record or "sub-prime borrower" designation forces some desperate Canadians into a more dangerous route. Loan sharks don't discriminate against high-risk or bad credit borrowers, but the money comes at a high-price: interest rates upward of 1,000 per cent and the threat of beatings, kidnapping and murder in case of late or missing payments. In this 1998 clip, CBC-Radio takes you inside the high-stakes world of loan sharking, including a threat-laced phone conversation between a shark and his prey.

This clip contains foul and threatening language.
• According to the Criminal Code of Canada, the highest allowable rate of interest on a loan is 60 per cent. • A more formal term for high-interest money lending is "usury," derived from the Latin term usuria (interest). Although the word is strictly defined as "the practice of lending money at a rate of interest," it has come to represent the charging of exploitative or illegal rates.

• One of history's most famous moneylenders, or loan sharks, is a fictional one: Shylock, from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The Jewish moneylender is portrayed in a negative light through most of the play, leading to many accusations that the play, or the writer, was an anti-Semite, including in this charged 1965 debate from CBC-TV''s Fighting Words.

• Usury is forbidden in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, although some exceptions exist. The Torah permits charging interest to non-Israelites, which led to a historical trend of Christians turning to Jews to borrow money. Over time, Christian debtors accused Jewish lenders of usury and such accusations developed into anti-Semitic displays. 

Medium: Radio
Program: Sunday Morning
Broadcast Date: Aug. 7, 1977
Guest(s): Anthony Abbott, Herb Gray, Solly Levine
Reporter: Alvin Cader, Terence McKenna
Duration: 12:29
Photo: ©iStockphoto.com/Ju-Lee

Last updated: October 18, 2012

Page consulted on March 26, 2013

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