Preface to the first edition

• Author: M.H. Ogilvie
• Profession: Chancellor's Professor and Professor of Law, Carleton University
• Pages: 17-18

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PREFACE TO THE

FIR ST EDITION

When Jeffrey Miller of Irw in Law suggested that it was possible to wr ite

a book of not more than 400 pages on banking law for the Essentials

of Canadian Law series, I was skeptical. A fter all, big institutions a nd

big bodies of law require big books, and t ypical bank ing law texts a re

closer to 1,000 pages, if not considerably more. However, here is that

little book about banking law of about 400 pages.

To achieve this target, I kept continuously in mind the introductory

student and the consumer for whom this book was wr itten. The needs

of this audience explain t he topics chosen for inclusion and those omit-

ted, as well as the degree of detail in which the topics included are dis-

cussed. Cert ain parts of the Bank Act, including the 2007 amendments,

for example, are included in some detail, in part icular, those setting out

the corporate governance struct ure for banks and the t ypes of activities

in which banks are permitted to engage in Canad a. Considerably less

is included about foreign banks, bank subsid iaries, and bank holding

companies, partly bec ause much of the Act relating to these mirrors the

parts relati ng to banks, but also bec ause they are of considerably less

relevance to a consumer’s everyday bank ing concerns. Again, a number

of the more esoteric regulations and g uidelines are also omitted since

their content is largely of interest to bank reg ulators. On the common

law side, the focus is on bank account operation, including paper and

electronic payment orders, but virtually nothing is said about letters