THUNDER BAY -- Losing a business in a small town is hard, but losing two businesses, both of which are financial institutions can be devastating and that's the situation facing residents of Atikokan.
Earlier this year both the TD Bank and CIBC announced they would be shutting down their branches in the community.
This leaves residents with one of two options, travel almost two hours west to Fort Frances and use the banks there, or transfer their accounts to RBC, the only remaining bank in town.
Mayor Dennis Brown said the community wasn't given any advanced notice of the plans to close the branches, and he's disappointed by the announcement which will see the loss of a dozen jobs.
“I’m sure [the banks] were doing well when the mines were operating and we had hoped that maybe they could just scale down a little bit and keep one or two tellers here to keep operating,” Brown said.
“We tried, we wrote to Minister Bill Mauro and the Minister of Finance, but the way the system seems to be in Canada is that if the banks decide they want to close, then they can just close and really there’s no minister that can do anything about it.”
Brown said in light of the closures many residents including himself have transferred to RBC.
He added the municipality will also be transferring its finances to the Royal Bank.
(TBT News)
