Ouch!  It would appear some folks have it in for BMO in the last couple of months, and the press are lapping it up.  The Globe and Mail is a tier one business paper, and this kind of quote that we would normally expect on Perez Hilton is cutting to say the least.  Next we can expect pictures of the senior executive with annotations al la Perez.

There’s zombies walking around here [waiting for mergers]. They’ve been dead for 10 years and they’re still on the payroll.

Source: Canadian Banks & Insurance

The suggestion that employees are zombies I would think should (imho) be directed at the overall leadership culture, and not the individual employees.  Some of the smartest people I know work there, and truly want to make a difference?

In any event I would have one issue with the article.  It suggests that its impossible to screw up a Canadian bank and that Canadians are glad that BofA etc is not here, to lower the returns.  The corollary of that unfortunate situation is that Canadians are paying too much for their Banking, relative to elsewhere.