Rick Demaray, a local resident of Brussels, Ont., stands in front of the closing CIBC on April 22.Nicole Osborne/The Globe and Mail
Retirement hasn’t slowed down 67-year-old Rick Demaray – he couldn’t let it.
To supplement his pension, the former automotive worker mows lawns, clears snow in the winter and serves drinks at the local legion, one of his town’s last hangouts.
“I’m busy with cash deals,” said Mr. Demaray, a resident of Brussels, a rural municipality in Southwestern Ontario, a little more than an hour’s drive from London.
At the end of a day’s work, handling that money usually involves about a 10-minute walk to his local Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the town’s last brick-and-mortar bank. It’s tucked into the corner of King and Turnberry streets between yellow-brick heritage buildings and modern storefronts, including a Foodland, an LCBO and a century-old library.
But with the looming closing of the CIBC branch on May 7 – the only bank within about a half-hour drive – Mr. Demaray’s routine and livelihood would take a hit, with the ripple effects stretching well beyond inconvenience.
The local CIBC bank will be closing on May 7, in Brussels, Ont.Nicole Osborne/The Globe and Mail
“Rural towns live in a cash world,” said Mr. Demaray. “It’s cash at the bar, it’s cash at the arena. I bartend too, so we get cash tips.”
“When you get rolls and rolls for toonies, loonies and everything else, where are you going to take them?”
Brussels residents say they feel frustrated by how the closing is being handled, contending with logistical hurdles, wait times to transfer accounts and potential fees, should they choose to break up with the bank. Shortages of coins and small bills threaten to halt basic transactions in some of the town’s businesses.
“I’m at the bank probably about three times a week if the weather’s okay,” said Floral Morton, who owns the Four Winds Barn and Event Centre in Brussels.
The popular wedding venue pumps tens of thousands of dollars into the local economy each month. It relies on a steady stream of cash for the bar, paying vendors and covering payroll for older workers weary of digital payments.
Across rural Canada, everyday commerce is beginning to fray as financial institutions shift focus to digital services. The pace of bank closings has accelerated in recent years, even as the population of small towns has grown. Statistics Canada data show that from July, 2024, to July, 2025, Ontario alone had 15,412 people move from urban enclaves to rural outposts within the province.
Data from the Canadian Bankers Association show that the number of branches across Canadian provinces fell by 14 per cent between 2014 and 2024. In the nine years prior, starting in 2005, that number had actually been on an upward trend. A Bank of Canada study found that when rural communities lose their last branch, the average travel distance nearly doubles, from 9.6 kilometres to 17.6 kilometres.
In Brussels, where there’s no public transit and many senior residents don’t drive, what might seem like a short trip becomes difficult on snow-swept country roads, regularly cutting the town off from the rest of Huron County.
Since the notice was tacked onto the door of the local CIBC branch last October, residents have been trying to figure out what comes next: Moving accounts, rethinking payroll and worrying about how to keep their town’s economy afloat.
“This is how towns collapse,” said Mr. Demaray.
Local newspapers around Brussels still occasionally run high school graduation photos; a Huron Citizen article from a few years back details a “prolific” cow that birthed triplets in “a once-in-a-lifetime event” for any farmer. It’s that kind of small town.
More recently, the news has been dominated by business closings: JR’s Family Restaurant and gas station, Jam Jar Pub & Eatery.
Born and raised in Brussels, Mr. Demaray left in 1989 to pursue work and eventually raised his own family out west, spending 30 years away from the community. Retirement drew him back around 2023 for a slower pace of life and somewhere he could still piece together a stable income.
“Small town is life, it’s family,” he said. “I know I can look at any house here and I know someone.” But the town he came back to was financially struggling after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rick Demaray sits on his riding lawn mower on the front lawn of his home in Brussels, Ont., April 22.Nicole Osborne/The Globe and Mail
It’s a far cry from what Brussels looked like just ten years ago. “We had a great full-service community,” said Paul Nichol, who operates a small-business lending company in town. “I can remember when we had five or six individual grocery stores on Main Street.”
There were once a handful of banks, too, that had cropped up to cater to a fast-growing urban junction for the multiplying farms scattered across the Huron region.
Early residents were drawn to the village in the 1850s by bustling mills powered by the Maitland River, which also left the surrounding soil rich for farming. Readers of The Brussels Post were kept informed of staff changes at the banks, new teller’s cages and upgrades to burglar alarms.
In April, 1892, The Huron Expositor described “a bad smash” after the local private bank of Messrs. McIntosh & McTaggart suddenly closed its doors. “There had been a run on the bank by depositors,” the article said. “Rather than remain and face his irate creditors,” the senior proprietor “left on Friday last and has not yet returned.”
CIBC’s history in town dates back to this period as well. The Standard Bank of Canada – which later merged into the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1928 – opened its doors around 1891, next to Hewitt’s barbershop and Fairfield’s photo gallery downtown.
The vaults installed back then remain scattered throughout town even after those banks have since closed – reminders of a more prosperous past. These relics make CIBC’s closing feel all the more like a betrayal, said Mr. Nichol. “After 130 years of that bank making money off this community,“ he said. ”They just walk out and leave."
It all started with a scene that resembled something out of a bad Hallmark Christmas movie: Suited bank employees shuffled into a crowded auditorium in a small town on a snowy afternoon.
Banking at the town’s local branch had been on the decline for years, Andrew Chornenky, CIBC’s vice-president of public and corporate affairs, said onstage. Despite their best efforts to keep the branch open, it was no longer viable. The location at 36 King Street would close in May and customers’ accounts would be transferred to the Listowel branch by default. Were there any questions?
Hands jumped in the air. Jo-Ann McDonald, who has a bevy of personal and business accounts at CIBC, asked about transferring them to a branch in Seaforth, which is closer to Brussels and happens to be where she drives a school bus twice a day.
“You‘ve got to call, you‘ve got to send them a new blank cheque – everything that comes out automatically, you‘ve got to change it,” she said she was told by bank employees.
In an e-mail, CIBC said that if a client made a specific request to have their accounts moved to a different branch, the bank helped them do this at no charge.
“CIBC’s rural banking centre network is among the largest in Canada,” said spokesperson Geoff Dillon. “Where a significant decline in transaction volumes necessitates the difficult decision to close a banking centre, our teams are dedicated to supporting clients through a smooth transition.”
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Until recently, Brussels residents were unsure if the town would even have an ATM. Mr. Demaray said that initially, CIBC said it would have to consider power and connectivity, among other factors, before installing one. The bank ended up setting up an ATM weeks before the branch closing, after months of community backlash.
A Bank of Nova Scotia analyst this week said Canada’s biggest banks could slash costs if they were to shutter branches within three kilometres of other locations (the Brussels branch is more than 32 kilometres away from Listowel). National Bank of Canada has rolled out the biggest branch reduction so far, according to the Scotiabank report, cutting 17 per cent of its locations even after acquiring Alberta-based Canadian Western Bank last year. Royal Bank of Canada posted the smallest decline at 9 per cent.
Some Brussels residents have said if the closing goes through, they’ll be moving their accounts out of CIBC altogether. Transferring a single investment account to a different bank can come with a fee of $100 or more. But time is often a bigger issue.
The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization found that guaranteed investment certificate transfers, for example, can take up to eight weeks to move, leading investors to miss out on market opportunities.
In its federal budget last year, the Liberal government proposed amendments to the Bank Act that would require banks to provide public notice of branch closings on their websites, and prohibit charging certain account switching or closing fees until 12 months after the branch closes. These measures have not yet been introduced in Parliament.
The CIBC executive speaking at the November meeting in Brussels “claimed that they did a thorough review,” before deciding to close the town’s branch, said attendee and long-time resident Marguerite Oberle Thomas. “The audience asked how it could be thorough if there was zero community input?”
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The pandemic sped up brick-and-mortar closings as people who never used online banking began depending on it.
But many seniors don’t fully understand or trust digital banking, often with good reason. Of the $470-million in losses the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre attributed to online fraud in 2025, about 27 per cent involved victims older than 60, despite the group comprising around 20 per cent of the population.
For 82-year-old Brussels resident Brian Rutledge, a visit to his local CIBC rarely passes without a hitch. But having banked there since 1957, he’s grown to rely on the staff to guide him through everything from depositing his investment cheques to taking out cash to pay for Friday meals at the local legion.
“I have no central vision,” said Mr. Rutledge, who has been legally blind for decades. “If they change the money machine, I can’t read that, I just go by memory; I can’t read on the computer.”
When his card gets stuck or the screen changes, he waves to one of the tellers. “She’ll fix things up for me,” he said. “They come out and laugh.”
Not long ago, Mr. Rutledge’s wife paid off the wrong card while trying to use online banking services. After a long wait on the phone, he said they were told it would take two months to get nearly $2,000 dollars back. Later, the same thing happened with a far bigger amount.
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Jerry Buckland, an economics and international development studies professor at Canadian Mennonite University, compares the decline in rural banking to the historical practice of “redlining,” in the United States. The term refers to how American insurers and lenders in the mid-20th century would avoid offering services in Black, racialized and low-income neighbourhoods.
“Banks still effectively do this by withdrawing from areas that aren’t profitable,” Mr. Buckland said.
There are, however, “market-sensitive” ways that banks could operate in rural areas, he said. He pointed to the Community Reinvestment Act in the U.S., which creates financial incentives for banks to serve certain low-income areas, for example.
Fintechs and postal offices, meanwhile, have been vying to fill the gaps left by traditional banks. Wealthsimple recently launched a partnership with Canada Post allowing customers to make deposits at their local courier’s office, an effort that specifically targets remote banks.
But the biggest worry for Brussels residents is a town that’s hollowed out if businesses leave.
If people have to make deposits or do business out of town, Mr. Demaray fears it may speed up the decline he’s already witnessing across the community.
“I‘ve got to drive 20 to 30 minutes away,” he said. “You think, ‘I might as well get my groceries here, get some booze while I’m here.’”
Residents in Brussels have mere days left before they lose access to their bank.
“Resources go where the people are,” said Mr. Nichol, who runs the local business development company. “And then eventually, people start to go where the resources are.”