[3] It was organized by French-Canadian and Scottish reformists who had hitherto been excluded by the English-dominated Tories who comprised the Bank of Montreal's board of directors.

In 1843, with the support of Louis-Michel Viger and other Montreal merchants who were keen to develop French-Canadian entrepreneurship, the bank adopted the name of Banque du peuple.

According to contemporaneous rumors, funds from La Banque du Peuple were used to finance the Lower Canada Rebellion in 1837.

[6] At least one historian has suggested that the founding of the bank was designed to forestall rebellion,[7] and the means to peacefully advance the political and economic progress for French-Canadians.

[8] Many of the prominent men involved in the founding and early operation of the bank took an active part in the rebellion,[9] and Viger was a cousin of the leader of the reformist Patriote movement, Louis-Joseph Papineau.

[16] Immediately after a public report came out in early 1896 with evidence that Bousquet was guilty of carrying out an unsafe lending policy, he fled to the United States with a large sum of money.