The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that safety has rarely been so expensive in the stock market. The Globe's Ian McGugan writes that this country's dominant financial institutions are suddenly trading at historically lavish price-to-earnings (P/E) multiples. Historically, their shares fetched somewhere between 10 and 12 times earnings. Now they change hands for 14 to 18 times. This does not make a lot of sense. Canada's population is declining, home prices are slipping and U.S. President Donald Trump is waging a trade war. So what is driving bank shares up? The simplest explanation is that investors are looking for safety in a market gone mad. Investors' sudden turn toward Canadian bank shares is part of a larger stampede toward such companies. The pipeline player TC Energy, grocer Loblaw, and electricity generator Canadian Utilities are all trading at their highest multiples of earnings in years. Investors may be betting that tried-and-true stalwarts like this won't be disrupted by artificial intelligence. Dividends are a powerful additional lure. Rates on guaranteed investment certificates (GICs) have shrunk in recent years, so people have had to search for new ways to generate reliable income.