Vive Le Canada - David Emerson wants more foreign ownership

[originally published by the Hill Times; reprinted here with the permission of the author]

by Mel Hurtig

Given David Emerson's ardent desire to encourage increased foreign ownership, despite the fact that so much of our economy is already under foreign control, it's time to have a look at the most recent numbers from the Investment Canada Division of Industry Canada.

( You can view this information yourself by going to http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/inica-lic.nsf/en/home)

After Brian Mulroney dumped FIRA he set up the Mickey Mouse pretend agency, Investment Canada. From the time it began operations June 30th, 1985, to the end of December, 2004, there have been 11,039 acquisitions of corporations in Canada by foreign owners.

Of these, only 13% were reviewed by Investment Canada.

Updating the figures in my book The Vanishing Country, during the same period of time, the foreign direct investment tracked by Investment Canada amounted to to an enormous $540.4 billion. Of that amount, 96.8% was for takeovers, and only a pathetic 3.2% was for new business investment.

And David Emerson wants more of the same!

Bear in mind that of the $540.4 billion, about two thirds to three quarters came not from outside the country but from our good old loyal, patriotic financial institutions, mostly our Big 5 banks, here in Canada. We have to say "about," because for unknown reasons, Statistics Canada stopped keeping track of such information. My estimates are based on historical figures.

When we closed down the Committee For An Independent Canada back in 1981, foreigners were in control of about 24% of corporate revenue. It's now back at well over 30% and increasing. As well, about 37% of our largest 500 corporations
are already foreign-controlled.

To get a better grasp of what is happening in Canada (and only if you have a strong stomach) go to the Industry Canada site shown above, click on Decisions, and scroll through a couple of months of recent takeovers. It's truly disgusting.

It's interesting to view all of this considering the Ipsos/Reid poll showing that 70% of Canadians say that they are concerned about the foreign ownership of Canada's energy resources (already over 50% in the petroleum industry and headed for a big increase), and considering other similar polls.

And isn't it great that Petro-Canada, the CNR, Air Canada, Molson's, Labatt's, and Tim Horton's are all majority-foreign-owned? That's to name just a few. And isn't it great that over 125 Canadian high-tech companies have been taken over in the Ottawa area alone in recent years?

As for David Emerson's claim of the rigorous screening of takeover applications, not one single application has ever been rejected. How the dim-witted people in Ottawa could ever accept the takeovers of Westcoast Energy or Connaught Laboratories (as but two of thousands of similarly egregious examples) is beyond all logical explanation (except the dim-witted one).

Our deep integration sellouts keep saying that we don't have enough foreign investment and we should open up telecommunications, airlines, banking, book publishing, etc. and etc. and etc. Not enough compared to where? As a percentage of GDP we have three times as much foreign direct investment as they do in the U.S, and while we have dozens of industries majority-foreign-owned, in the U.S. THERE IS NOT ONE.

So, just who are these people who want to continue and accelerate the sale of Canada? They are, of course, Tom d'Aquino and the CCCE, the big chartered banks led by the Royal Bank of Canada (sorry RBC), the big foreign oil companies, the so-called think tanks who are funded by all of the above - The C.D. Howe and Fraser Institutes, the IRPP (Chairman Bob Rae!), and that awful Allan Gotlieb's American-financed Donner Institue that passes out hundreds of thousands of dollars to Fraser, The Atlantic Institute etc. They are people such as John Manley, Gordon Nixon, Paul Tellier, Derek Burney, Michael Wilson, Wendy Dobson and other Brian Mulroney buddies. They are the whole crew who frequently visit Washington as though they officially represent the will of the Canadian people, while the public opinion polls show, poll after poll, year after year, that the vast majority of Canadians want nothing to do with their deep integration, NAFTA-Plus, Big-Idea, Grand-Bargain, truly disgusting treachery.

Of course we also know that Paul Martin sides with Emerson et al. With his sure-to-be-apologetic mea culpa mind-frame, his upcoming meeting with Bush and Fox could be disastrous. We already know the American energy, foreign ownership, and military integration agendas.

Too bad Martin doesn't have the courage to use our Canadian energy exports, our pipeline land corridors, etc., to demand an end to the grossly unfair American softwood and beef punishment of Canada.

A 27% export tariff on oil, gas, uranium and electricity exports to the U.S. combined with notification of an Arctic pipeline slowdown would do the job nicely, and quickly.

Mel Hurtig

[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on March 21, 2005]