U.S. Take-over of Hudson Bay Company uproar

Deal raises questions for the need to re-create the Canadian Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA).

by Gilles Dumont

Within the apparent hypocrisy of Free Trade, and Corporate Globalization, the imputation is that U.S. corporations should have the right to buy-out businesses in other countries. This includes the sought right to take-over the resource producing capacities of other countries, away from local citizens, and substitute for it, the commercial profit seeking interests of U.S. 'owners of capital'. However, the U.S. government is allowed to reserve the right to levy protections measures against other countries, as well as to screen foreign investment that is deemed to be not in their national interests. Notably, while Stephen Harper's Conservatives were approving the take-over Hudson Bay Company by Jerry Zucker, a U.S. billionaire, the U.S. was using its power to prevent "Arab interests" from taking over the management of its ports. Like the dominant party in a colonial operation, the U.S. also continues to frustrate Canadian legal claims on softwood lumber, and other areas, in spite of the imputed existence of "Free Trade". So-called Free Trade, and its international "relative" commonly referred to as "Globalization" is total farce, that is created in the unaccountable boardrooms of corporate America, as a scheme to take-over countries like Canada.

Collective elite discussions, toward "Globalization" must have gone something like this. "Recognizing human and civil rights undermines the ability to pursue insatiable commercial profit, status, and power, irrespective of social and environmental costs", says Gerry, the chief corporate executive. Paul says, "How are we as corporations going to deal with the inconvenience of governments protecting the rights of their citizens against our sought profiteering?" John says "Yeah, I want to be able to make massive commercial profits by passing off social and environmental costs onto the masses... Oh.. I know.. let's create this slogan called 'Globalization'.. in which we will spread the notion that it will bring everyone prosperity, even though our main focus is simply to take-over and control resources in behalf of shareholders, says Paul. Gerry exclaims. "Brilliant". John further says, "Anyway we will get support from politicians for our 'Globalization' mantra, by buying-off local politicians through financing and managing their political campaigns, and pulling in favours, after." Gerry says, "And don't forget to buy out the journalists too. We cannot afford too much bad publicity as we wreck lives, and utterly destroy nature", says Gerry.

Corporate Globalization is undemocratic, because it is based upon an ideology in which elected governments are supposed to ignore the 'national interests' of their citizens, in favour of billionaires like Zucker, and other such commercially wealthy interests. In the ideology of "Free Trade" in the context of "Globalization", speculative greed-driven transnational private business interests like Zucker, should have the right to buy out-vital 'national assets', in favour of their insatiable pursuit of materialistic self-aggrandizement.

Did you ever notice that the social and human costs of job lay-offs, as a result of corporate take-overs like Zucker's are ignored, placed in the back drop of the pursuit of quarterly commercial profits? According to the economic conventional wisdom of "Globalization", people should surrender their citizenship rights to the venal commercial prosperity objectives of billionaires. In the prevailing Canadian government, "who cares about the sick; worsening conditions of the poor; and our very national survival, as Canadians, as long as U.S. billionaires prosper?"

The sale of the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) is an abomination. Would the United States allow Chinese interests to buy out the Ford Motor Company? Not a chance! America didn't even want some Japanese interests years ago, to buy an America baseball team.

"Hudson's Bay Company is a great Canadian icon," Thomas d'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, told the Washington Post.

In 1670, the "Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay," better known as the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), was created. With its charter, the King of England granted the HBC an exclusive right to trade in the huge territory known as Rupert's Land. Named after Prince Rupert, one of the principals in the company, Rupert's Land was a vast area of about 7,770,000 km² and encompassed all the land that was drained by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay -- in short, much of what is now western and northern Canada.

The Hudson's Bay Company, is arguably the oldest, still active companies in the world, was almost 200 years old when the Confederation of Canada was constitutionalized in 1867. Since its inception in 1670, the Company controlled fully one-third of present-day Canadian territory. That area, designated Rupert's Land, encompassed most of Northern Ontario and Northern Québec, all of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, the southern half of Alberta and a large part of the Northwest Territories.

What began as a simple fur-trading enterprise evolved into a trading and exploration company that reached to the west coast of Canada and the United States, south to Oregon, north to the Arctic and east to Ungava Bay, with agents in Chile, Hawaii, California, and Siberia; a land development company with vast holdings in the prairie provinces; a merchandising, natural resources and real estate development company and, today, Canada's oldest corporation and one of its largest retailers.

It was not an uneventful progression.

First, the French wanted the Company out. During its first decades, French and English warships battled for possession of Company trading posts. The rivalry was finally settled, in the Company's favour, by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Powerful rivals emerged. The North West Company, principally Scottish-Canadian traders from Montréal, was the most formidable. The Nor'Westers, particularly under Alexander Mackenzie, in defiance of the Charter, pushed north to the Arctic and in 1793, west to the Pacific.

In 1821, the North West Company was merged unto the Hudson's Bay Company and the Company's title to the land was recognized by all parties.

Further benefits were to come. In 1821, Parliament expanded the Company's monopoly trading area, under license, so that it stretched from the boundary of Labrador to the Pacific and from the lower reaches of the Mackenzie River to the U.S. passes over the Rocky Mountains.

The next half century or so were some of the Company's best years. Under Governor Sir George Simpson, Company officers explored and traded vigorously throughout the west and north and pushed south in a wide area from the sources of the Missouri to San Francisco Bay.

However, not everyone liked the idea of a monopoly. The main criticisms were alleged misuse of monopoly power and opposition to settlement. The Parliamentary Inquiry of 1857 found that what is now southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and known as the fertile belt, were suitable for settlement, and should be ceded to Canada. It was the beginning of the end for the Company's monopoly.

By the Deed of Surrender of 1869, the Company retained its Charter but surrendered ownership of its Rupert's Land territory. In return, it received cash and seven million acres in the fertile belt which it gradually sold during the next 85 years.

By 1912, the Company recognized that it needed a new approach to retailing and planned a chain of department stores in western Canada. In so doing, it laid the foundation for its emergence as one of Canada's leading retail organizations.

Interrupted by the First World War, the Company's expansion program was resumed in 1923. By 1970, downtown department stores had been built in each of the major cities of western Canada. The Company then moved into eastern Canada through acquisitions and launched an ambitious expansion program into the suburbs of major Canadian cities. This was followed by the acquisition of Zellers in 1978 and The Robert Simpson Co. in 1979.

During this period, the Company held major investments in Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas, Siebens and Roxy Petroleum and, in 1973, acquired control of Markborough Properties.

The Company's rapid expansion during the 1970's, however, added heavily to its debt. This, combined with rising interest rates and the economic recession of the 1980's, strained its resources severely.

In response, the Company concentrated its energies on its retail businesses. Consequently, it divested itself of businesses and investments including its Wholesale department, Northern Stores and Fur divisions and Markborough, which it considered peripheral to its central interests. The Company continues to expand its retail operations with acquisitions such as Kmart and new outlets like the Outfitters store in Toronto.

The sale of HBC is part of an apparent conspiracy by elites including former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who sought "Free Trade" with the U.S. in the first place, to hand over Canada to the U.S. in parts, until there will be nothing left that's Canadian, except maybe hockey.

The sale of Hudson Bay Company is also constitutionally questionable, in light of its historically Special corporate Charter status, without a full Parliamentary review. However, the Harper minority Conservative government, in its apparent haste to sell-out Canada, has foregoed this review process.

Canadians have a constitutional right to decide what investment is desirable, and what investment in not desirable. United Nations Conventions also recognize and affirms social, cultural, and economic rights for national self-determination. The U.S. government also recognizes this right, but hypocritically only for themselves.

Former Prime Minister Trudeau created the Foreign Investment Review Agency in 1975, to enable government in Canada, to protect Canadians from foreign investment that was reviewed to not to be in the 'national interest'. Trudeau sought and achieved the re-affirmation of the ownership of Canada by Canadians, instead of elite foreign interests. His progressive 'Canadianization' efforts included the creation of Petro-Canada, in the then dominated U.S. oil industry. That is what 'nationhood' is all about. Members of a society, not limited to the United States, have the right to express their collective ownership of that society, by thwarting speculative so-called investments, which will incur societally debilitating social economic costs. These include undermining sovereignty, job lay-offs, and environmental destruction.

Such speculative take-overs against strategic national assets like the Hudson Bay Company, undermine the ability of Canadians to control their own economic destiny. This is a right of Canadian citizenship.

"Free Trade" divests such vital domestic and democratic economic control, into mostly U.S. billionaires, like Zucker, that repress the expression of our national identity. America is not the only society that has the right to exist, with its Walmarts, Starbucks, and McDonald's.

Such take-overs are also normally accompanied by mass-layoffs, and other repression of labour rights, that are the norm of corporate America. This notably includes Walmart, and other such predatory U.S. businesses, that seek to further destroy Canada's labour standards, into the oppressive workplace context endured by Americans.

It is unfortunate that after Trudeau, a Great Canadian who passionately defended our national unity, constitutional rights, and sovereignty passed away, Canada has been undermined by a petty opportunitistic political elite. These range from former Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, to Jean Chrétien, to Paul Martin, and to the current regime of Stephen Harper. Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party is also relatively weak on the defence of Canadian sovereignty.