The Sport and Prey of Capitalists

How the Rich Are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth

Linda McQuaig

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781459743663
  9781459743663
• eBook ISBN:
  9781459743687
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Why are we selling off the impressive public enterprises we often battled as a nation to create?

In the early 1900s, thousands of Canadians battled wealthy interests, winning control of Niagara Falls and creating a public power company. Another popular movement succeeded in creating Canada's public broadcasting system to counter American dominance of the airwaves. And a Canadian doctor established a publicly owned laboratory that saved countless lives by producing affordable medications, contributing to medical breakthroughs and helping to eradicate smallpox throughout the world.

But in recent decades, we have allowed our inspiring public enterprises to be privatized and our vital public programs downsized, leaving us increasingly dominated by the forces of private greed that rule the marketplace.

In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization, which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere.

Notes

Introduction

1. Quoted in David Biello, “How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming?” Scientific American, January 23, 2013.

2. James Hansen, “Game Over for the Climate,” New York Times, May 9, 2012.

3. H.V. Nelles, The Politics of Development: Forests, Mines and Hydro-Electric Power in Ontario 1849–1941 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974), pp. 1–2.

4. Ibid., p. 39.

5. Ibid., pp. 8, 11, 15.

6. Ibid., p. 31.

7. Herschel Hardin, A Nation Unaware: The Canadian Economic Culture (North Vancouver: J.J. Douglas Ltd., 1974), pp. 54, 92.

8. Ibid., p. 61.

9. Hugh Grant, David Wolfe (eds.), Staples and Beyond: Selected Writings of Mel Watkins (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), p. 110.

10. Quoted in Hardin, A Nation Unaware, p. 94.

11. Ibid., p. 140.

12. Sandford F. Borins, “World War II Crown Corporations: Their Functions and Their Fate,” in J. Robert Prichard (ed.), Crown Corporations in Canada: The Calculus of Instrument Choice (Toronto: Butterworths, 1983), pp. 447–75.

13. Quoted in ibid., p. 466.

14. Quoted in ibid., p. 471.

15. Jeff Rubin, Evaluating the Need for Pipelines: A False Narrative for the Canadian Economy (Waterloo, ON: Centre for International Governance Innovation, Policy Brief No. 115, September 2017), p. 2.

16. Quoted in Geoff Dembicki, “Here’s How Canada’s Oil Sands Could Collapse by 2030,” Vice, August 14, 2017.

17. Quoted in Audrea Lim, “How a Scandal-Plagued Company Gave Birth to Kinder Morgan,” National Observer, November 14, 2016.

18. Rubin, Evaluating the Need for Pipelines, p. 5.

Chapter One: Justin Trudeau Meets the Smartest Guy on Wall Street

1. Sally Blount, “How Leaders Use Power to Drive Change,” Forbes, November 16, 2017.

2. J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Infrastructure Investing: Key Benefits and Risks, 4Q2015 (New York: JPMorgan Chase, 2015), p. 7.

3. Suzanna Andrews, “Larry Fink’s $12 Trillion Shadow,” Vanity Fair, April 2010.

4. Bill Curry, “Private-Sector Role in Canada Infrastructure Bank Raises Conflict-of-Interest Questions,” Globe and Mail, May 5, 2017.

5. Sean Craig, “After He Leaves the CCIB, Where Will Mark Wiseman Fit in at BlackRock?” Financial Post, May 19, 2016.

6. Advisory Council on Economic Growth, Unleashing Productivity through Infrastructure (Ottawa: Department of Finance, 2016), p. 10

7. Ibid., p. 4.

8. This question was originally posed by economists Brian MacLean and Mark Setterfield.

9. McKinsey Global Institute, Bridging Global Infrastructure Gaps (New York: McKinsey & Company, 2016).

10. Bill Curry, “MPs Grill Morneau’s Growth Adviser on Ambitious Infrastructure Plans,” Globe and Mail, October 27, 2016.

11. Advisory Council on Economic Growth, Unleashing Productivity, p. 5.

12. Ibid., p. 5.

13. Ibid., p. 13.

14. Ibid., p. 15.

15. Ibid., p. 12.

16. Ibid., pp. 12–13.

17. Author interview with Kevin Page, Randall Bartlett, Azfar Ali Khan, Ottawa, January 22, 2018. Bartlett is now economic research director at OMERS Capital Markets.

18. Toby Sanger, Creating a Canadian Infrastructure Bank in the Public Interest (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Alternative Federal Budget Technical Paper, March 2017), p. 3. Also, author interview with Toby Sanger, Karin Jordan, Ottawa, January 22, 2018. Sanger is now executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness.

19. Jordan Press, Andy Blatchford, “Documents Suggest Taxpayers Poised for Bigger Risk in Infrastructure Bank,” Globe and Mail, May 31, 2017.

20. Advisory Council on Economic Growth, Unleashing Productivity, p. 15.

21. Quoted in Tara Deschamps, “Sidewalk Toronto Faces Growing Opposition, Calls to Cancel Project,” Financial Post, February 18, 2019.

22. BlackRock, Infrastructure Rising: An Asset Class Takes Shape, April 2015, pp. 2–4.

23. Heather Whiteside, “Austerity Infrastructure: Financializing, Offshoring, and Tax Sheltering Public-Private Partnership Funds,” paper prepared for Austerity and Its Alternatives, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant Workshop, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, December 14–15, 2016. See also Heather Whiteside, Public-Private Partnerships (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2016).

24. Author interview with Heather Whiteside, University of Waterloo, February 2, 2018.

25. Paul Wells, “Justin Trudeau’s Trillion-Dollar Question,” Toronto Star, October 16, 2016.

26. Barrie McKenna, “Many Things Will Have to Click for Canada Infrastructure Bank to Work,” Globe and Mail, June 9, 2017.

Chapter Two: The Worst Deal of the Century

1. Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017).

2. Quoted in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• One Justin Trudeau Meets the Smartest Guy on Wall Street
• Two The Worst Deal of the Century
• Three The Thrill of Hearing Organ Music on a Train Crossing the Prairies
• Four Niagara Falls, Berlin Rises
• Five From Horse Barn to World Stage: The Connaught Story
• Six Driving Out the Loan Sharks: The Case for Public Banking
• Seven Oil and the Search for Our Inner Viking
• Eight The Triumph of the Commons
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Book Credits