Green Party calls for inquiry into resource takeover frenzy

Well over a third of all non-financial industry corporate assets are foreign owned. OTTAWA – The Green Party is calling for an immediate freeze on foreign takeovers of Canadian resource companies until a Royal Commission completes a full inquiry into the economic and political impact of high foreign corporate ownership in the country’s "strategic" non-renewable resource industry sector. “Even before the latest takeover frenzy, well over a third of all non-financial industry corporate assets were foreign owned,” said Green Party leader Elizabeth May. "At what point will Prime Minister Stephen Harper stand up for Canada and say that enough is enough – at 50 percent foreign ownership, at 65 percent?" Prominent Canadian businessmen, such as Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon and Barrick Gold founder and chairman Peter Munk, have also raised concerns about the extent and rate of foreign takeovers in the past few years. Last week, they were joined by Manulife Financial CEO Dominic D’Alessandro, who said: "We may all wake up one day and find that as a nation we have lost control of our affairs." Ten years ago, there were 40 large Canadian oil companies. U.S. companies now own 20 of them and there are only six Canadian-owned large oil companies left. The situation is even worse in the mining sector, where three of the four biggest mining corporations are already in foreign hands. Over two-thirds of foreign-owned non-financial industry corporate assets are held by U.S. corporations. “The Prime Minister’s apparent lack of concern about this rapid buy-up of strategic Canadian resources is puzzling,” said the Green Party’s industry and entrepreneurship critic, Eric Walton. He speculated that it might be tied to the Harper government's quiet “continentalist” political agenda. "The current harmonization and integration of economic and security practices with the U.S under the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership process goes a long way to explaining why Stephen Harper won't stand up for Canada on this critical issue,” said Walton. “Why be concerned about U.S. ownership if your long-term agenda is to advance a North American Union without a North American parliament? Why do European citizens get a referendum on each stage of deeper political and economic integration and not Canadians?”