On the Abitibi Bowater Expropriation in Newfoundland
Friday, December 19, 2008 03:43 AM
By Peter Ewart and Dawn Hemingway
On December 16, Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland & Labrador announced that the provincial government will be expropriating the forestry, water and energy assets of the multinational forest company Abitibi Bowater.
This seizure of the assets of one of the largest forestry companies in the world has caught the attention of many people in North America, but especially those who live and work in the vast forested regions of Canada that stretch thousands of kilometers from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
In response to the severe financial and economic crisis that is gripping North America, the big forest companies have shut down many of their operations in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, and other provinces, resulting in tens of thousands of workers being thrown out of work and dozens of communities sent reeling.
It is quite clear that these big monopolies and multinationals, whose wealthy shareholders are often high-flying hedge funds, financiers, and private equity firms, want to shift the burden of this crisis onto the backs of workers, contractors, suppliers and communities across the country, and they are doing this in various ways.
One of the ways is to simply shut down forestry operations and lay off hundreds of employees, while still demanding to hold onto timber licenses, hydro-electricity rights, and other assets. These assets then become bargaining chips in various financial schemes to further the interests of these big companies on Wall Street and elsewhere. What gets left by the wayside, of course, are the communities and the people who live and work in the forests.
Far too often, both provincial and federal governments act as if they were just bystanders to this human tragedy, claiming that there is no alternative but to let it all happen. Instead of standing with the people, they stand with the financiers and monopolists.
That is why it has been refreshing to see Premier Danny Williams and the government of Newfoundland take bold action to expropriate Abitibi Bowater’s timber, water and energy assets, and, as he puts it, “ensure these valuable natural resources are returned to their rightful owners – the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Abitibi Bowater had an arrangement with the province to operate its mill in Grand Falls, Newfoundland in return for access to various natural resources. This arrangement was very lucrative for the company and provided huge revenues to it over many decades.
Nonetheless, as Premier Williams points out, by shutting down its mill operations, the company broke its promise to maintain “its historic commitments on industrial development” to the province and the community. As a result, the Newfoundland government could not “allow a company that no longer operates in this province to maintain ownership of [provincial] resources.”
It seems a reasonable and refreshing response. Why not assert the right to reclaim resources that belong to the people of the province? Why should a company that has reaped maximum profits over decades be permitted to simply pack up and leave, killing hundreds of jobs and still maintain ownership of the resources? It boggles the mind.
Yet, various politicians in other parts of Canada, including British Columbia, are complaining that the Newfoundland government’s action was “hasty” and “extreme.” These politicians, who don’t seem to hesitate signing away our natural resources, railways, and other productive assets, quiver at the thought of standing up, even once in a while, to the multinationals and financial elite.
We are entering new times. And new times require new ways of doing things. Newfoundland’s efforts to reclaim its own natural resources should be applauded.
Peter Ewart is a writer and college instructor who can be contacted at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca . Dawn Hemingway is a writer and university professor who can be contacted at: hemingwa@unbc.ca. They are both based in Prince George, BC.
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Posted by: Eagleone on December 19 2008 7:08 AM
Ottawa and Washington connived with Wall Street to remove the one thing that makes a Canadian province sovereign over all states and federal governments and that is the rights to our natural resources. By enacting NAFTA they usurped the legal rights of sovereignty for the provinces in favor of the corpocracy. The federal government at the time had no right to usurp provincial sovereign powers over natural resources as defined by the constitution. This shift of power is enforced through NAFTA Chapter 11 corpocracy rights. NFLD has brought this issue to a head because we can be sure Abitibi Bowater will now expose the ugly truth of NAFTA.
NFLD is constitutionally in the right and I believe if NAFTA rules the day then we are no longer a sovereign country, but a coup has taken place via NAFTA and we are now a corpocracy masquerading as a democracy. ABC Williams seems to have taken the most direct way to expose this ugly fact on behalf of all Canadians and he will be a Canadian hero as a result IMO.