Francis, Diane. Controlling Interest: Who Owns Canada? Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1986. 352 pages.

In 1978 the Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration listened mostly to the arguments of big business, and concluded that concentration was necessary in a country as small as Canada. Not everyone was convinced. The author describes this book as "a private-sector, one-woman royal commission. I have crisscrossed the country, scoured the literature, and conducted several hundred interviews to document the new, faster-growing forms of concentration as well as to describe its abuses and potential abuses, and the ramifications for the rest of us in terms of jobs, the nation's wealth, opportunities, and political freedoms."

Canada has become a collection of family dynasties and management fiefdoms. This book profiles its thirty-two wealthiest families. Along with five conglomerates, they controlled one-third of Canada's non-financial assets in 1985, nearly double what they controlled just four years earlier. The concentration of wealth in Canada is much more profound than it is in the U.S., where the largest firms are publicly held.

Francis has been the editor of The Financial Post since 1991, and is a syndicated columnist and broadcaster. A website at www.dianefrancis.com includes descriptions of her other books.
ISBN 0-7715-9744-4

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