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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