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| Great White North |
| Montreal's Power Corp. caught up in biggest fiasco in UN history |
| 2005-03-05 |
| Found this via No Pasaran: Made me wonder if this is partially the no-Star Wars move on Martin's part. We are shaking the core of CanadiEN politics, tho I don't think we deliberately wanted to. Are they going into protection mode? And we Rantburgers already knew this. I didn't link to it or read it, but at Lucianne there was an article yesterday(?) about Congress still banning CA beef and they were getting a wee bit upset. Most Canadian companies look forward to the day they earn themselves a mention on the prime-time news. They hire PR firms and spend thousands to harass news editors with press releases to tout their latest acquisition, invention or foreign venture in hopes of convincing someone to give them even a passing mention on the national news—never mind the nearly unimaginable publicity of being plugged on a U.S. newscast. But when Montreal-based Power Corporation of Canada found itself, in late January, the topic of a news story on America's top-rated Fox News Channel ... FN finally gets on up there and what do they do?? go straight for the power center ... which draws millions of U.S. and international viewers, executives there probably weren't thrilled. Unlike most publicly traded firms looking to build their brand on Wall Street, Power Corp. is, at the best of times, a quiet, often obscured company (in the past year it's issued a total of five news releases). That might seem strange, given the massive size and, well, power wielded by the holding company. Power controls some of Canada's biggest blue-chip companies, including the Investors Group, the country's largest mutual fund dealer, and investment firm Mackenzie Financial. It owns insurers Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life and London Life. Power owns several Quebec newspapers, including La Presse. It also holds substantial positions in Chinese airlines and telecom firms and has large stakes in the world's leading entertainment company, Bertelsmann, as well as a big piece of one of Europe's largest oil producers. In 2003, Power Corp. reported annual revenues of $16 billion.... |
| Posted by:anonymous2u |
| #1 Check out the connection to Kyoto. "But what is clear is that certain UN policies have been a boost to the value of the conglomerate. For one thing, the UN-created Kyoto Protocol–which was spearheaded by none other than Strong himself, born of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which he chaired–could have significant potential benefits for Power’s holdings in China. Through their subsidiary, CITIC Pacific Ltd., the Desmaraises own power-generating facilities, automobile concerns and myriad other industrial interests throughout the Communist nation. The fact that Kyoto’s framers deliberately created regulations that will hamstring exactly those sorts of businesses in the West by imposing limits on greenhouse gas production, but exempt China from those same limits, gives Power a competitive international advantage. Meanwhile, under the protocol, Chinese power plants will be able to sell clean air "credits," or allowances, to Western producers for cash. Some economists have predicted that Ottawa will buy credits as a way of meeting their Kyoto emissions targets." Baptists and bootleggers |
| Posted by: Larry 2005-03-05 9:33:35 PM |