In a troubling trend echoing within the United States, Britain and Australia, major Canadian companies are being sold off to foreign interests at a startling rate. By putting the nation’s best and most strategic corporations into the hands of foreign nations, Canada is allowing much of its economic sovereignty to pass into foreign hands as well.

The companies that have been or are being sold off include mining giant Inco Ltd., steelmaker Dofasco Inc., Sears Canada, Labatts, cp ships, Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, and ati Technologies. Several of Canada’s largest oil companies are also on the list, including Shell Canada, Husky Energy and Imperial Oil.

“Canada’s most celebrated corporate behemoths are going down faster than weenies at a speed-eating contest,” noted the Edmonton Journal (August 19). From January to July, foreigners spent an amazing $56 billion purchasing Canadian companies—more than twice as much as Canadians spent on foreign acquisitions. Since 2000, foreigners have spent more than 22 percent more to take control of Canadian corporations than Canadians have spent buying foreign businesses (National Post, July 6). According to a bmo Nesbitt Burns report, more than one fifth of all Canadian corporate assets are already foreign owned (Globe and Mail, July 14).

In Canada’s case, much of the nation’s wealth lies in natural resources, like timber, oil, natural gas, minerals, and fish. Selling those resources to foreign nations, rather than the corporate giants that own and control those resources, would be far better.

Take the Canadian mining industry, for example. Most recently, Canada is witnessing the foreign takeover of storied mining giants Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Ltd. These two companies make up almost half of the Toronto Stock Exchange’s metals and mining index. If the takeovers proceed, of the mining majors comparable in size only Vancouver’s Teck-Cominco remains domestically owned from Canada’s once-dominant and diverse mining sector (Edmonton Journal, op. cit.). Anglo-Swiss mining giant Xstrata plc has already purchased Falconbridge. If Brazil’s cvrd successfully purchases Inco, it will catapult it into the top three diversified mining companies in the world and will become the world’s largest nickel producer.

Canada’s oil resources are also under pressure from foreign concerns. Although the last couple of years have seen acquisitions from the U.S., China and France, one of the main reasons there haven’t been larger, more dramatic oil-company takeovers is that several of Canada’s largest oil producers had already transferred to foreign ownership some years ago. For example, Imperial Oil, which runs Esso gas stations, is majority owned by U.S. oil-major Exxon-Mobile. Shell Canada is majority owned by the Netherlands-based Royal-Dutch Shell oil group. Husky Energy is controlled by a Hong Kong billionaire.

But it is not just the resource companies that have been the target of foreign takeovers. “Whether you’re talking steel, beer, utilities, real-estate, hotels or high-tech, a massive wave of foreign buying is reshaping Canada’s corporate landscape” (ibid.). Besides the before-mentioned companies, major players like Intrawest, Terasen, Fairmont Hotels, MacMillan Bloedel, Molson, Dofasco, Future Shop and Westcoast Energy have all been sold or are in the process of being sold.

The trend of foreign takeovers of Canadian businesses doesn’t look set to turn around any time soon. “Canada is very fertile ground” for corporate takeovers, says Robert Gemmell, head of Citigroup Global Markets Canada (National Post, September 28). Although he expects China and the U.S. to lead the way, he says Europe and India will be other active acquirers.

Sadly, many of these companies are the very ones that helped build Canada into one of the world’s most prosperous nations.