Professor Matt Bellamy of the History Department has contributed an article to the January 11, 2019 edition of the Globe and Mail. A short excerpt of his article “” can be found below with the full article available online.
When General Motors announced in late November that it would be closing its plant in Oshawa, Ont., the outrage was immediate 鈥 and perfectly understandable. Here was a strategic move on the part of a multinational company, tearing out roots and slashing the manufacturing jobs that were the lifeblood of the town. Add in the billions of dollars that Ottawa had spent to keep the company in Canada, and it鈥檚 easy to see why Canadians would take this so personally.
Meanwhile, 鈥 that it would lay off more than half of the staff at its Toronto head office in the wake of a merger with Randgold, an African operator headquartered in the Channel Islands, and revamp its board of directors to leave just one Canadian-born member who lives in New York 鈥 hasn鈥檛 stirred the emotions in quite the same way. Fair enough, too: Much of Barrick鈥檚 business, since it transitioned from a money-losing oil and gas firm to a money-spinning mining company, has happened outside of Canada, in places such as the United States, Australia, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Argentina and Chile. And even though the company鈥檚 dynamic founder, Peter Munk, lived in Canada for seven decades, he passed away in March. Besides, even if industry veteran Pierre Lassonde says these recent moves effectively mean that Barrick is 鈥渘ot going to be a de facto Canadian company, period,鈥 the company鈥檚 new chief executive, Mark Bristow, insists he plans to keep the headquarters in the city. So does it really matter that Barrick鈥檚 鈥渉eart鈥 isn鈥檛 wrapped in red and white?
But Canada鈥檚 diminished presence in Barrick鈥檚 head office might actually be more lamentable, and a bigger blow to the national fabric. And the reasons go beyond Canadian culture鈥檚 usual inferiority complex, which gets inflamed when a homegrown kid leaves town.