02.22.2011 06:25 PM

Issue management case study

When you are pushing for a “merger” – one which, best case, is of dubious value to all but a few very rich people – it’s usually not a good idea not to send out a silver-spoon conservative to snipe at a street-smart Liberal. Particularly a Liberal like Dwight Duncan.

This Caldwell character may have sunk the TSX deal all on his own.  Congratulations, genius.

4 Comments

  1. V. Malaise says:

    Good for Caldwell. Britain is by and large economically under the thumb of EU bureaucrats in Brussels. These dog whistles seem to want to regulate everything. There is an expression that covers this quite nicely: once the camel gets its nose into the tent, pretty soon you’re sleeping with it.
    Why am I not gobsmacked that the Federal PC’s want to piss away the last vestiges of our economic independence? You’d think that closet American Myron Baloney was still running the show. Sheesh!

  2. Windsurfer says:

    Very good comments. I saw both commentaries, ‘live’ as in seen as they transpired. Brendan, on BNN, has a slight air of decadence about him. I’m not sure daddy would approve. Duncan, on the other hand, was street-smart literate, with a picture of him at the TSX, thus disproving Brendan’s assertion that the Minister had not set foot on these hallowed halls.

    I wish I had more to say but I’ll think about it and spew some more later.

    As for the transfer of TSX into someone else’s hands, let’s at least fight to keep some means of control. After all, isn’t Canada already enough of a branch plant?!

    More later…

  3. Steve T says:

    So, we are going to kibosh the Potash deal, and then the TMX deal. Wonder what will happen next time a Canadian company wants to become a 55% partner with a foreign firm? Free trade and the global economy cut both ways, people.

    Furthermore, shouldn’t the fate of a company rest in the hands of its shareholders? If they vote for the deal, isn’t that what matters? Shareholders of TMX (and Potash) are not just “very rich people”. They are also average Canadians who hold these shares in their mutual funds.

    Again, we seem to enjoy the benefits of an open market when it suits us, but love to erect trade barriers when it doesn’t. That isn’t a reputation that a free country ought to have.

  4. H Holmes says:

    Private businesses making any deals with assets controlled by Sovereignty funds is not a really good idea.

    If there is one way that Canadian companies can lose their independence, being tied to goals of a foreign country is it.

    To me this a big issue and the liberals should be in front of it.

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