AbitibiBowater may take legal action over N.L. expropriation of assets

[NinetySix]

Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation


>snip<

The Newfoundland and Labrador government, with the support of opposition members of the house of assembly, passed urgent legislation Tuesday afternoon to expropriate all Abitibi Bowater assets in the province, except the mill in the central Newfoundland town of Grand Falls-Windsor.

In a statement to the legislature, Premier Danny Williams said the government will expropriate all hydroelectricity rights from the generating station at Star Lake, as well as all timber rights to forests on Crown land. The assets will be run by Nalcor, the provincially owned energy company.

"This piece of legislation is simply about trees and water, the most basic of our natural resources," Williams said in the house of assembly. "Natural resources that rightfully belong to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador."

Williams said his government is making this move because of the company's decision to stop operating the mill in Grand Falls-Windsor.





Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/12/16/abiti-announc.html

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So here in Canada, Newfoundland's Conservative Premier seizes assets of a US corporation with bi-partisan support from the Provincial Legislature.

The company decided to shut the doors and throw about 700 people out of work in the midst of hard times, so the Government decided that any contracts or agreements between itself and that company are null and void, because the resources of Newfoundland belong to the people of Newfoundland. See there? That's how it's done, America. Well done, Premier Williams!

It takes a CONSERVATIVE to finally stand up to the corporations?!?

[acmavm]

1. Gee, how reasonable. How just. How ethical. How sane.

Won't be seeing that happening here anytime soon, will we?

[NinetySix]

3. I suppose it depends on how quickly things go sour.

I think the fragile facade that the GOP Corporatists are attempting to maintain could fall all at once if times get too bad too quickly. I hope it doesn't come to another depression, but one of the long-term benefits of depression might well be a fundamental and lasting realignment of the relationship between corporate and democratic influence, where the seemingly interminable power of corporations over natural persons and citizens is substantially undermined.

Only one way to see how it shakes out: wait and see.

[aquart]

5. "Hope it doesn't come"? It's here.

[Lucky Luciano]

2. Abitibi was a Canadian company that merged with

Bowater, which is American....and they will collapse most likely...I have been watching their credit trade for the last couple years and the company is quite fucked. This company laying off people is going into survival mode - not shedding people to pay huge bonuses. The newsprint business is very bad right now. I say that they file Chapter 11 before the end of 2009.

[NinetySix]

4. Newfoundland was briefly a "have" province when they found oil,

but that was back before oil prices began to plummet. Now their priority seems to be to maintain some semblance of that status (and why wouldn't they?). The loss of large numbers of jobs could really hurt the Province economically, so if the company is only looking to protect their interests, then the Province can say the same. The difference that the company failed to perceive is that the Province is the big dog, and they're low man on the totem pole.

The people have only to flex their muscle, and the corporations will lose every time.

[CHIMO]

6. Pretty Clear

That the contract has been broken.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/pdf/AbitibiCharter.pdf
PDF: Read the 1905 lease agreement

They broke the agreement.