POWER CORPORATION AND THE OIL–FOR–FOOD SCANDAL
Kevin Steel (2005)
Most Canadian companies look forward to the day they earn themselves a mention on the prime-time news. ¹ 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, which draws millions of U.S. and international viewers, executives there probably were not thrilled. Unlike most publicly traded firms looking to build their brand on Wall Street, Power Corporation is, at the best of times, a quiet, often obscured company (in the past year it has issued a total of five news releases). That might seem strange, given the massive size and, well, power wielded by the holding company. Power Corporation 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 Corporation 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 Corporation reported annual revenues of $16 billion.
But the Fox News story was not prompted by an announcement from Power Corporation of some billion-dollar takeover or the appointment of a new senior executive. It was something altogether different: The revelation that the man handpicked by the United Nations secretary general last April to probe the United Nations’ scandalized Oil-for-Food program, Paul Volcker, had not disclosed to the United Nations that he was a paid adviser to Power Corporation, a story which had originally been broken by a small, independent Toronto newspaper, the Canada Free Press. Why did the highest-rated cable channel in the U.S. care? Because the more that Americans came to know about Oil-for-Food, which has been called the largest corruption scandal in history, the more the name of this little-known Montreal firm kept popping up. And the more links that seemed to emerge between Power Corporation and individuals or organizations involved in the Oil-for-Food scandal, the more Fox News and other news outlets sniffing around this story began to ask questions about who, exactly, this Power Corporation is. And, they wanted to know, what, if anything, did Power Corporation have to do with a scandal in which companies around the world took bribes to help a murderous dictator scam billions of dollars in humanitarian aid out of the United Nations while his people suffered and starved?
Just a month before the Canada Free Press revealed that Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, is a member of Power Corporation’s international advisory board–and a close friend and personal adviser to Power Corporation’s owner, Paul Desmarais Senior,―a U.S. congressional investigation into the United Nations scandal discovered that Power Corporation had extensive connections to BNP Paribas, a French bank that had been handpicked by the United Nations in 1996 to broker the Oil-for-Food program. In fact, Power Corporation actually once owned a stake in Paribas through its subsidiary, Pargesa Holding SA. The bank also purchased a stake in Power Corporation in the mid-seventies and, as recently as 2003, BNP Paribas had a 14.7 per cent equity and 21.3 per cent voting stake in Pargesa, company records show. John Rae, a director and former executive at Power Corporation (brother of former Ontario premier Bob Rae), was president and a director of the Paribas Bank of Canada until 2000. And Power Corporation director Michel François-Poncet, who was, in 2001, the vice-chairman of Pargesa, also sat on Paribas’s board, though he died February 10, at the age of 70. A former chair of Paribas’s management board, André Levy-Lang, is currently a member of Power Corporation’s international advisory council. And Amaury-Daniel de Seze, a member of BNP Paribas’s executive council, also sat on Pargesa’s administrative council in 2002.
In September, the U.S. Congress―conducting one of seven U.S. government investigations into Oil-for-Food, in addition to the United Nations probe―subpoenaed crates of documents from the bank, which earned $700 million for its work, ostensibly to investigate the companies that had been doing business through Paribas that may have ripped off Oil-for-Food. But Capitol Hill insiders say that Paribas itself is of interest to congressional investigators, in particular whether Paribas violated “know your client” — style banking regulations, which require banks to be vigilant in watching for money laundering and other criminal activities being conducted through their bank. In February, Congress subpoenaed more documents from the bank, looking for very specific information. “The international program was managed through the escrow accounts of BNP maintained in New York and we have pretty strict banking laws, pretty strict disclosure laws and have gotten even more so with the passage of the Patriot Act,” says one aide to a senior Republican working for the House International Relations Committee, one of the bodies investigating the Oil-for-Food program. “There are some doubts as to the veracity of BNP’s compliance with the more stringent rules that are contained in the Patriot Act that were law by the end of 2001.”
The reason investigators are interested in Power Corporation’s possible links to the bank that acted as a clearing house for Oil-for-Food is because the firm also appears to have had a stake in an oil firm that had been working out lucrative contracts with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Subsidiary Pargesa owns the largest single stake in Total Group Incorporated, (a Belgian-French petroleum multinational corporation formed from the merger of Total, Petrofina and Elf Aquitaine), which reportedly had been negotiating, prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003, rich contracts with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to develop and exploit the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq. Those regions are estimated to contain roughly a quarter of Iraq’s reserves. The contracts were on the verge of being signed in 1997, one year after the beginning of the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program replaced U.S. sanctions on Iraq, when the French government intervened and stopped the deal. Paul Desmarais Jr., now chairman of Power Corporation (Paul Sr. retired in 1996, but is said to be active in the firm), sits on the board of Total, and Power Corporation director, François-Poncet, also sat on the board of Total’s predecessor firm, Totalfina Elf. Paribas also owned shares in Total as recently as 2000, records show. ²
Add up the facts that Power Corporation appears to be connected to an oil company that would benefit extensively if Saddam remained in power, with the bank appointed by the United Nations to help broker an Oil-for-Food program that appears to have been directly enriching Saddam, and which is being investigated for irregularities that may have abetted the wholesale corruption that eventually engulfed Oil-for-Food, and that Power Corporation’s owners have a professional and personal relationship with the man hired by the United Nations to investigate the corruption, and it is no wonder that more and more questions are being asked about the firm.
The United Nations has refused to co-operate with the United States Congress investigations into the $67-billion USD Oil-for-Food program and Security Council members Russia and France have refused to give Volcker the right to subpoena witnesses in the internal United Nations probe. But the way the scam appears to have worked is that Saddam was permitted to sell oil to customers he selected himself (he favoured French and Russian companies) at below-market prices, by allocating them oil vouchers. The customers could resell the oil at market prices and make a large profit, provided they kicked back a portion of the money to Saddam, who used the money for everything but badly needed food and medicine (the program came to be known by critics as Oil-for-Palaces). It is estimated that Saddam may have skimmed as much as $2 billion USD from the aid program. And the fact that Iraqis were suffering while Saddam built up weapons and enriched his own personal wealth, obviously makes this scandal not only bigger, but more heinous than any run-of-the-mill Wall Street book-cooking. Companies implicated in what effectively amounts to crimes against humanity may never recover. And, to be clear, Power Corporation has not been linked in any direct way to the con. As for the fact that Power Corporation’s name has come up several times in the investigation, Power Corporation’s vice-president, general counsel and secretary Ted Johnson believes the news reports to be inaccurate and irresponsible. Says Johnson: “The stories coming out of the United States are a bunch of misinformation based on innuendo and half-truths.”
There is a tale they used to tell on Parliament Hill about a president, a billionaire, an ambassador and a prime minister. The four of them got into an elevator one day at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, when Jim Blanchard, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, began ribbing the billionaire, Paul Desmarais’s son André, about his recent marriage to France Chrétien, the daughter of then prime minister Jean Chrétien, as then U.S. president Bill Clinton listened in. “France certainly married well,” Blanchard reportedly said to the prime minister. To which Chrétien replied, smugly: “André married well.” ³
In reality, the wedding of France and André, in 1981, had only formalized the marriage between the Canadian government to the Desmarais family. ⁴ While the family, worth an estimated $4 billion USD and ranked the sixth richest in Canada, has always kept a fairly low profile, they have been in the news for decades―even if most Canadians never really noticed. The fact that the family happens to be friendly with the man who once ran the U.S. federal reserve will not surprise those who know them: The Desmaraises are as well connected politically as they are corporately. And it is arguable, based on the circumstantial evidence anyway, that nothing happens on Parliament Hill that is not, in some way, a product of the Desmarais family’s design. ⁵ Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau have all been close, personal friends of Paul Desmarais Senior. The story on Parliament Hill was that Trudeau’s leadership bid was cooked up in Power Corporation headquarters in Victoria Square in Montreal. ⁶ In the hiatus of his political career in the 1980s, Chrétien cooled his heels sitting on the board of a Power Corporation subsidiary, Consolidated Bathurst, and Power Corporation executive John Rae ran Chrétien’s leadership campaigns in 1984 and 1990, as well as the 1993 election campaign that brought Chrétien to office. Paul Martin got his start in the business world in the early sixties, working for then Power Corporation president Maurice Strong, and was made a millionaire, thanks to an undisclosed 1981 deal in which Desmarais sold him Canada Steamship Lines. Strong continues to act as one of Paul Martin’s senior advisors.
But the connections do not end there. Ted Johnson, the Power Corporation vice-president, is a former assistant to Pierre Trudeau. Paul Desmarais Senior has long been a mentor of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. ⁷ Don Mazankowski, a former Mulroney cabinet minister, sits on Power Corporation’s board. Bill Davis, former premier of Ontario, is on Power Corporation’s international advisory council. Daniel Johnson Junior, Quebec Liberal leader and briefly premier, worked for Power Corporation from 1973 to 1981. ⁸ In fact, the political connections really do not stop at all. You could spend days trying to trace the connections that Paul Desmarais Senior has not only with Canadian politicians, but in nearly every western capital in the world. Not bad for a guy from Sudbury, Ontario, who started out fixing buses to save a nearly bankrupt transport company, inherited from his father. Desmarais’s friends have joked that he “collects politicians.”
And he has been doing it for a long time. Thirty years ago, in his 1976 book, The Canadian Establishment, Peter Charles Newman wrote, “It seemed to those who knew him best that Desmarais sometimes treated politicians with the deference due to sleepwalkers: Men who must be led, but ever so gently, lest they wake up to the fact.” ⁹
If there is one government in which Power Corporation has as much interest as it does in Canada, it is the United Nations. Maurice Strong, president of Power Corporation from 1964 to 1966–who went on to run Ontario Hydro and Petro-Canada,–is not only a member of the Privy Council for Canada and a direct adviser to Paul Martin, he is also a senior adviser to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. Appointed by Annan in 1997, after he took over the general secretariat, Strong’s specific role was “to assist planning and executing a far-reaching reform of the world body.” Since Annan’s son, Kojo, has been implicated in the Oil-for-Food scandal, having accepted money from a Swiss firm, Cotecna, which was in charge of overseeing the shipments of food and medicine to Iraqis, Strong’s presence at Annan’s side provides yet more ammunition to those looking to link Power Corporation to this terrible tale of corruption and mismanagement (no direct links have been established). In fact, Strong had been an undersecretary general of the United Nations since 1985. He once told Toronto journalist Elaine Dewar that he liked working for the United Nations specifically because of its undemocratic nature. “He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda,” wrote Dewar in her 1995 book, Cloak of Green. “He told me he had more unfettered power than a cabinet minister in Ottawa. He was right: No voters had put him in office, he didn’t have to run for re-election, yet he could profoundly affect many lives.”
How close Strong is with Power Corporation these days is not clear. But what is clear is that certain United Nations policies have been a boost to the value of the conglomerate. For one thing, the United Nations-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 Corporation’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 Corporation 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.
And few companies stood to benefit from the United Nations’ resistance to the invasion of Iraq to the same extent that Total might have, had Saddam made good on promised resource development deals with the oil giant. Since the early nineties, Total and Elf had been jointly negotiating with Hussein to develop the Majnoon oilfields north of Basra. In 2000, Total’s president of Middle East exploration and production, had publicly suggested, on several occasions, that the Oil-for-Food sanctions were hurting Iraqi oil development. Shortly afterward, the two companies merged, with Power Corporation owning the biggest stake. According to Power Corporation’s official history, “when … Totalfina proceeded to take over Elf Aquitaine, the Pargesa group emerged as the largest shareholder, with 3.4 per cent of the shares and three seats on the board of what was to become TotalFina Elf, the fourth largest integrated petroleum company in the world.”
Last year, the New York Post interviewed prominent Wall Street figure Gerald Hillman, managing partner of Trireme Investments in New York, who had seen and analyzed the contract. He called the deal “highly unusual” and “very one-sided,” as it permitted Total to keep 75 per cent of total production, whereas most deals with foreign partners top out at 50 per cent. It seems that the longer Saddam stayed in power, the better it was for the Total Group and its shareholders in Montreal.
The fact that sustaining Saddam directly could have potentially benefited a family connected to so many Canadian mandarins and politicians―and married into the family of the prime minister―led some Canadians to raise questions about the motivations behind the Liberal Party’s decision to refuse to support the invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s ouster. When Chrétien announced that decision in early 2003, Opposition foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day asked in the House of Commons, “I do not fault the prime minister’s family ties with his nephew [Raymond Chrétien], our ambassador to France or with Paul Desmarais Sr., who is the largest individual shareholder of France’s largest corporation, TotalFina Elf, which has billions of dollars of contracts with Saddam’s former regime. With this valuable source of information and experience at his fingertips, has the prime minister ever discussed Iraq or France with his family or friends in the Desmarais empire?”
Chrétien responded by defending his nephew first and, with regard to Power Corporation, added: “I hope the attack against the people who have invested money in something, that he will repeat it outside and he will face the consequences.” Power Corporation’s general counsel, Johnson, told reporters at the time that TotalFina Elf “had no contracts in Iraq … Hasn’t. Doesn’t. Nothing with Saddam.” Just a few months earlier, The New York Times reported that “The French oil giant TotalFina Elf has the largest position in Iraq, with exclusive negotiating rights to develop Majnoon, a field on the Iranian border with estimated reserves of 10 billion barrels, and Bin Umar, with an estimated production potential of 440,000 barrels a day, according to oil industry executives.” John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based security think-tank, says that Power Corporation directors were probably not thinking about foreign policy implications when they invested in TotalFina Elf. “They probably thought―and a lot of people thought like this―there would eventually be a reopened Iraq, probably under Saddam but not necessarily, and they would like to be in position when it did,” Thompson says. “Part of this whole thing was the Europeans bidding to have control of Iraqi oil and afraid that the Americans would be there instead. For the Americans, it was all about not having weapons of mass destruction coming out of the area, but for the Europeans it was all about oil.”
Jason Kenney, a Conservative MP, says the questions being raised about Power Corporation’s possible connection to Oil-for-Food are worth asking. But he is quick to point out that if the Liberals guided the country’s foreign policy based on their connections to Power Corporation, then we should be asking questions about the Canadian government, too. “I am not the least bit critical of the Desmarais family for being rational actors in a free marketplace and pursuing their advantage,” says Kenney. “I am, however, somewhat disquieted by the degree to which Power Corporation’s corporate interest seems to influence Canadian foreign policy. Obviously, every company seeks to influence government policy―regulatory, taxation or otherwise―but Power Corporation seems to have a particularly unique influence over Canadian foreign policy.”
That is something that has not been proven. ¹⁰ But in addition to Power Corporation’s connection to Total, there is the connection to Paribas, the bank selected to be in charge of the Oil-for-Food money. According to Power Corporation’s official history, produced in 2000, in 1981 it “made a $20-million investment in Pargesa Holding SA, a Swiss corporation that owned a major interest in Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Suisse). The Swiss bank had been a subsidiary of Compagnie Financière de Paris et des Pays-Bas, the French banking organization commonly known as Paribas, with which Power Corporation had enjoyed a close association for several years.”
Nadhmi Auchi, who has been identified as a cousin of Saddam Hussein, was a significant shareholder in BNP Paribas at least until 2001. Auchi, who resides in London and owns a company called General Mediterranean Holdings, was ranked by London’s Sunday Times in 2003 as England’s thirty-fourth richest person, with some estimates putting his net worth at $3 billion USD. In its 2001 annual report, General Mediterranean Holdings described itself as the largest single shareholder in BNP Paribas.
Auchi is a former member of Saddam’s Baathist party. In 1959, he was tried, along with Saddam Hussein, in an attempted assassination plot. He eventually fled Iraq and publicly distanced himself from Saddam after the dictator murdered his two brothers. Time Magazine reported in 2003 that Auchi maintained deep connections to Iraq and built much of his fortune selling them armaments. He has been fingered as a key figure in the Oil-for-Food scandal, with accusations that he acted as one of Saddam’s brokers. He certainly is no stranger to shady deals: In 2003, Auchi was convicted in France of bribery charges, along with a raft of Elf oil executives, in a scandal dating back to 1990 involving the sale of a Spanish oil refinery.
Power Corporation also has indirect connections to Iraq through one of its directors, Laurent Dassault, managing director of Dassault Investissements, the parent company of Dassault Aviation, a French-based weapons and aeronautics manufacturer that sells, among other things, the Mirage jet. During Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran in the eighties, Dassault Aviation was a major supplier of aircraft to the Hussein regime and it has been alleged that the firm continued illegal weapon sales to Iraq during the embargo period, using intermediaries and a complex system of money laundering set up by the Hussein regime.
Meanwhile, the United Nations had its own reasons for wanting to keep Oil-for-Food in business. For some strange reason, the aid program had been set up so that the United Nations would keep a portion of all oil sold through the program―compensation for the costs of overseeing the aid initiative―three per cent of every barrel sold. Aid programs usually use money from contributing members to finance their administration. Recipients of previous United Nations aid programs had not been forced to pay the overhead of the programs. And since the fee paid to the United Nations was variable, the longer Oil-for-Food went on and the more oil that was sold through it, the more money the world body would earn.
That was not enough, however, for Benon Sevan, the man appointed by Annan to oversee the Oil-for-Food program. An interim report issued by Volcker in February found that Sevan―who has since retired from the United Nations―had personally requested that Iraq allocate some of its oil vouchers (with which companies could resell Iraqi oil at a lucrative profit) to a company with which he was affiliated. Documents uncovered by investigators indicate that Sevan may have directly been the beneficiary of oil allocations. Volcker told reporters that Sevan’s conduct was “ethically improper” and that he had “created a grave and continuing conflict of interest.”
Now, Volcker himself is the one facing allegations of conflict. In addition to his connections to Power Corporation, which he did not disclose upon being appointed head of the United Nations probe, Volcker has also been linked to a pro-UN lobby group, the United Nations Association of the United States (which happens to receive generous support from BNP Paribas). Critics are suggesting that the final report, expected in June, could end up being a whitewash.
Oil-for-Food has certainly put the United Nations’ credibility at stake in a way that no other incident has before. The world body has already demonstrated an inability to deal effectively with rogue dictators, such as Hussein and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, and has proven impotent to end genocides, like Rwanda in 1994 and Darfur today. But if the world discovers that the United Nations cannot even run a basic aid program, then there is not much left for it to do. “The liberals are having a harder time asserting that what the conservatives want is to get the U.S. out of the United Nations,” says the Republican aide. “They can say that, but it’s not true. We need international mediating organizations like the United Nations. But you know what? We need them to work. And if they are not working, we are either going to make them work or we are going to find substitutes,” he says. Increasingly, he reports, both Republicans and Democrats are open to finding alternatives to the United Nations for handling international affairs. “Maybe that model is NATO,” says the aide. “If the United Nations is unreformable, then it will begin to shrink in its importance. Certainly in the United States it is already shrinking. That can be good or that can be bad. It is what it is. We do need these international mediating institutions and if the United Nations cannot step up to the plate and do it, then you are going to see a U.S. push in the next generation to get something else to do it,” the aide says.
And certainly that has broad implications for Canada, whose government invested heavily in the United Nations when it stood by the world body’s plan to keep Oil-for-Food in place, rather than stand by the U.S. in putting an end to a containment program that was not really containing Saddam at all. Whether Canada’s foreign policy―given the government’s connection to Power Corporation―was “all about the oil,” as some have theorized, however, may never be determined. Or, it likely will not be determined here: While there are six probes being conducted into the Oil-for-Food scandal in the U.S., and one through the UN, there is no investigation underway in this country into any involvement by Canadian companies. And, with few exceptions, the Canadian mainstream media seems to have largely ignored the story linking Volcker to Power Corporation. The firm itself has issued no official statement on the accusations.
One press release did come across the wires on 27 January with good news about Power Corporation. Not from the normally quiet Power Corporation itself, mind you, but from KPMG, an accounting firm that works for Power Corporation (and, coincidentally, did audit work on the Oil-for-Food program). The news? A survey conducted in conjunction with pollsters Ipsos-Reid and the Globe and Mail found that Power Corporation is considered the most respected business in Quebec, as ranked by its peers. Hopefully, when all the smoke clears on Oil-for-Food, that will still be the case.
ENDNOTES
1. Kevin Steel, “How Montreal’s Power Corporation Found Itself Caught Up in the Biggest Fiasco in UN History,” The Western Standard, 5 March 2005: Kevin Steel, Power Corporation and the Oil-for-Food Scandal, Second Edition, Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, editor, Medium, 2017.
2. See: “The family of Paul Desmarais is the largest shareholder of Total.” Pierre Karl Peladeau, The Energy East Project and Trans Canada, Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, editor and translator, archive.org, 2016. Pierre Karl Peladeau, Le projet Énergie Est de Trans Canada, Vigile.Quebec, 1 novembre 2014: “La famille Desmarais est le plus important actionnaire de Total.” [Editor]
3. Jean Chrétien: “I opposed Québec nationalism because I thought separation would destroy the French fact in North America, not build it up,” (Jean Chrétien, Straight from the Heart, Toronto, 1986, 213). Most Canadians like myself, and the present generation, oppose “Québec nationalism” because separation will destroy Canada and plunge the Canadian People into a firestorm of unreason which will flood the streets of our Northern Paradise with rivers of blood: Unlike Jean Chrétien’s generation, therefore, Canadians really do not care very much about France and its political and economic status in the New World. That is why Canadians support the free-trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. Chrétien, however, is such a big French Chauvinist that he named his only daughter after France.
Of course, Jean Chrétien betrays himself (and his followers) in the first edition of Straight from the Heart, where he confesses that what he really wants is “to be where the cash is,” (Ibidem, 68). Once the Québec Regimers had looted the last remnants of the British Empire, in the bowels of the treasure chest they discovered Uncle Sam, upon whom French Chauvinism does not work. We understand, therefore, that Chrétien is neither interested in “the French fact in North America,” nor does he care about France and its political and economic status in the New World: What Jean Chrétien really wants is the political and economic support of the French Canadian chauvinists in Canada, especially in Québec but also in Ontario, Manitoba, and the Maritimes, in order to elevate himself and his backers into power. Unless francophone Canada is divided into Québec federalist and anti-federalist camps, this will not happen:
“The truth is that without Chrétien’s low and despicable actions, on the 23rd of June, Québec would have returned into the arms of the great Canadian family. Today, we Québeckers are profoundly shocked and humiliated: Jean Chrétien stabbed Canada in the back.”
(See: “Il ne fait aucun doute dans mon esprit que, sans vos [Chrétien] basses et tortueuses manoeuvres, nous aurions le 23 juin proclamé le retour du Québec dans la grande famille canadienne. Aujourd’hui, comme tous les Québécois, je suis déçu, je me sens humilié et je sais que vous [Jean Chrétien] nous avez trahis.” Jean Lapierre in Hélène Buzzetti, “Ce Liberal fondateur du Bloc Quebecois,” Le Devoir, 30 mars 2016)
French chauvinists harbor the delusion that they live in France or that they should live in French North America: In fact, they are really francophone Canadians who have succumbed to the morbid spell of Cité Libre and other such scatology as LaPresse. The abstraction of French Canada has been very useful in making Pierre Beaudoin, Paul Desmarais and Lino Saputo into very rich men, indeed, not to mention the families of Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin. But today, thanks to their delusions of the “French Fact in North America,” some four million Canadians in Québec live in poverty, while some two million barely manage to survive.
As Chrétien admitted in 1986, the fabulous wealth of his family comes from his political work: “I owe to Canada all the privileges I have received,” (Chrétien, Ibidem, 214). And his family has certainly received vast privileges from federal and provincial governments under the Québec Regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais. In the history of Canada since Confederation, never were our rulers and their families so enriched, as under the Québec Regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais, when Canada was ruled for nearly a half century by Québec Regimers, except for one year under Joe Clark, Kim Campbell and John Turner. In other words, Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin were greatly enriched by the many political and economic divisions they created and promoted, but these same divisions have greatly retarded finance, commerce and industry in Canada over the years.
In 1963 Jean Chrétien went to Ottawa with empty pockets, his father used to work in the lumber yards of Shawinigan, but when Chrétien retired from politics after many years his family had amassed a fortune worth more than $4-Billion dollars, and an international financial and media empire some say is worth more than $100 Billion. Today, the family of Jean Chrétien is something like the 4th richest in Canada, and the richest in Québec according to Forbes Magazine.
According to the biography, Jean Chrétien and Paul Desmarais first “met in the late 1960’s through a mutual acquaintance, the lawyer Pierre Genest,” (Lawrence Martin, Chrétien: The Will to Win, vol. 1, Toronto, 1995, 326). Jean Chrétien always maintained “cozy connections with the Power Corporation” over the years (Ibidem, 323), which was the backer of his campaign against John Turner (Ibid., 332). Chrétien handled the “major negotiations” for the Desmarais family because of “his tight personal and professional relations with the Power Corporation,” (Ibid., 369). France Chrétien is married to André Desmarais, son of the late Paul Desmarais, who now owns the Power Corporation, and who is engaged in a bitter family dispute with the elderly Louis Desmarais, over the ownership of shares. Old Louis made a deal with Paul back in the day, and in turn was promised a portion of shares in the Power Corporation. The elderly gentleman is now making claims upon his rightful possession. Unfortunately, the younger generation has rebuffed his claim: The Chrétien-Desmarais family rivalry has become manifest. Evidently, nothing in the world will satiate the pathological greed of Jean Chrétien …
Under the Québec regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais, the Lion’s Share of all federal infrastructure projects goes to the Quebec Inc. (as well as all equalization and federal employment), but the vast kickbacks and massive influence peddling requires the assistance of organized crime: “The strategies of collusion and corruption as well as the infiltration activities of organized crime which the Charbonneau Commission has uncovered are not without grave consequences: The overcoming of the safeguards which protect public works in the construction industry and also protect the financial governance of political parties, combined with the infiltration of organized crime in the construction industry, has not only created economic burdens for the ensemble of Québec society, but has also undermined our most cherished democratic ideals and perverted the fundamental principle of the Rule of Law. The faith of Québeckers in their public institutions is deeply convulsed.”
(Justice France Charbonneau, “Partie 4 — Chapitre 3: Les conséquences,” Rapport final de la Commission d’enquête sur l’octroi et la gestion des contrats publics dans l’industrie de la construction: Stratagèmes, causes, conséquences et recommandations, vol. 3, Québec, 2015, 74: “Les stratagèmes de collusion et de corruption ainsi que les activités d’infiltration du crime organisé que la Commission a mis au jour ne sont pas sans conséquence. Le détournement des processus de passation des marchés publics dans l’industrie de la construction et des règles de financement des partis politiques, et l’infiltration du crime organisé dans cette industrie, ont non seulement engendré des coûts économiques pour l’ensemble de la société québécoise, mais ils ont aussi miné ses fondements démocratiques, porté atteinte au principe de la primauté du droit et ébranlé la confiance des citoyens dans les institutions publiques”)
Unfortunately, organized crime has its hands on another highly profitable sector: The international drug trade. Thus, Jean Chrétien, far from being a strong leader, was one of the weakest, most degenerate of all Canadian Prime Ministers. The biggest crime family in the history of Canada, which caused the destruction of millions of Canadian and American youngsters and their families, was finally put down by Stephen Harper and the Western conservatives, after nearly a half century of political and economic satanism under the Québec regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais.
French Chauvinism, at least in the writings of the Québec Regimers (Cité Libre and so forth) is another name for modern European political and economic irrationalism in Canada. French Chauvinism also has a history in the Communauté and Francophonie, especially in Europe but also in Africa: Its last political and economic form was forged by Charles DeGaulle, before it was submerged under the floodtide of Americanism in world history. In the world of today, French Chauvinism is therefore nothing but an inert idea. Thanks to Washington and the American superpower, modern European Raison d’État is swept into the dustbin of history: Ottawa is now the first sphere of Americanism, thanks to the rational political economy of Ronald Reagan and the American Idealists. [Editor]
4. See: “A huge, high-profile wedding in Montreal today involving the granddaughter of a billionaire and a former prime minister. The granddaughter of Paul Desmarais and Jean Chrétien is marrying a Belgian prince this afternoon. Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais is marrying Hadrien de Croÿ-Roeulx … 750 guests are expected, among them former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, described as a close friend of the Desmarais family. Chrétien’s daughter is married [to] a member of the Desmarais family.” Luciano Pipia, “Huge Montreal Wedding Today,” CJAD 800 News, 7 September 2013.
See also: “This last Saturday at Mary-Queen-of-the-World Cathedral, there was a Royal Wedding, — which is very unusual in Canada. The granddaughter of Jean Chrétien and Paul Desmarais married the Belgian prince Hadrien de Croÿ-Roeulx. Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais, 23 years of age, is the daughter of André Desmarais, the president of Power Corporation and president of Power Financial Corporation. The mother of Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais is none other than France Chrétien-Desmarais, the daughter of Jean and Aline Chrétien: ‘It was such a beautiful ceremony,’ said Michaëlle Jean [Paul Martin’s Governor General of Canada and erstwhile Québec Separatist], ‘marriage is such a joyful occasion.’” Annabelle Blais, “Un Faste Royale au Mariage de Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais,” La Presse.ca, 7 September 2013: “La cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde a accueilli, samedi, un mariage princier comme on en voit peu au Canada. Devant quelque 750 invités, la petite-fille de l’homme d’affaires Paul Desmarais et de l’ancien premier ministre Jean Chrétien a épousé le prince belge Hadrien de Croÿ-Roeulx. Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais, 23 ans, est la fille d’André Desmarais, président et co-chef de direction de Power Corporation (propriétaire de La Presse) et président délégué du conseil de Corporation financière Power. Sa mère, France Chrétien-Desmarais, est la fille de Jean et Aline Chrétien … ‘C’était une belle cérémonie,’ a indiqué Michaëlle Jean, ‘un mariage est un grand moment de joie.’” [Editor]
5. See: “The Liberal government showed favoritism to Desmarais’s Power Corporation in April 1995, when the federal cabinet ordered the CRTC to allow Power’s direct-to-home DirectTV channel to apply for a broadcasting license.” Robert A. Hackett, Richard S. Gruneau, Donald Gutstein, Timothy A. Gibson, The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canada’s Press, Aurora, Ontario, Garamond Press, 2000, 132.
6. “Claude Frenette, the right hand man of Paul Desmarais … was elected as president of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada in virtue of the upcoming leadership race: Frenette and Pierre Trudeau elaborated a scheme at Power Corporation whereby the latter would become the new leader of the Liberal Party and then the Prime Minister of Canada.” Robin Philpot, Derrière l’État Desmarais: Power, 2ième édition, Montréal, 2014, 14–15: “Claude Frenette, adjoint de Paul Desmarais … a été élu président de l’aile québécoise du Parti libéral fédéral en vue du congrès au leadership et, dans les bureaux mêmes de Power Corporation, avec Pierre Trudeau, il a établi le plan qui mènerait celui-ci à la direction du Parti libéral et au poste de premier ministre du Canada.”
See finally: “[Judy Verlyn LaMarsh 1924–1980] at the convention, with microphone nearby, told Hellyer to fight the ‘bastard’ Trudeau to the end.” John English, Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968–2000, vol. 2, Toronto, Vintage Canada, 2010, 12–13.
The index of this volume contains no entry under Power Corporation, and only one entry for Paul Desmarais Senior. The author, who served as Liberal Member of Parliament for Kitchener 1993–1997 (and who has done very well for himself and his family under the Québec Regime in Ottawa), completely ignores the very considerable political and economic connections between Pierre Trudeau, Paul Desmarais, the Power Corporation and the Québec Inc. Obviously, therefore, we are dealing here with a work of hagiography and not with exact historiography. We might even call this book a work of Québec Regime propaganda. Of course the book publishers are more than happy to accommodate the extremely corrupt politicians in their ideological endeavors, since in exchange they receive very cheap, taxpayer subsidized paper from Crown Lands controlled by the oligarchs of the Québec Regime. [Editor]
7. See: “Senior members of the major political parties are integrated into an intricate corporate web dominated by Paul Desmarais, owner of Power Corporation … In 1972, Desmarais hired Mulroney as negotiator during a labour dispute at his paper La Presse. In apparent appreciation of Mulroney’s work, Desmarais became Mulroney’s biggest financial backer, starting with his leadership bid in 1976. Mulroney confirmed the relationship after becoming Prime Minister. In September 1990, Mulroney appointed John Sylvain, Desmarais’s brother-in-law to the Senate, one of eight controversial appointments that ensured the passage of the Goods and Services Tax. In June 1993, Mulroney appointed Desmarais’s brother, Jean Noel Desmarais, to the Senate as part of a flurry of patronage appointments. Now Mulroney has returned to work for Power Corporation’s long-time law firm, Ogilvy Renault.” Robert A. Hackett, Richard S. Gruneau, Donald Gutstein, Timothy A. Gibson, The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canada’s Press, Aurora, Ontario, Garamond Press, 2000, 131–132.
See: “[Paul Desmarais] a été ami et supporter de Lester B. Pearson.” Anne-Marie Gingras, Médias et démocratie: Le grand malendendu, 3ieme édition, Québec, Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2009, 113. [Editor]
8. See: “Elected Union nationale MNA for Bagot in the 1946 by-election he [Daniel Johnson] did not enter the Cabinet until 1956, when Maurice Duplessis made him minister for hydraulic resources. Chosen party leader in 1961, he worked to reorganize the Union nationale by giving it a solid program and democratic structures. In 1965 Johnson published Egalité ou Independance and had his party adopt the principle — political equality between the 2 founding peoples of Canada — that was his government’s touchstone on the subject of constitutional reform. Having won power in 1966, the new premier continued and even accelerated the major reforms of the Quiet Revolution: For example, he created the Université du Québec and Radio-Quebéc and laid the foundations for the future health insurance system. PM Trudeau strongly disagreed with Johnson’s defense of Québec’s interests in federal-provincial relations and his search for a new constitutional arrangement. Johnson is the father of Pierre-Marc Johnson, a minister in the Parti Québecois government, and of Daniel Johnson, a Liberal MNA.” (Daniel Latouche, “Daniel Johnson,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 1st edition, vol. 2, James Harley Marsh, editor, Edmonton, Hurtig, 1985, 920)
French Chauvinists like Daniel Latouche blur the relationship between Franco-Canadian conservatisme and modern European political and economic irrationalism, and thus they mask the real nature and meaning of the Quiet Revolution in world history: “Québec has been a colony for three hundred years, first of France, then of England, then of Canada, and now of the United States,” (Lawrence Martin, Chrétien: The Will to Win, vol. 1, Toronto, 1995, 179). Latouche and his French Chauvinist friends hate the royalist France of the Ancien Régime, but they love modern France and the French Revolution, the seedbed of Bonapartisme: They make-believe that the vast majority of Franco-Canadians are lovers of the Napoleonic and French revolutionary conception of right, which is not the conception of right found in the Magna Carta and the Constitution of the United States of America.
They are nothing but dreamers, and their make-believe world is a dream that has swept-away the old order, under the pressures of a greater reality. But as their dreams confront this new reality in turn, they too are condemned to pass-away: “Mind passes over into the new principle and so marks out another nation [eines welthistorischen Volks] for world-historical significance.” (Hegel, Rechtsphilosophie, 1821)
Daniel Latouche and his friends are therefore the creatures in drag of the Québec Regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais, namely, the political and economic arm of the Québec Inc. Is this really surprising? Proof of the Québec anti-federalist sham is evidenced in the $Billions handed-out over the years (mostly from Ontario and Western Canada) to the Québec Inc under Parti Québecois governments, much of which has lined the pockets of the extremely corrupt élites at Hydro-Québec, Bombardier, SNC-Lavalin, Saputo, the Caisse, the FTQ Construction, Banque Nationale, and BCE, etc., but also finance, commerce and industry affiliated with the Power Corporation.
Since the destruction of Canada entails the political and economic collapse of the Québec Inc, why does the ruling class of Québec back anti-federalism? The answer is very simple: French Canadian federalism and anti-federalism is the backbone of the Québec Regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais. A strong anti-federalist movement in Québec guarantees that an English Canadian politician will always win less than half of the vote: Québec Regimers alone will therefore always have the best chances of ruling Canada. This has been the basis of Canadian political and economic retardation for the past half century, the political “philosophy” of Pierre Trudeau and Cité Libre, and the dirty secret behind the “growth” of the Québec Inc. For this reason, Canada was ruled by Québec Regimers for some fifty years, except for one year under Joe Clark, Kim Campbell and John Turner. In the United States of America, a half century of Californians in the White House is considered anti-democratic, and rightly so. Wherefore? Washington is a superior ruling class.
Few students of Canadian history really know that what the exact historiographers name the Quiet Revolution is actually the disintegration of the British Empire in Canada, namely, the raison d’etre behind the Québec Regime in Ottawa and Empire of Paul Desmarais: “Québeckers have lived through the Quiet Revolution: And the Empire of Paul Desmarais is their Quiet Dispossession.” (Richard Le Hir, Desmarais: La Dépossession Tranquille, Montréal, 2012, 16: “Les Québécois ont connu la Révolution tranquille. L’Empire Desmarais leur mijote la Dépossession tranquille”)
Daniel Johnson the Elder was a Franco-Canadian politician who upheld the cause of Canada and the American world, against the contagion of modern European political and economic irrationalism, as is evidenced in his strong reaction against the General DeGaulle: Daniel Johnson was therefore no French Chauvinist like Paul Desmarais.
Incidentally, Jean Chrétien claims to have also come down very hard against Charles de Gaulle: “I was absolutely the strongest of them all,” (Lawrence Martin, Chrétien: The Will to Win, vol. 1, Toronto, 1995, 179). Alas, Ti-Jean is not a very honest and trustworthy historical witness, especially so many decades after the fact. We do not say that he is an historical liar, but he most certainly is an inveterate political demagogue: “Chrétien has always maintained that he and other francophones were barred from playing at the Grand’Mère golf course. Others who lived in Shawinigan said the club had no such discriminatory policy,” (Ibidem, 379). Jean Chrétien obviously had a very bad influence upon Big Paul. [Editor]
9. See: “No businessman in Canadian history has ever had more intimate and more extended influence with Canadian prime ministers than Desmarais.” Peter Charles Newman, “Epitaph for the two-party state: Trust Canadians to Invent a New System of Government: Elected Dictatorship,” Maclean’s, 1 November 1993, 14. [Editor]
10. The standard of proof in the court of public opinion is not as high as in a court of law. Nevertheless, the court of public opinion is not merely a kangaroo court. This is proved by the vast efforts and sums of money spent by men and women of high position to preserve the integrity of their reputations. Freedom of speech is also the bedrock of American democracy: Freedom of thought is therefore the fountainhead of rational political and economic order in the world.
PAUL DESMARAIS: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 1969–2017
Ian Anderson, “Paul Desmarais Buys More Power,” The Montreal Gazette, 15 July 1977, 9.
Anonymous, “Brian Mulroney vend sa maison au fils de Paul Desmarais Jr.,” TVA Nouvelles, 10 octobre 2015.
――, “Power Corp encore une fois dans le viseur du fisc,” TVA Nouvelles, 26 septembre 2015.
――, “Liens avec la famille Desmarais: Péladeau dénonce Charest,” Canoe.ca, 26 mars 2014.
――, “La succession de Paul Desmarais vend des actions,” Le Devoir, 8 janvier 2014.
――, “Desmarais advances on Buffet Zone, The Australian Business Review, 3 August 2009.
――, “En bref―Desmarais au CHUM,” Le Devoir, 12 février 2009.
――, “En bref―Hélène Desmarais, présidente du conseil de la CCMM,” Le Devoir, 12 octobre 2007.
――, “Power Corp. and the Desmarais Family,” Financial Sector Blogspot, 25 May 2006.
――, “Paul Desmarais Sr. hospitalized after stroke,” CBC News, 31 May 2005.
――, “Canada’s Satellite TV Row Clouds Chrétien’s Image,” The Toledo Blade, 30 April 1995, A13.
――, “Power-Play: Desmarais Anoints Sons to Take Over Empire,” Ottawa Citizen, 6 June 1986, C3.
――, “Desmarais Steps Aside to Give Sons More Power,” Ottawa Citizen, 1 May 1986, D15.
――, “Le projet Revi-Centre achemine vers Québec,” L’Écho de Louiseville Berthier, 12 décembre 1984, 10.
――, “University Founder J.-N. Desmarais,” The Gazette, 6 October 1983, B18.
――, “Chrétien malade,” L’Évangéline, 20 janvier 1981, 13.
――, “Changes Could Boost Desmarais’ Control of Power,” The Montreal Gazette, 26 April 1980, 69.
――, “Desmarais, Hebert to Seek Re-election,” The South Shore News, 20 December 1979, 6.
――, “Desmarais Seeks Dollard Job,” The Montreal Gazette, 7 March 1979, 5.
――, “Power Corporation réalise un bénéfice de $13.3 millions,” Le Devoir, 17 février 1978, 27.
――, “Louis Desmarais Expected to Run as Tory,” The Montreal Gazette, 31 March 1978, 6.
――, “Desmarais Aims to Forge a Front,” The Montreal Gazette, 1 December 1977, 4.
――, “Power Corp. Executive Dies,” The Montreal Gazette, 23 February 1976, 4.
――, “Power Corporation Holdings,” The Montreal Gazette, 26 March 1975, 13.
――, “Ottawa Now Studying Proposed [Argus Corporation] Takeover,” The Montreal Gazette, 26 March 1975, 13.
――, “Argus Holdings,” The Montreal Gazette, 26 March 1975, 13.
――, “Power Corporation doubla ses profits,” Le Devoir, 14 aout 1974, 13.
――, “Mais qui est donc André Desmarais?” La Patrie, 11 mai 1969, 8.
Pierre Arbour, Québec Inc. and the Temptation of State Capitalism, Madeleine Hébert, translator, (Toronto/Montréal: Robert Davies Publishing, 1997).
――, Quebec Inc: La Tentation du Dirigisme, (Montréal: L’Étincelle, 1993).
Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos, Voices from French Ontario, (Kingston/Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982).
Benoit Aubin, “Desmarais Ready to Guarantee News Team’s Independence,” The Montreal Gazette, 18 March 1986, C1.
Henry Aubin, “Desmarais and McDougald: Two Titans Meet,” The Montreal Gazette, 26 March 1975, 13.
Nick Auf der Maur, “Asbestos Corporation Used in U.S. Bribes: Ex Official,” The Montreal Gazette, 15 May 1986, A1-A8.
Ian Austen, “The Name is ‘Power’ and It Fits,” The New York Times, 26 January 2006.
Robert Barberis-Gervais, “Limites et dangers du concept de coupable par association,” Sorel Tracy Magazine: L’Opinion du Lecteur, 2 août 2013.
Robert Barberis-Gervais, “Les aventures politiques de Richard Le Hir,” Sorel Tracy Magazine: L’Opinion du Lecteur, 12 mai 2014.
Bertille Bayart, “Décès de Paul Desmarais, le complice canadien d’Albert Frère,” Le Figaro, 9 octobre 2013.
Jules Bélanger, J.-Louis Lévesque: La montée d’un Gaspésien aux sommets des affaires, (Saint-Laurent: Fides, 1996).
Jacques Benjamin et Pierre O’Neill, Les Mandarins du Pouvoir: L’Exercice du Pouvoir au Québec de Jean Lesage à René Lévesque, (Montréal: Québec/Amérique, 1978).
Sylvie Bergeron, “Ça change quoi de savoir tout ça?” Le Huffington Post Québec: Les Blogues, 9 juillet 2015.
Annabelle Blais, “Un Faste Royale au Mariage de Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais,” La Presse.ca, 7 September 2013.
Yves Boisvert, “Paul Desmarais, l’empereur,” La Presse.ca, 10 octobre 2013.
Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot, “Cinq grands coups de Paul Desmarais,” La Presse.ca, 10 octobre 2013.
Alex Castonguay, “L’ombre politique de Paul Desmarais,” L’Actualité, 9 octobre 2013.
Jean-François Cloutier, “L’ampleur du pouvoir des Desmarais mise en lumière,” TVA Nouvelles, 2 avril 2012.
Jean-François Cloutier, “L’Affaire Quick: Une vente à prix gonflé pour enricher des amis, selon Kuhn,” Le Journal de Montréal, 16 février 2014.
Jean-François, Cloutier, “La fiducie familiale des Desmarais se reorganise,” TVA Nouvelles, 1 janvier 2016.
Jean-François Cloutier et Gérard Samet, “Paul Desmarais se renforce en Europe,” TVA Nouvelles, 11 juillet 2011.
Terence Corcoran, “Desmarais Hits Back at Critics of Takeovers,” The Montreal Gazette, 1 May 1975, 17.
Terence Corcoran, “Power Corp. may Syndicate Holdings in Argus Preferred,” The Montreal Gazette, 1 May 1975, 17.
Louis Cornellier, “Essais Québécois — Dépeindre le pouvoir: Robin Philpot tente de percer le ‘secret’ dont s’entourent Paul Desmarais et l’empire Power,” Le Devoir, 13 décembre 2008.
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien, Straight From the Heart, 1st edition, (Toronto: Seal Books, 1986).
Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, Robin Philpot’s Argument and the Legacy of Paul Desmarais, archive.org, 28 February 2016.
――, editor, Power Corporation and the Oil-for-Food Scandal, Second Edition, By Kevin Steel, Medium, 2017
――, Robin Philpot’s Argument and the Legacy of Paul Desmarais, Second Edition, Medium, 2017.
――, editor and translator, The Energy East Project and Trans Canada, By Pierre Karl Peladeau, archive.org, 1 March 2016.
――, editor and translator, The Corrupt Legacy of Paul Desmarais, By Robin Philpot, archive.org, 3 July 2016.
――, Jean Chrétien and French Chauvinism, Medium, 2017.
――, Who Murdered Duplessis, Sauvé and Johnson? Medium, 2016.
――, Paul Desmarais and the Québec Regime in Ottawa 1968–2006, Medium, 2016.
Saidatou Dicko, Un Conseil d’administration fortement réseauté pour une Power Corporation, (Paris: Éditions Publibook, 2012).
Martine Vanden Driessche, “Albert Frère et Paul Desmarais Majoritaires dans Pargesa,” Le Soir, 23 février 1990.
Louis Fournier, “Jean Lesage, the Montreal Trust et Power Corporation: Le Signe de $$$,” Québec-Presse, 30 août 1970, 12A.
José-Alain Fralon, Albert Frère: Le fils du marchand de clous, (Paris: Fayard, 1997).
Matthew Fraser, Quebec Inc: French-Canadian Entrepreneurs and the New Business Elite, (Toronto: Key Porter, 1987).
Geneviève Garon et Marc Verreault, “Un procès au civil déchire les Desmarais, de Power Corporation,” Radio Canada Économie,” 12 Janvier 2017.
Ann Gibbon, “Desmarais Resigns at Power Financial: Son New President,” The Montreal Gazette, 1 May 1986, F6.
E.J. Gordon, “Wedding Most Glamourous of Year: Paul Guy Desmarais―Hélène Blouin,” The Montreal Gazette, 10 September 1979, 49.
David Greber, Rising to Power: Paul Desmarais and Power Corporation, (Toronto: Methuen, 1987).
Robert A. Hackett, Richard S. Gruneau, Donald Gutstein, Timothy A. Gibson, The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canada’s Press, (Aurora, Ontario: Garamond Press, 2000).
Graeme Hamilton, “Paul Desmarais Chose Business Over Politics, But His Perceived Influence Extended Even Beyond Canada’s Borders,” National Post, 9 October 2013.
Marc Jussaume, “La Réplique: Paul Desmarais — L’argumentaire boiteux de Robin Philpot,” Le Devoir, 17 octobre 2013.
Lisa Kassenaar, “Buffett Loses to Desmarais as Power Exceeds Return,” Bloomberg Business, 29 July 2009.
Richard Le Hir, Desmarais: La Dépossession tranquille, (Saint Denis, Montréal: Les Éditions Michel Brûlé, 2012).
Richard Le Hir, “L’Empire Desmarais: Les Québécois vont financer les entreprises EDF et Enbridge,” Mondialisation.ca, 4 octobre 2013.
Jean Lesage, Lesage s’engage, (Montréal: Les Éditions politiques du Québec, 1959).
Jennifer Lewington, “Power Corporation Plans Takeover,” The Montreal Gazette, 26 March 1975, 1–13.
Jean-François, Lisée, “Les Desmarais: un empire médiatico-bitumineux?” L’Actualité, 5 janvier 2010.
Jean-Sébastien Marsan, “Paul Desmarais: Une ‘main économique’ omniprésente?” TVA Nouvelles, 9 octobre 2013.
Rodolphe Morissette, “Louis Desmarais candidat libéral dans Dollard?” Le Devoir, 3 mars 1979, 2.
Peter Charles Newman, “Epitaph for the two-party state: Trust Canadians to Invent a New System of Government: Elected Dictatorship,” Maclean’s, 1 November 1993, 14.
Peter Charles Newman, The Canadian Establishment: The Old Order, vol. 1, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975).
Peter Charles Newman, The Canadian Establishment: The Acquisitors, vol. 2, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981).
Peter Charles Newman, The Canadian Establishment: The Titans, How the New Canadian Establishment Seized Power, vol. 3, (Toronto: Viking Canada, 1998).
Pierre O’Neill et Jacques Benjamin, Les Mandarins du Pouvoir: L’Exercice du Pouvoir au Québec de Jean Lesage à René Lévesque, (Montréal: Québec/Amérique, 1978).
Pierre Karl Peladeau, Le projet Énergie Est de Trans Canada, Vigile.Quebec, 1 novembre 2014.
Pierre Karl Peladeau, The Energy East Project and Trans Canada, Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, editor and translator, archive.org, 2016.
Andrew Phillips, “Desmarais Nominated in Dollard,” The Montreal Gazette, 4 April 1979, 10.
Robin Philpot, Derrière L’État Desmarais: Power, 2ième édition, (Montréal: Livres Baraka Inc., 2014).
Robin Philpot, Derrière L’État Desmarais: Power, 1ière édition, (Montréal: Les Intouchables, 2008).
Robin Philpot, “Paul Desmarais: un bilan s’impose,” Le Devoir, 12 octobre 2013.
Robin Philpot, The Corrupt Legacy of Paul Desmarais, Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, editor and translator, archive.org, 3 July 2016. [2013]
Luciano Pipia, “Huge Montreal Wedding Today,” CJAD 800 News, 7 September 2013.
Frederick Rose, “We Still Want Argus, Desmarais Tells Bryce,” The Montreal Gazette, 11 December 1975, 19.
Gérard Samet et Jean-François Cloutier, “Paul Desmarais se renforce en Europe,” TVA Nouvelles, 11 juillet 2011.
Lou Seligson, “Trouble-Shooter Par Excellence,” The Montreal Gazette, 25 August 1971, 25.
Harvey Shepherd, “Desmarais Romps to Victory as Dollard Sticks with Tradition,” The Montreal Gazette, 23 May 1979, 10.
Kevin Steel, “How Montreal’s Power Corporation Found Itself Caught Up in the Biggest Fiasco in UN History,” The Western Standard, 5 March 2005.
Jonathan Trudel, “Desmarais et les ficelles du pouvoir,” L’Actualité, 9 octobre 2013.
Mathieu Turbide, “Power et le pétrole ‘sale,’” Le Journal de Montréal, 19 décembre 2009.
Michel Vastel, “Le secret de Paul Desmarais,” L’Actualité, 9 octobre 2013.
Richard Vigneault, “Réplique à Robin Philpot: La France n’est pas le Québec,” Le Devoir, 5 février 2009.
James Winter, “Reporting on the Pharmaceutical Industry: Profit Before People,” The Political Economy of Media and Power, Jeffery Klaehn, editor, (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), 243–273.
