(May 10, 2000) Canada will ask for $700 million in annual trade retaliation against Brazil today in what would be the largest punitive award ever granted by the World Trade Organization, Canada’s Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew announced yesterday.
Firm with ties to Chretien lands untendered EDC deal
(May 9, 2000) The federal government’s Export Development Corporation has struck an exclusive deal — without a call for tenders –with an insurance company owned by a powerful Canadian corporation with strong connections to Prime Minister Jean Chretien and the Liberal party.
Crown agency cloaks deals in secrecy
(May 9, 2000) While the EDC maintain its standard banking procedure not to disclose details of loans, a former bank regulator is calling for an independant review of the agency’s practises.
Documents suggest EDC influenced probe
(March 28, 2000) International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew is standing by an independent report reviewing the Export Development Corporation even though recently released government documents indicate the Crown corporation influenced the final draft of the report.
Pierre’s math
(March 23, 2000) When first challenged over the Export Development Corporation, Pierre Pettigrew asserted that it made commercially sound loans. This wasn’t very plausible, since the EDC exists precisely to make loans that commercial institutions won’t.
Minister’s numbers don’t add up
(March 23, 2000) International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew’s glowing presentation in the House of Commons this week of large profits at the Export Development Corporation — and a 50-year total of "only $1 billion" in federal grants to the trade agency — is undermined by the Chretien government’s quiet write-off of $800 million in bad EDC loans since 1992.
Opposition slams ‘sweetheart deals’
(March 22, 2000) The Export Development Corporation has shelled out more than $685 million in long-term, interest-free loans that are not repayable for up to 55 years to developing countries such as China, Pakistan and Gabon.
This is a race to the bottom! Export Development Corporation ‘will do anything’
(March 21, 2000) For 50 years the federal Crown export credit agency, the Export Development Corporation, has financed and insured the world’s most environmentally damaging and economically reckless projects, from the Three Gorges dam on China’s Yangtze River to the gold mines in South America and the former Soviet Union that spill cyanide into major waterways.
Opposition demands to know where export billions went
(March 21, 2000) The "cloud of secrecy" that surrounds the Export Development Corp., a federal Crown corporation that is exempt from access to information laws, is covering up $2.8 billion in bad loans, opposition MPs charged yesterday.
Exporting profit
(March 21, 2000) For some years now, economists have understood that even where private markets do not function perfectly, government should not intervene unless a rational case can be made that it will do things better.
‘Bottomless hypocrisy’ demands scrutiny
(March 21, 2000) An esteemed Canadian economist has called for a royal commission to probe endemic secrecy within the taxpayer-backed Export Development Corp.
Railway watchdog blasts loan to Amtrak
(March 20, 2000) Export Development Corp.’s secret $1-billion deal with U.S. giant called ‘blatant discrimination against Canadians’.
‘This is a race to the bottom’
(March 19, 2000) Crown agency spends billions secretly backing environmentally destructive projects others won’t touch Export Development Corp. ‘will do anything,’ critic says; EDC VP insists agency ‘routinely’ turns down projects that are environmentally ‘risky’.
Chinese corruption doesn’t faze EDC
(March 19, 2000) The Three Gorges Dam mega-project has been plagued by economic environmental, and political problems — but the money from Canada just keeps flooding in. Jack Aubry reports.
‘I don’t think patronage is a dirty word’
(March 18, 2000) Why Chretien confidant Pat Lavelle owes his career to the prime minister; Export Development Corporation chairman used to oppose free trade.