Corporate Control

How deep does corporate dominance go in Canada? The second book in Nora Loreto’s landmark series, Canada in Decline, dives into the corporate web spun around Canada’s economy, society, and politics.

The joke goes that Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat. Or three oil companies in a trench coat. Or three telecom companies in a trench coat. It’s funny because it’s almost true: there are only a few corporations that exert a disproportionate amount of power over Canadian democracy.

Corporate profits are at a record high, and the divide between the rich and the poor has never been wider. Canadians are struggling with inflation, the affordability crisis, a housing crisis and wages that don’t cover basic needs. The combination of these forces is a pressure cooker that politicians have promised to tackle, except they can’t: they are too restricted by corporate power to confront the roots of the problems that face Canadians.

The first book in the Canada in Decline series examined the rise and fall of Canada’s social safety net. In this next volume, Corporate Control, activist, author, and journalist Nora Loreto goes further, identifying why Canadian politicians seem so impotent in the face of corporate Canada.