Capitalism in its most dismal form: Alain Deneault on the death of Arthur Irving

As with Brian Mulroney, we should not pretend to have suddenly found virtue in a person we have always criticized, on the pretext that we should not speak ill of the dead.

Arthur Irving, former CEO of Irving Oil, passed away last Monday. He represented the second generation of a family that reigns supreme over the Atlantic region (the Maritime provinces, Eastern Quebec, Maine, etc.), having mostly neutralized its political life. The most useful myth for the family is that they have enriched New Brunswick, when really it is New Brunswick that has made them rich. As a result, the citizens of this province rely on more meager social services, and pay more for gas than elsewhere in Canada (though the largest refinery is located in Saint John). Not to mention our shockingly low indicators in education and public health.

Much of the Irving treasury has been registered in Bermuda since the 1970s. This alone should be enough to incite legitimate speculation into the significant fiscal shortfall that affects us all. The fact that the Irving clan pleads the legality of this financial sleight of hand whenever they are questioned shows the extent to which it violates the spirit of the law, if not the letter.

From the 1980s on, financial journalists in Canada, who had already seen quite a lot, were flabbergasted at how New Brunswick bowed down before its masters. Toronto writer Diane Francis was amazed at the context of the region, describing it as a “company town.”

When I myself first arrived in New Brunswick, before conformity set in and I got used to the state of affairs, I tried to bear witness to this regime of private domination by writing about it for the French magazine Le Monde diplomatique. From the comments of the editors, I could see how unique and unusual the situation was in New Brunswick, which we temporarily renamed Irvingnie (or sometimes the Irving Appalchians, in the style of Saudi Arabia, also named after a family).

My article was immediately accepted and published in multiple languages in April 2019 under the title “The Irvings, Canada’s robber barons.” In the context of globalized industrial capitalism, the Irvings represent an almost feudalistic counter-model. Instead of specializing in one branch of industry and dominating it transnationally, such as a soft drink producer that establishes its brand across the planet, or an entertainment company that drowns the world in its movies, the Irvings do almost everything, but within a limited territory. Being far from capitals and metropolises (Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, New York, etc.), which are indifferent to the operations of the family, they have been able to capture the region in terms of industry, commerce, finance and politics, so as to make it their private and almost self-sufficient fiefdom. Not many businesses have as few suppliers as this family of companies. Their fleet of trucks is powered by their fuel, which is processed at their refinery, which is supplied by crude oil from operations in which they are major or majority shareholders. The same goes for their packaging products, for the paper produced from their lumber (thanks to the state-owned “Crown lands”), which may be sold in their hardware stores, and used in the infrastructure of their farms, and so on. Public opinion has long since been ideologically disarmed by the Irving newspapers, the only ones available in English, and by following their electronic media. This is a synopsis of their history; it is well-known and widely accepted in the region.

To put it bluntly, it is to be heavily colonized to think that without the Irvings, we would be nothing in this place. That we would be incapable of creating cooperatives and stewarding the land in a respectful way, in a territory where energy could be managed as a public good, and that only some numbered companies based in an impenetrable tax haven should control and profit from these resources.

No premier since Louis J. Robichaud has criticized their quiet rule; certainly not the current premier, himself a former Irving executive. Only a few documentaries over the years have shown us the family’s influence over politicians.

Glimpses of resistance are rare. People fall silent. The austere face of the holy family is reflected in the austerity of our public budgets. From a psychological perspective, this kind of power undermines community. The Irvings are far from the pomp and splendor of the Bourbon monarchs of France. It is humiliating to let ourselves be defeated by such a dreary family. Now, with the exhaustion of the oil wealth and the branching off of the family line, we may see the conglomerate integrated into a more traditional form of capitalism. K.C. Irving, the patriarch, wanted to found a dynasty. He committed the error of splitting up his fortune among his three sons (the daughter having been excluded from the inheritance).

In turn, the next generation of (male) children made claims to the spoils, and soon there will be too little for the whole clan. It was for this reason that journalist Jacques Poitras entitled his book Irving vs Irving (Penguin, 2015). If the patriarch had wanted to ensure his companies remain affiliates, he should have organized the inheritance according to primogeniture and bequeathed everything to the eldest son, along the lines of a monarchy. This way the eldest son of each generation would control everything.

Because this was not the case, we can now expect them to sell their companies, or have them listed on the stock exchange, where they will gradually sell their shares. This way, the clan will acquire the liquid capital needed to pursue business opportunities in global finance and stock markets, where complex algorithms make trades in mere nanoseconds.

This is in the nature of what Max Weber called “the Protestant ethic of capitalism.” Though it evolves at a frenzied pace, we see it here, every day, in its most dismal form.

Alain Deneault is an author and Professor of Philosophy at Université de Moncton, Shippagan Campus. This opinion piece originally appeared in l’Acadie Nouvelle on May 15, 2024.