Show Notes
This episode was first published on April 12th, 2025. Happy New Year, Hatchet listeners! The chance to put out good journalism is its own reward, but to everyone who has listened, shared, or supported us over the last year—thank you. We wanted to kick off the year by updating you on our series on Brookfield. It’s been a long road, but we’ll be publishing the next two new episodes this week, with more to come later in the month. We can’t wait for you to hear it. But before you do, we wanted to re-publish the first episode in the series. It’s an important primer for an increasingly complicated story. Brookfield has been in the news constantly over recent months. The Conservatives attacked the company for moving the headquarters of one of their subsidiaries to New York City. The NDP have accused it of avoiding taxes through offshore havens. And Prime Minister Mark Carney, the former chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, has found himself on the defensive because of his association with the company. But what these political attacks miss is a far more important story. It’s a story of a company that has been central to Canada’s history and economy for more than a century. So what exactly is Brookfield? That’s a question that we here at The Hatchet have set out to answer. What we found was a company that almost defies description. Brookfield has been a financial universe unto itself, operating by a different set of cosmic laws and fundamental forces than other corporations. It’s a company that’s shown an almost unparalleled talent for reinvention. Over its 125-year-history, it’s morphed from a neo-colonial experiment to Canada’s most ruthless corporate raider to a seemingly boring storehouse of our collective pension earnings. Now it is one of a tiny handful of financial entities that sit at the very centre of the global economy. And so that’s why we’ll be spending this series focusing exclusively on this incredibly important and yet rarely understood company. We’ll be digging into its epic history, its contentious present and what the continued domination of firms like Brookfield could mean for everyday people. In this first episode, we shine a light on it’s first incarnation — Brazilian Traction, Light and Power — and how it managed to dominate the people of South America’s biggest nation for most of the 20th century. Featured in this episode: Tyler Shipley To learn more Canada In The World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination by Tyler Shipley The Brass Ring: Power, Influence and the Brascan Empire by Patricia Best & Ann Shortell Let Us Prey: The Practices and Profits of Canadian Corporations and Businessmen edited by Robert Chodos & Ray Murphy The Light: Brazilian Traction, Light, and Power Company Limited, 1899-1945 by Duncan McDowall Support us at hatchetmedia.substack.com The Hatchet is a podcast and newsletter dedicated to exposing power and money in Canada. We deliver important, original and fascinating journalism about how this country actually works. Music: I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque
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More from The Hatchet
So today is the day of the Alberta referendum. And we just wanted to share with you some more of my conversation with Jeremy Appel. Here we dig into Danielle Smith’s origins as a media personality, and what that can teach us about her as a political figure. And specifically we take a look at some of the columns she wrote early on in her career where she espouses ideas like….how smoking can actually reduce your risk of cancer. It’s a really interesting lens through which to understand Danielle Smith and I had a lot of fun talking to Jeremy about it. Featured in this episode: Jeremy Appel To Learn More: Dark Phoenix: The Rise, Fall and Re-emergence of Danielle Smith by Jeremy Appel "Danielle Smith Claimed Smoking Cigarettes Had Positive Health Benefits" by Stephen Magusiak in Press Progress
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca
There’s something that I’ve noticed lately when it comes to how we talk about whatever is happening in Canada these days. Every announcement from the government, every hot take from the newspaper columnists and the talking heads on the nightly news comes with a caveat: WE ARE IN A TRADE WAR. And that means that any investment in Canada right now is viewed as a great investment. Just don’t look too hard at the fine print. And for the most part, Canadians have been willing to go along on this ride. That is until last month, when Prime Minister Mark Carney hung up a “For Sale” sign on Canada’s four largest airports to a room filled with the world’s richest investors. This time, there has actually been some pushback. And I think that’s because it’s less clear who this is supposed to benefit. It’s hard not to think that Mark Carney’s Liberal’s have secured bottomless latitude to extract value out of Canada wherever they see fit — as long as it’s in the name of capital “I” investment. And if you’ve got a problem with that, well, you’re probably not on Team Canada. Or maybe you just don’t understand it. That’s certainly been the party line when it comes to the airport deal — even when we know that in other countries where they’ve tried the exact same thing the results have been crystal clear: prices go up and services get worse. So when Peter Nowak, Canada’s preeminent competition watcher, called me up last week I knew exactly what was on his mind. If our governing monopoly says it’s open season for big business in Canada, where exactly does that leave the rest of us? Peter and I dig into all of that and do a little cross-country check-in on the state of Canadian competition. NOTE: A version of this conversation also appeared in Do Not Pass Go Featured in the episode: Peter Nowak To learn more: “Watchdog Moves to Block Veggie Merger as Feds Drive Up Price of Competing Imports” by Peter Nowak in Do No Pass Go “Canada, EU Deepen Ties But Diverge on Consumer Protection” by Peter Nowak in Do Not Pass Go “The Anti-Competitive Barriers Holding Canadian Films Back” by Peter Nowak in Do Not Pass Go “Do Not Pass Go Hits One Year Thanks to Your Support! Here’s What’s Next” by Peter Nowak in Do Not Pass Go “Actually, privatizing Canada’s airports is a bad thing” by Arshy Mann in The Hatchet Support us at Hatchetmedia.ca The Hatchet is a podcast and newsletter dedicated to exposing power and money in Canada. We deliver important original and fascinating journalism about how this country actually works. Music: I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque To hear more, visit Hatchetmedia.ca
Allowing big, private money to buy up chunks of our airports has been a long-held neo-liberal dream in Canada. Kim Campbell proposed it during her short-lived government, as did Justin Trudeau in 2017. They were both hoping to follow in the example of Margaret Thatcher’s UK, which became the first western nation to fully privatize their existing major airports back in 1987. Since then, many European countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand, have followed suit, with massive pension funds often purchasing the airports outright or buying up long-term concessions to run them. But the idea has never really caught on in Canada, for one very good reason — Canadians hate it. A recent Nanos poll found that over 50% of Canadians oppose the plan and with only a little over 30% in favour. And that’s because Canadians clearly have an intuitive understanding that airports aren’t the kind of asset that it makes sense for governments to completely sell-off. They are, after all, natural monopolies, giving them enormous power to charge what they want. So why does Carney want to do this? Because it’s not about what’s best for Canadians. Instead, this is a proposal that works for the benefit of major asset managers and pension funds. These giant pools of money are on a desperate search for increased returns, wherever they can be found. And vital infrastructure is a great place for them to do it. Because they know that they can gauge consumers with no consequences. Everyone knows that’s how these kinds of deals work. So it’s especially galling that the government still frames this proposal as a way to lower costs for consumers. Nothing could be further from the truth.