Bombardier Inc. - Bombardier abroad: patterns of dispossession

BOMBARDIER ABROAD

BOMBARDIER ABROAD

PATTERNS OF DISPOSSESSION

DAVID P. THOMAS

FERNWOOD PUBLISHING
HALIFAX & WINNIPEG

Copyright 2018 David P. Thomas

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Editing: Brenda Conroy
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Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada, the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism under the Manitoba Publishers Marketing Assistance Program and the Province of Manitoba, through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, for our publishing program. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Thomas, David P., 1974-, author

Bombardier abroad : patterns of dispossession / David P. Thomas.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77363-029-8 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77363-030-4 (EPUB).--

ISBN 978-1-77363-031-1 (Kindle)

1. Bombardier Inc. 2. International business enterprises--Social aspects. 3. Transportation equipment industry--Canada. 4. Aircraft industry--Canada. 5. Social responsibility of business. I. Title.

HD9709.C34B65 2018 338.7629046 C2018-903702-4

C2018-904497-7

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

F irst, I acknowledge the many people in the three countries featured in this book who are living under conditions of dispossession, but who remain steadfast and continue to disseminate information regarding their plight to the outside world. This book would not be possible without materials collected from organizations such as Stop the Wall, Coalition of Women for Peace, Congress of South African Trade Unions ( COSATU ), Free Tibet, and many others.

Second, I thank my friend and colleague Hayden King. Three years ago in my living room I described to him my preliminary ideas about a book on Bombardier and my three main cases. He suggested that using ideas from settler colonial studies would be useful in framing the nature of dispossession across the three cases. This suggestion had a tremendous impact on my approach to the book and also on my general approach to teaching and research.

I also acknowledge the excellent assistance I received from student research assistants at Mount Allison University over the past several years. The following students have done research work that contributed to this project: Chris Balcom, Tyler Stuart, Tessa Dixon, and Jill MacIntyre.

Fernwood Publishing has been an excellent press to work with, and I am thankful for their support and assistance with this project. In particular, I thank editor Candida Hadley for her engagement with the text. Her analysis, feedback, and constructive criticism were essential in completing this project.

Finally, I thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their support during the writing of this book.

CHAPTER ONE

BOMBARDIER, THE CANADIAN STATE, AND DISPOSSESSION

J oseph-Armand Bombardier was only 15 years old when he began designing his own snow vehicles. In 1937, when he was 30, Joseph-Armand commercialized his invention and launched a seven-passenger B7 snowmobile. But it wasnt until 1969 that Bombardier, then under the leadership of Joseph-Armands son-in-law, Laurent Beaudoin, became a public company and diversified its operations through acquisitions in the rail sector. Bombardier would become the North American leader in rail transit (Bombardier n.d.b) by 1982, while simultaneously expanding into the aerospace sector during the 1980s. Further expansion and acquisitions in the 1990s resulted in the company becoming a major global actor in both aerospace and rail transportation by the early 2000s. Thus, from humble beginnings, Bombardier grew into a Canadian leader in innovation and expanded globally. Bombardier has also been recognized as a good corporate citizen, with numerous internationally recognized awards and accolades over the decades. In 2014, Bombardier was listed among the top 25 of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, an annual index released by Toronto-based media and investment advisory company, Corporate Knights Inc. And in 2015, Bombardier was chosen as an index component in the Dow Jones Sustainability North America index for the ninth consecutive year (Bombardier n.d.c).

Headquartered in Montral, Qubec, Bombardier is now one of the worlds largest global transportation companies, with revenues of $16.3 billion for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2016 (Bombardier n.d.a). Employing approximately 65,500 people in more than twenty-eight countries, Bombardier is a global giant in its two core business divisions aerospace and rail transportation and its shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. According to the companys website, Bombardier Aerospace has the most comprehensive aircraft portfolio and we hold the number one position in business and regional aircraft, and Bombardier Transportation is a global leader in the rail industry (Bombardier n.d.a). Indeed, Bombardier is considered one of the most successful Canadian corporations in the modern era, and its activities have far-reaching effects in many regions of the world. This is one of the key reasons for examining Bombardiers projects abroad and how the corporation is situated within our broader understanding of Canadian foreign direct investment.

Bombardier has often been in the headlines of newspapers across Canada over the past several years. Coverage has focused on issues such as the recent trade dispute with competitor Boeing, which alleged that Bombardier was selling planes below market value in the US (Zhang 2017), large executive pay increases while the company struggles financially ( CBC News 2017b), federal and provincial (Qubec) interest-free loans granted to the company (Marowits 2017), and allegations of corruption against Bombardier officials in securing contracts in Azerbaijan ( CBC News 2017a) and South Africa (Sawa and Chichakian 2015). While these cases are newsworthy and warrant our serious attention, we rarely hear about the nature of Bombardiers many business ventures abroad. As Bombardier is a large Canadian corporation with dealings in dozens of foreign countries and has been a central player in the Canadian corporate landscape for decades, it is somewhat surprising that very little is known in Canada about its international relationships and projects. The purpose of this book is to present an in-depth analysis of three key projects that Bombardier is involved with overseas in China/Tibet, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine and to explore the challenges that exist for companies such as Bombardier that choose to participate in controversial projects within deeply contested political spaces.

This analysis of Bombardier exists within the context of a productive and growing body of literature analyzing the impact of Canadian corporations abroad, especially in the extractive industries. Scholars and activists have carefully documented the environmental and social problems that often accompany Canadian mining activities at home and abroad, and the struggles by communities to resist mining projects. Gordon and Webber (2016) offer a cogent analysis of Canadian mining in contemporary Latin America, with an emphasis on locating the extractive processes within the wider context of global capitalism and accumulation. Other authors also draw useful connections between Canadian mining companies and the activities of the Canadian state that enable our corporations work abroad, which is an important aspect of this book as well. This book builds on the literature by extending the conversation beyond the extractive industries to the transportation sector and, in particular, the Bombardier corporation.