Editor:
I have been notified, via email, that I have been listed as ‘neutral’ in athe matter of proposed development in the vicinity of Quarry Lake.
I am firmly in the company of Gerry Stephenson. My previous letter to the editor was focused on bad law, which has had a significant bearing on the sordid corporate and political history of the lands that were responsibly recovered after the coal mine closed.
Gerry Stephenson was the leader in that reclamation. The bad law in question is known as the Doctrine of the Corporate Veil which is a relic of British common law dating back to the leading case, Salomon v. Salomon & Co. Ltd. (1897) A.C. 22.
The doctrine established in that leading case has been applied to limit the liability that flows from incorporation to the detriment of the public as well as those who do business with the corporation. Briefly stated; the legal persona created by incorporation is an entity distinct from its shareholders and even in a one man company, the company is not an alias for the owner.
Canmore and Albertans have been bitten three times by the application of this doctrine when unscrupulous individuals establish mantles of immunity and anonymity as corporations, holding these subject lands, declared or threatened bankruptcy.
The majority in Canmore may not know or remember that Peter Pocklington once owned this property, under one of his 22 aliases. It was Patrician Land Corporation, which in turn was rolled into Fidelity Trust Co. Fidelity failed, taking Patrician with it.
That caper cost us $359 million through the CDIC (bailing out Gainers, another $446 million). The next “owners” threatened bankruptcy and offered 63 cents on the dollar to ‘preferred’ customers.
Others did not fare so well. More recently, PricewaterhouseCoopers represented more than $100 million of owed money on the same property. One person seemed to be on both sides of that debt.
Where the doctrine was established, the courts have seen fit to “draw aside the veil.” Lord Denning: Littlewoods Mail Order Stores Ltd. V. Inland Revenue Commissioners (1969) 5 All E.R. 855. Another leading jurist once remarked, “Man made the laws, man can unmake them.” Get on with it. The political intervention includes two land exchange agreements. To label them irresponsible is too kind to the government; they enriched the corporate partners at the expense of all Albertans.
Ambrose Bierce defined incorporation in The Devil’s Dictionary more than a century ago as: “The act of uniting persons into one fiction called a corporation, in order that they may be no longer responsible for their actions. (It) is somewhat like the Ring of Gyges; it bestows the blessing of invisibility – comfortable to knaves.”
Forgive me my skepticism when I question, yet again, who really owns these subject lands? And, please urge your MLA to look at this damnable law.
David Owen,
Canmore
