Great Canadian biz quiz, Part 4
How much do you know about events that shaped this country’s corporate culture?
Leading up to Canada’s 150th birthday, Star columnist David Olive tests your knowledge of the country’s industrial history. 1. Prior to investors in Calgary-based Bre-X Minerals Ltd. losing about $6 billion with the 1997 collapse of the company in one of history’s biggest mining frauds a) It was known that Busang, Indonesia, site of Bre-X’s supposed discovery of a stunning quantity of gold deposits, had been thoroughly explored by earlier prospectors who found nothing b) That a near penniless Bre-X CEO David Walsh, a man with very slight mining experience, motored around Calgary in a “beater” held together with duct tape c) That Bre-X’s Filipino geologist, Michael de Guzman, had supposedly killed himself a week ahead of the fraud’s discovery by jumping from a helicopter, his remains reportedly devoured by wild boars (he would be later be frequently sighted in Asian capitals, occasionally by one of his five ex-wives) d) All of the above.
3. O& Y Enterprises( Gulf Canada Resources, Abitibi-Price, Royal Trust) 4. EdperBrascan (Noranda, MacMillan Bloedel, Labatt, Trizec, Toronto Blue Jays) 5. Canadian Pacific Ltd. (CP Air, PanCanadian Petroleum, Cominco, Syracuse China) a) A. Jean de Grandpré b) Ian David Sinclair c) Mickey Cohen, Reichmann family d) brothers Peter and Edward Bronfman 6. The Seagram dynasty, which was the world’s biggest distillers for most of the 20th century, effectively ended when third-generation Edgar Bronfman Jr. abandoned liquor for an ill-fated bet on . . . a) an overbuilt casino industry b) a music industry about to collapse due to Internet file-sharing c) an overbuilt U.S. shopping-centre industry 7. A Canadian firm, Imperial Oil Co. Ltd., dominated the Canadian industry in its first decade, accounting for 45 per cent of all Canadian refined oil by 1891, until it was acquired in 1898 by its current offshore owner a) Royal Dutch Shell PLC b) Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon Mobil Corp) c) British Petroleum (now BP PLC) Match the formerly Canadian company with its offshore buyer. 8. MacMillan Bloedel Ltd., Vancouver; and Domtar Corp., Montreal 9. Supertest Petroleum, London, Ont. 10. Tim Hortons Inc., Oakville, Ont. 11. McLaughlin Motor Car Co., Oshawa, Ont. a) British Petroleum Canada, U.K. b) 3G Capital, Brazil c) General Motors Corp., Detroit d) Weyerhaeuser Co., Washington State 12. In the Great Canadian Industrial Yard Sale of the 2000s, which world-class company was not swallowed up by foreign buyers? a) Teck Resources Ltd., Vancouver b) Falconbridge Ltd./Noranda Inc., Toronto c) Stelco Inc., Toronto d) Inco Ltd., Toronto e) Dofasco Inc., Hamilton, Ont. f) Alcan Inc., Montreal g) Algoma Steel Corp. Ltd. h) Ipsco Inc.