The Canada Development Corporation was a Canadian corporation, based in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, created and partly owned by the federal government and charged with developing and maintaining Canadian-controlled companies in the private sector through a mixture of public and private investment. It was technically not a

crown corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...

as it was intended to generate a profit and was created with the intention that, eventually, the government would own no more than 10% of its holdings; it did not require approvals of the

Governor-in-Council The King-in-Council or the Queen-in-Council, depending on the gender of the reigning monarch, is a constitutional term in a number of states. In a general sense, it would mean the monarch exercising executive authority, usually in the form of ap ...

for its activities and did not report to

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. Its objectives and capitalization, however, were set out by parliament and any changes to its objects decided upon by the

Board of Directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

had to be approved by parliament.

History

The CDC was created as a result of Walter Gordon's

Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects The Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects was initiated by the Louis St. Laurent government in order to develop recommendations regarding the Canadian economy. Chaired by Walter L. Gordon, its 1956 and 1957 reports were representative of ...

, and the 1968 Watkins Report commissioned by Gordon, in an attempt to redress the problem of

foreign ownership Foreign ownership refers to the ownership of a portion of a country's assets (businesses, natural resources, property, bonds, equity etc.) by individuals who are not citizens of that country or by companies whose headquarters are not in that countr ...

in the Canadian economy by stimulating the development of Canadian owned corporations, particularly in the field of natural resources and industry. About 31,000 private shareholders invested in the corporation.Canada Development Corporation
''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' An early purchase of the corporation was

Connaught Laboratories The Connaught Medical Research Laboratories was a non-commercial public health entity established by Dr. John G. FitzGerald in 1914 in Toronto to produce the diphtheria antitoxin. Contemporaneously, the institution was likened to the Pasteur Inst ...

, the original manufacturer of

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...

. Major investments owned by the CDC included holdings in petroleum, mines and petrochemicals including

Polymer Corporation Polymer Corporation was a Canadian federal crown corporation established in 1942 to produce artificial rubber to substitute for overseas supply cut off by World War II. After the Japanese captured the Dutch East Indies in 1942, most of the world's ...

, an asset transferred to it by the Canadian government. By 1982 the

Canadian government The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in-C ...

had a 49% stake in the

CDC The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

."COMPANY NEWS; Canada Unit to Get 58% Stake in Savin"
''New York Times'', Jan 23, 1982 In 1986 the Corporation was dismantled as part of the

Mulroney Mulroney is a surname of Irish origin. Notable people with the surname include: * Mulroney family **Brian Mulroney (born 1939), Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of Canada 1984–1993 ***Mila Mulroney (born 1953), wife of Brian Mulroney ***C ...

government's program of

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

References

External links

* 1972 interview with then CDC president Marshall Crowe. {{authority control 1971 establishments in Ontario Canadian companies established in 1971 Defunct companies of Ontario Government-owned companies of Canada Companies disestablished in 1986 Investment companies of Canada