Kenneth Colin Irving, (March 14, 1899 – December 13, 1992) was a Canadian businessman whose business began with a family sawmill in Bouctouche, N.B., in 1882.
In 1989, he was made an Officer of the
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit.
To coincide with the ...
.
Biography
Early life
Born in
Bouctouche
Bouctouche is a Canadian town in Kent County, New Brunswick.
History
Bouctouche was originally named Tjipogtotjg (pronounced ''Chebooktoosk''), a Mi'kmaq word meaning "Great Little Harbour". The region was next settled by brothers Francois L ...
,
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
,
his father was prominent local business person
James Dergavel Irving (colloquially known by his initials "J.D."). As a youngster, K.C. Irving was viewed as a tough kid from a rough sawmill town on the
Northumberland Strait
The Northumberland Strait (French: ''détroit de Northumberland'') is a strait in the southern part of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in eastern Canada. The strait is formed by Prince Edward Island and the gulf's eastern, southern, and western sho ...
. He began his entrepreneurial streak early, but this was tempered by the dawn of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Irving, along with several friends attempted to enlist but his father put an end to it by enrolling him at
Acadia University
Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadia ...
. Irving left Acadia before graduation and took a cross-country adventure to British Columbia before returning to Bouctouche. His father did not oppose his second attempt to enlist and Irving entered the
Royal Flying Corps
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
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in order to train to become a pilot, although he never saw action as the war ended shortly thereafter.
Early twenties
Following the war, he returned home to Bouctouche where he dabbled in the merchant trade, and started to sell
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
automobiles,
aged 22; within two years, the sales territory of southern Kent County was his. In 1924, he opened a petrol (gasoline) station under the
Imperial Oil
Imperial Oil Limited (French: ''Compagnie Pétrolière Impériale Ltée'') is a Canadian petroleum company. It is Canada's second-biggest integrated oil company. It is majority owned by American oil company ExxonMobil with around 69.6 percent ...
logo.
He was unceremoniously dumped from that franchise within the year, whereupon he contacted
Samuel Lloyd Noble in order to purchase a supply from him. By 1925 he opened a second service station in nearby
Shediac
Shediac (official in both languages; ''Shédiac'' is colloquial French) is a heavily Acadian town in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. The town is home to the famous Parlee Beach and is known as the "Lobster Capital of the World". It hosts a ...
. Through hard work and persistence, he would eventually transform what became known as Irving Oil
into a 3,000 franchise distributor across the Maritimes.
Early Saint John years
At the age of 26, Irving was invited by the representative of Ford to take over the franchise in
Saint John, the city he would make his home for the next 46 years. Early on, he switched his business to the
Bank of Nova Scotia
The Bank of Nova Scotia (french: link=no, Banque de Nouvelle-Écosse), operating as Scotiabank (french: link=no, Banque Scotia), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. One of Canada ...
as the result of a fortuitous visit which acquainted him with the future president of the bank,
Horace L. Enman. In 1926, he was awarded a Ford franchise in
Halifax, and the concession for Ford tractors in the whole of
the Maritimes
The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...
. In 1929, he formed K.C. Irving Gas and Oil Ltd, in order to distribute the Noble supply. Haymarket Square Service Stations was formed in the late 1920s as a partnership with two others, one of whom he bought out after the first year. By 1930, Irving was selling petrol in Saint John, Bouctouche, Shediac,
Moncton
Moncton (; ) is the most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the The Maritimes, Maritime Provinces. The ...
, Sussex, Campbellton, St. Stephen, Westville, Weymouth, Amherst and Truro. Also by 1930, his petrol business expanded into
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...
and Quebec's
Magdalen Islands
The Magdalen Islands (french: Îles de la Madeleine ) are a small archipelago in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with a land area of . While part of the Province of Quebec, the islands are in fact closer to the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland th ...
.
In 1930, he sold 8,000,000 gallons, when one of his average service stations sold 70,000 gallons; that year, he employed 212 people in Saint John and 482 elsewhere.
Irving saw that the petrol business was also an opportunity to purchase land,
[ and in 1931 erected as his headquarters the Golden Ball building at the corner of Sydney and Union streets.][
]
The '30s
Canada Veneers had been established in 1933 by Robert McMillan, chiefly to produce orange crates for another local company. In 1936, Irving underwrote $100,000 in Canada Veneer preferred shares with Frank Brennan as partners in Irving-Brennan Co. Ltd. Then in the same year, the veneer plant, which had occupied a defunct local horse race-track, burnt down. It revived, but in early January 1938 a shareholder withdrew his guarantee of a $17,000 bank loan, and in exchange for his guarantee of a $10,000 bank loan Irving gained control of the veneer firm. Irving later hired C.A. Kessler to teach his staff, in particular Art McNair, to cut thin and uniform plies, which would become a specialty of the firm.
By 1939 Irving had developed an ulcer, and tipped the scales at 215 pounds; the Lahey Clinic
The Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, formerly known as the Lahey Clinic, is a physician-led nonprofit teaching hospital of Tufts University School of Medicine based in Burlington, Massachusetts. The hospital was founded in Boston in 1923 by sur ...
in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
would in 1941 cure the ulcer.
WW2
Irving obtained the contract from Ottawa or London to build in Bouctouche
Bouctouche is a Canadian town in Kent County, New Brunswick.
History
Bouctouche was originally named Tjipogtotjg (pronounced ''Chebooktoosk''), a Mi'kmaq word meaning "Great Little Harbour". The region was next settled by brothers Francois L ...
wooden landing barges for D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
. He set up the production facilities near the familial grist mill, and built bunkhouses on the family farm for the scores of workers.[
]
1963 Irving refinery strike
After joining the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union in 1960, 145 Saint John Irving oil refinery workers pushed for the prevailing wage rate at Canadian oil refineries. The Irving refinery had high productivity but relatively low wages for the sector. Irving's counter-offer was below the wage-rate, leading to a strike in September 1963. The strikers called for a boycott of Irving gas stations, which gained some public support. Irving secured a court injunction against pickets at the gas stations and other secondary pickets. At least a dozen Irving truck driver depots in Quebec struck in sympathy with the refinery workers. On one march through downtown Saint John, refinery workers also burned K.C. Irving in effigy.
The strike became a national issue. The union appealed for donations from across the country, asking Canadians "Are you going to allow that a group of workers be slaughtered by an employer whose trade union notions are those of feudalism?" In addition to court injunctions limiting pickets at the refinery as well as banning secondary pickets at other Irving facilities, Irving also hired replacement workers or scabs. When a settlement was finally achieved in March 1964, Irving conceded wage increases masquerading as "merit pay" while a judge ruled the union pay Irving $2,000 for damaging his reputation.
Offshore holdings
Irving fought many battles with the federal government over income tax, business tax and inheritance tax policies. On 23 December 1971, following a particularly tough series of battles, he left Canada, ostensibly because of the estate tax situation: the Federal government planned to abolish estate taxes while the government of Premier Richard Hatfield
Richard Bennett Hatfield (April 9, 1931 – April 26, 1991) was a New Brunswick politician and the longest serving premier of New Brunswick from 1970 to 1987.Richard Starr, ''Richard Hatfield, The Seventeen Year Saga,'' 1987,
Early life
T ...
(along with the other Maritime governments) planned to introduce an estate tax in its place. Although he remained as majority shareholder, his sons controlled the daily operations of the conglomerate.
From 1972 until his death, Irving would visit New Brunswick for "6 months, less a day" each year. In 2018 Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
magazine estimated that the Irving’s net worth was $US12 billion.
Later life and death
K.C. Irving died at home in Saint John and was buried alongside his first wife in Bermuda
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
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, song = " Hail to Bermuda"
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. Later, his body was exhumed, along with his wife's. They were re-buried outside the Scottish-style church on the Irving Manor in Bouctouche. Their graves were only marked as "Grammy and Grampy".
Legacy
In 1927, Irving married Harriet McNairn (1899–1976), a boyhood sweetheart, and the following year his first son was born. He was the father of, in 1928 James Kenneth, in 1930 Arthur Lee, and in 1932 John Ernest
John Ernest (May 6, 1922 – July 21, 1994) was an American-born constructivist abstract artist. He was born in Philadelphia, in 1922. After living and working in Sweden and Paris from 1946 to 1951, he moved to London, England, where he lived and w ...
; the family attended St John's and St Stephen's Presbyterian Church. Irving would, after his sons all had graduated, provide for a new building at Rothesay Collegiate School.
Ownership and operation of the Irving group of companies ultimately divided among his three sons and their respective children, James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
, the oldest brother and his (James') two sons, Jim and Robert, took more control of forest products and several other divisions, Arthur
Arthur is a common male given name of Brittonic languages, Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. An ...
the middle brother assumed more autonomy in Irving Oil, which owns the Saint John, New Brunswick
Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of Ki ...
Irving Oil Refinery
The Irving Oil Refinery is a Canadian oil refinery located in Saint John, New Brunswick. It is currently the largest oil refinery in Canada, capable of producing more than of refined products per day. Over 80 per cent of the production is exported ...
, Canada's largest refinery, and Jack
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
who looked after much of the construction, engineering and Radio & Television stations.
The family has long maintained their secrecy while actively supporting many community initiatives. Their philanthropy has long been rumoured in many projects, but the first time it was publicly acknowledged was during the early years of the Université de Moncton
The Université de Moncton is a Canadian francophone university in New Brunswick. It includes campuses in Edmundston, Moncton, and Shippagan.
The university was founded in 1963 following the recommendations of the royal commission on higher ed ...
, an institution that Irving came to support in recognition of the support that members of the Acadian
The Acadians (french: Acadiens , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the region of Acadia, as it is the region where the de ...
community had given to his companies.
Corporate inventions
Acquisitions are listed in italic print.
Criticism
J.D. Irving Limited
It was the growth of Irving Oil
Irving Oil Ltd. is a Canadian gasoline, oil, and natural gas producing and exporting company. Considered part of the Irving Group of Companies, it was founded by entrepreneur Kenneth "K.C." Irving and is privately owned by his son, Arthur, and h ...
which largely financed K.C. Irving's other endeavours. Several years after starting Irving Oil, Irving took over his father's sawmill company in Bouctouche, J.D. Irving Limited, which was subsequently expanded many times. JDI was in the 1970s the largest single landowner in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Maine. JDI has also been identified as being one of the four largest private land-owners in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. These forest lands feed several pulp and paper
The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products.
Manufacturing process
The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web an ...
plants and sawmills which in turn feed the company's paper, tissue, and diaper factories throughout New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Maine, New York, Georgia, Quebec and Ontario.
Diversification and vertical integration
As the Irving industrial empire expanded during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and the post-war era, K.C. Irving purchased shipyards and started various food processing, media, hardware, building supplies, transportation, engineering and construction companies - all of which are vertically integrated, meaning that each Irving company purchases the services of other Irving companies, keeping profits wholly within the conglomerate.
Irving companies are completely privately owned, and therefore all major business decisions are made by the family-members/owners. This has traditionally been a weakness among many family-owned empires. However, the Irvings have proven their ability to react to market situations much more quickly than their publicly traded
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (list ...
competitors , a primary reason for their maintaining market share in so many industries throughout northeastern North America. An example can be seen in the fact that Irving Oil undertook significant upgrades and expansions to its refinery in the late mid to late 1990s to produce low-sulphur gasoline, fully a decade ahead of the rest of the North American oil industry. As a result, Irving has been able to capitalize on the growing need for low-emission fuel in California and other U.S. markets (delivered by its own ships).
The conglomerate operates with considerable latitude which the Irving family's wealth permits—operating somewhat as a maverick to the consternation of many of Central and Western Canada's business leaders. Irving Oil, J.D. Irving and all subsidiary companies are actively supporting Canada's ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...
, since the family has invested considerable funds into environmental controls and alternative energy for its operations and wishes to capitalize on these investments at the expense of its slow-to-respond publicly traded competitors. J.D. Irving's food processing plants in Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...
are looking to build one of the largest wind farm
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...
s in Canada in that province to completely power their operations, and many Irving-owned sawmills and factories in the rest of northeastern North America are rapidly adopting co-generation, bio-gas and solar/wind power to complement current energy usage.
The Irving family is also hoping to take advantage of deregulation of utility markets in the region by building natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
-fired electrical generating stations and is currently building a liquified natural gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volu ...
terminal near its Saint John refinery.
New Brunswick Media Concentration
The Irvings have an almost complete monopoly in print media in New Brunswick, owning all English and French daily newspapers but one ('' L'Acadie Nouvelle'') and most English weekly and community papers. In the 1970s, when this concentration was limited to only four English daily newspapers, the Senate created a commission of inquiry into media concentration because of the Irving family's control. Today print media across Canada has experienced a much higher degree of concentration than existed with Irving in New Brunswick during the 1970s, and the case with Irving was one of the first in the nation. The Irving family ostensibly allows their media holdings to operate relatively independently with the only oversight supposedly being in their finances.
The grandson of J.K. Irving and son of Jim Irving, Jamie Irving became publisher of the Irving-owned New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal
The ''Telegraph-Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It serves as both a provincial daily and as a local newspaper for Saint John. The newspaper is published by Brunswick News. The ''Telegraph-Journal'' ...
then vice-president of the newspaper holding company.
Irving did have a near monopoly in media in New Brunswick well into the 1980s when they owned several English radio stations and CHSJ-TV, the only CBC affiliate in the province. Irving also started MITV
U Television Sdn. Bhd. (formerly known as U Telecom Media Holdings Sdn. Bhd. and MiTV Corporation Sdn. Bhd.) is Malaysia's third pay television operator. It was launched on 5 September 2005, after having obtained all the necessary approvals from ...
(Maritime Independent Television) as a competitor across the Maritimes with the ATV network. The CBC affiliate was sold to the public broadcaster in 1994 at the same time as MITV was sold to CanWest Global
Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate name Canwest, was a major Canadian media conglomerate based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place. It held radio, television broadcasting an ...
.
Irving family wealth
According to the 2011 list of Canadians by net worth
The following list of Canadians by net worth includes the wealthiest Canadian individuals and families as determined by the ''Bloomberg Billionaires Index'' and ''The World's Billionaires'' by ''Forbes''. In addition to Bloomberg and ''Forbes'', t ...
the combined net worth of the Irving family ranked third in Canada calculated with the net worth of Arthur Irving
Arthur Lee Irving, (born 1930) is a Canadian billionaire businessman, the second son of industrialist K.C. Irving. He is the sole owner, through the Arthur Irving Family Trust, of Irving Oil Ltd. As of June 2022, his net worth was estimated at ...
, James Irving and John Irving
John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.
Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of ''The World According to G ...
through Irving Oil Ltd. and J.D. Irving Ltd at $8.07 billion with no change from 2010. In 2008 the Canadian Business magazine's annual report on the wealthiest Canadians calculated that the Irving family combined wealth rose 34 percent from 2007 to $US 7.11 billion. Only the Thompson family, with a net worth is US$18.45 billion, were wealthier [
] However, since the conglomerate is privately held and the family is private with respect to financial matters, no information on net worth is available. Most observers have only the tangible values of real property and industrial assets upon which to base their estimates without any ability to assess the value of cash reserves or outstanding debt and obligations.
Despite Forbes's estimates, the overall Irving family fortune is likely to be grossly underestimated because of complex tax avoiding schemes which blur evidence behind a network of number companies and international holdings. In 1981, the National Film Board movie "I Like to See Wheels Turn" mentioned Canadian Lawyer Peter Glennie's findings. Glennie had compiled company registrations and the rare public documents on the Irving wealth. His estimations on the Irving family wealth were 7 billion in 1981 Canadian dollars (worth 22 billion in 2019 inflation-adjusted Canadian dollars).
Notes
References
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See also
*Irving Group of Companies
The Irving Group of Companies is an informal name given to those companies owned and controlled by the descendants of Canadian industrialist K.C. Irving, namely his children J.K. (b. 1928), Arthur (b. 1930), and Jack (1932–2010) and their respe ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irving, Kenneth Colin
1899 births
1992 deaths
Canadian military personnel of World War I
Businesspeople from New Brunswick
Officers of the Order of Canada
People from Kent County, New Brunswick
Canadian philanthropists
Members of the Order of New Brunswick
Canadian company founders
Canadian newspaper chain founders
People from Bouctouche
Canadian Presbyterians
20th-century philanthropists
Royal Flying Corps personnel
British Army personnel of World War I