Should Canada allow foreign state owned companies to buy Canadian resource companies?

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Azure

How many of them are state owned?

OMERS
TAQA
Statoil

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by SebC

When, before the GST cut?

Anyways, with regards to foreign ownership, one way to look at it is the the Canadian investors who hold Nexen recieved a premium for the Chinese ones that could be re-invested in Canada. We get the Chinese investment, the Canadian investment, as opposed to just the Canadian investment. This should produce a better.

However, Roger Martin makes a good case here that the test should be reciprocity rather than net benefit. I'd suggest giving that article a read.

This is a reasonable argument. I'm not saying we need to let anyone buy everything we own, but we need to have clear rules explaining who is allowed to buy our companies and what they're allowed to buy. Reciprocity seems like a pretty reasonable way of doing that to me.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

OMERS
TAQA
Statoil

I guess there's state owned companies which have an independent Board of Governors and their shares are traded on the stock market
and then there are state owned companies which are completely controlled by the state.

PetroCanada was an example of the former. I also believe that CNOOC is also.

I believe however, that Petronas belongs to the latter.

Even so, it still makes me a bit nervous when any company that is foreign state owned, owns 51% of any Canadian resource company.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

OMERS
TAQA
Statoil

Harvest/KNOC is another example - owned by the Korean state.

Daylight/Sinopec was successfully purchased, and is now owned by a Chinese state-owned company.

[bizaro86]

Another one is JACOS. They have large oilsands leases, and their parent company is 34% owned by the Japanese gov't.