Canada's New Investment Strategies - Prisons

Libyan torture prison built by Canadians

It just takes a big accident, a trouble maker to break the law and headlines reveal a nefarious underground story that the media has left out of the eyes of the public.  Yesterday, it was the horrific crash that killed 11 temporary immigrants.  Today it is the Ghadaffi abetting woman in Mexico who worked for SNC Lavalin.  Yes, Canadian companies are finding profits in amoral ways and influencing the politics of Canada.  CBC News ran an article on this company here and I've gathered some comments from people in the know.

Quinton denied reports that SNC-Lavalin was concealing the project.

"It is one of the thousands of projects we work on yearly, not all of which are announced by press release."

Quinton pointed out the project is mentioned in SNC-Lavalin's upcoming annual report for 2010.

"We are proud to be able to deliver such a necessary project and hope that it will become a model for others in the region. What would be the alternative to building a state-of-the-art facility according to the standards of human rights?"

What follows are quotes taken from readers' comments.  They said it so well and many are more informed than I, so here goes.  No attribution given out of respect to their privacy.  You can look it up from the link above.

SNC Lavalin is also one of the many corporations that have Direct input into Canadian politics, through their involvement on the NorthAmerican Security & Prosperity Partnership ; NAFTA , along with Power Corp.

This odious propaganda about free trade around the world will bring democracy just keeps getting exposed for the lie it is, it is all about capitalism and ensuring a small % of citizens have the largest % of influence.

Capitalism is the nemesis of Democracy

 it should be remembered that all jails are built by governments to be used to detain its citizens. The more people detained, the more likely that the government is repressive. When a government starts passing legislation that imposes stiff sentences for minor social 'misbehaviour', takes the imposition of sentences out of the hands of judges, and concentrates the financial supports on punishment rather than rehabilitative programs, then we have the beginning of tyranny.

 As an engineer I am disgusted that SNC Lavalin would put aside any ethical concerns in favour of doing business with a long lasting brutal dictator. It's one thing to build an airport which one can argue doesn't affect people in a negative way, but building a prison for Ghadaffi is helping to build more repressive infrastructure to imprison people who dare complain about their own lack of human rights. And the assertion that the prison meets human rights standards? Give me a break- beatings, torture, murder can happen anywhere a dictator wants it to, even in a "human rights approved prison". So much for professional standards and ethics. I hope the Libyan people burn that prison down.

If SNC didn't get the contract some other foreign company would have gladly accepted it. Libyan Airlines also uses several CRJ900 aircraft from Bombardier so do we condemn them as well? (was this an inducement to win the contract?)

  The difference between Gadhafi and Kim could probably be summed up by paraphrasing the famous old Cold War saying as, "He may be a bastard, but he's a rehabilitated bastard" (referring to Gadhafi).

Having said that, I personally think it's reprehensible that SNC would be involved in helping Gadhafi upgrade his security infrastructure, "rehabilitated" or not. I realize SNC is an engineering company, and engineers tend to be less squeamish about ethics than other people concerning business deals. Still, I think SNC should rightly be feeling some heat over this particular contract.
 Takeaways - Harper's government can be proud of its fascistic methods for wealth creation and its ability to twist a despicable enterprise into a positive.  Beware of the company they keep.
I look at these people and they appear like you and me, but deep down, there is no morality or ethics in them.  How did this happen?  And why did we let it happen?