Paul Martin, Jr. Ex-Prime Minister of Canada.

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Blind Trust

How much do we really know about Canada's next Prime Minister?

by Marci McDonald

On the third floor of a faceless commercial tower in Vienna, Virginia, a landlocked suburb of Washington, D.C., sits the unlikely nerve centre of the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, one of the offshore conveniences that allows the world's maritime moguls to fudge their ownership, hide their profits, and keep their fleets afloat with discount maintenance standards and cut-rate Third World crews. The fifty-five-year-old registry sells a ship's rights to fly the Liberian flag—an eye-catching riff on the U.S. Stars and Stripes with a single white star on blue in the upper left corner. All that's required is a basic ten-cents-a-tonne fee and an annual flat rate of $3,800 per ship, plus an inspection with assorted costs. No need to visit Virginia, let alone bloodied, benighted Monrovia, in ruins from its decade-long civil war. Once the paperwork is complete, a fleet owner can stroll into any port and buy the flag at a store.

In the shadowy world of international shipping, Liberia is just one of more than two dozen countries that offer their national colours for sale. But for the outcast regime of Charles Taylor, the Liberian registry proved a particular boon. With a roster of 1,900 ships, it is second in size only to Panama's, funneling $18 million a year into Monrovia's coffers—more than a quarter of the total foreign revenues of a nation isolated by United Nations sanctions.

Two years ago, a UN report traced some of the government's funds from the registry to offshore accounts used to buy arms for Taylor-backed rebels in Sierra Leone, in flagrant defiance of those sanctions. Around the world, members of the International Transport Workers' Federation and the human rights group, Global Witness, exhorted fleet proprietors to stop subsidizing the bloodshed and abandon the Liberian flag. No less than Lloyd's List, the bulletin of the British maritime insurers, observed, "Never has the proposition that shipowners bear no moral responsibility for what flag states get up to looked so flimsy." Which is why it seems noteworthy that Canada's most celebrated shipowner, Paul Martin—as of August still the official proprietor of the Canada Steamship Lines group—continued to list five ships on the website of his company's international division that were flagged to Liberia.

At the Canada Steamship Lines' Montreal headquarters, where senior vice-president Pierre Préfontaine rhymes off the vessels in Martin's international fleet, he doesn't mention those Liberian-flagged ships or seven others sailing under the flag of Vanuatu, a tiny South Pacific tax haven first made trendy by the money-laundering set. One reason for that lapse may be the dissonance between the company's iconic national image and its somewhat less patriotic reality. On the masts of all twenty-one cargo carriers owned or operated by CSL International as part of partnership agreements, there is nary a Canadian maple leaf in sight—nor, on board, a Canadian crew.

As it turns out, for tax-paying purposes, CSL International isn't a Canadian corporation at all. Unlike its sister company, Canada Steamship Lines, Inc., a historic presence on the Great Lakes since 1913, CSL's international division is based in a cinderblock low-rise in Beverly, Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston, but registered as an International Business Corporation (IBC) in the Caribbean tax shelter of Barbados. The Barbadian corporation, in turn, is owned by a holding company in Bermuda, another offshore fiscal paradise. Over the past seven years, that labyrinthine set-up has managed to save CSL International and its Montreal-based parent, the CSL Group, millions in Canadian taxes. In some industries, such offshore fiscal chutzpah might raise eyebrows, but not in the rough and tumble waters of what's known as the ocean trade. "You can't operate with Canadian ownership and Canadian crews—it's too competitive," says Jack Leitch, the majority owner of Toronto-based Upper Lakes Group. "Even God couldn't make a go of it under those conditions."

But Paul Martin's company, which dove into the ocean trade in 1982, has never looked back. + more
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=04/06/21/1935240

Posted by: maz2 at March 10, 2006 01:52 PM

Good info above.

This man still has control over much of Canada's future. He is still in charge of the succession, delegate selection process etc, so he may well de facto select the next PM.

The gun registry scandal needs to be researched as the adscam was to finally bring one party state party rule to an end.

Posted by: brock at March 10, 2006 03:12 PM

maz2, I'll say it again, you need a blog man.

Posted by: Paul V. at March 10, 2006 04:14 PM

Too bad he wasn't just a bad dream in my mind instead of a bad taste in my mouth.

I agree Paul, maz2 should blog, all those great posts gone to waste when they become buried. Looks like Conservative Hipster wants someone to take his over, how about that? Although another good blogger will mean even less time for some of us to have life, sigh...

Posted by: Anne (happier in Ontario) at March 10, 2006 10:39 PM

I still find it strange that Martin has not tendered his formal resignation to the Liberal Party. A leadership race cannot be held unless this is done. Is this the reason that the heavyweights are not running? Is Paul Martin going to try and run again to redeem himself?

If you remember after Clark defeated Trudeau, Trudeau left but never tendered his resignation. That's why he was able to run again nine months later.

I hope this is not the case - for Canada's sake.

Posted by: Fiumara at March 11, 2006 02:35 AM

If our regulation and taxes make our companies uncompetitive. Why isnt there any thought or pressure to change our policies. I heard a rumour, that for a long long time, this guy, Paul Martin, had a pretty good job in government. Why didnt he put forward any policy changes, that would give Canadian companies a competitive equality?

Perhaps its another case of political expectancy overriding economic realities. Lowering our unrealistically high standards would be politically unpopular, but economically necessary.

Posted by: Curtis at March 12, 2006 06:00 PM

Ah, conservatives.
Always looking in on what the Liberals are doing while feverishly hiding their own agenda.

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Posted by: Jason at May 8, 2006 12:52 AM