Last week, Jimmy Pattison was in town to open the new Save-On Foods and city councillor Kyle Sampson showed up to pose with Jimmy and not only that, he wrote a nice little note about what an icon he is. Hundreds of people ‘liked’ it.
Yet if you criticize Jimmy and the failed economic model he represents, the air goes out of the room. Successful businesspeople are to be revered and respected, James. And by the way, is that all you ever do is complain?
Listen, I’m all for celebrating success in business.
In the meantime, I’m just wondering what product Jimmy Pattison ever brought to the world?
As far as I can tell, his “product” is a cut-throat corporate model that thrives on eliminating competition and compromising the health of the planet and our communities.
From his coal terminal investments to his community and forest-destroying forestry operations through Canfor, Pattison’s wealth comes at great cost to the rest of us.
Or take this Save-On deal. I was hoping we’d get a competing store in Parkwood to replace the Save-On.
But it turns out Pattison renewed his lease and will be slipping in one of his Buy-Low stores. So the Pattison monopoly on mid-size grocery stores in Prince George will actually just get worse, despite the illusion of choice.
It’s nice we will still have a grocery store downtown. It’s needed. But I have the feeling a lot of people are going to think this means we owe him, when in reality the screws of market domination have been tightened.
Pattison ain’t dumb. You don’t just become a billionaire in a competitive marketplace. You become a billionaire when your competition tucks tail and runs. You become a billionaire when you dominate a regional economy, just like how Canfor dominates Prince George forestry. You become a billionaire when you dominate access to public resources, like how Pattison owns the rights to 75% of the West Coast salmon stocks through Canfisco.
I read an interesting statistic. Pattison is so rich that the $30 million donation he made to the Royal Columbian hospital in New Westminster last year is like someone with a $50,000 income donating $137 to charity.
The insane wealth Pattison has accumulated, by means of offering us not a single novel product, is so far beyond our imagination, that we have no idea he isn’t really being generous at all.
What I do know is he plays a sophisticated political game. He pilfers the wealth of the provincial hinterland to butter up the metropolitan, big-city elite with board chair positions and big donations and status. And it works. Not just in Vancouver. Even in a place like Prince George, where we feel the impacts of an economy rigged in Pattison’s favour with every mill shut down.
Even in a town as vulnerable to this unaccountable power as ours, our own politicians still put the billionaire first.
And as the comments here will show, good luck being the critic.
James Steidle is a Prince George writer.
