Talk:Crown corporation

Recent edits

An anon user has recenty edited this page to infer that Crown corporations are owned by (first attempt) the state or (second attempt) the "government of Canada", not the monarch, and then that the monarch is somehow separated from the Crown. Further, his changes introduce unneeded repetition and parts don't conform to the style guide. If the anon editor has a particular issue with something in the article, it would be best if he aired it here. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 07:10, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

"The Crown" means "the government of Canada" (or of one of Canada's provinces or territories, depending), as the latter will be readily and truly understood by a reader. The legal arcana relating the federal, provincial and territorial governments of Canada to the monarch are really beyond the scope of this article.

Incidentally, "the state" was not my wording, but that of the version in place before Miesianiacal edited this article, just a few days ago.

-- 205.250.66.41 (talk) 14:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for comnig to the talk page.

As the article Government of Canada itself says: "In Canadian English, the word government is used to refer both to the whole set of institutions that collectively govern the country as well as the reigning monarch, or her viceroy, in her current council..." So, which definition is it that's "readily and truly understood by the reader"? The monarch is the sole owner and shareholder of Crown corporations, not simply the monarch-in-council (the government), as the monarch-in-parliament has a part to play as well. Why should this page employ less clear terminology in order to avoid saying so? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:03, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

"Government of Canada", here, is readily and accurately understandable to anybody. Ownership by "the monarch" is only true in an arcane legal sense. "The Crown in the Right of Canada" or "Her Majesty in the Right of Canada" are just legalese for the federal government. (As for the "Government of Canada" article, I do hope that it gets better than that bit of water-muddying.) Saying "the government of ..." is clear. Saying "the monarch" is not -- not without extended explanation of the legal arcana involved. -- 205.250.66.41 (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I just showed you how "government of Canada" is neither clear nor wholly accurate. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

So you claim. If anything, you've shown me that the article on Government of Canada might be written in a needlessly obscure way. -- 205.250.66.41 (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Seeing as the name of the article has Crown in it, I've no probs with Mies' version. GoodDay (talk) 16:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The IP is wrong. The Crown is the monarch. Even if we grant that the monarch's ownership is only true "in an arcane legal sense", that ownership should still be addressed. If anything, it should be addressed in the usual way of saying that she owns it but her rights are exercised by or on advice of ministers. -Rrius (talk) 18:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The IP is not wrong. "The Crown" is the government -- also the monarch, in an arcane legal sense. -- 205.250.66.41 (talk) 18:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

No, the Crown is the monarch; the federal Interpretation Act defines "the Crown" as "the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories, and Head of the Commonwealth." Period. The Crown/Queen/Governor-in-Council is the government; from the same source: the "'Governor General in Council' or 'Governor in Council' means the Governor General of Canada acting by and with the advice of, or by and with the advice and consent of, or in conjunction with the Queen's Privy Council for Canada." Crown corporations are related to more than the Queen-in-Council, as they are also created by and responsible to the Queen-in-Parliament. Your limitation of the subject to simply the Crown-in-Council misrepresents the facts and your use of "government of [Place]" to indicate the Crown-in-Council is too vague to be of help to readers. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Now you are interpreting statute law, which you are not qualified to do unless you are a jurist, and which is original research even if you are so qualified. Moreover, you delve into just the sort of legal arcana which I am, in fact, leaving aside (although by your mistaken account I am not only delving into them but getting them wrong), and which I am saying are best left aside, here.

However, let me take a different tack. Look at what The Canadian Encyclopedia says under "Crown Corporation". It begins, "wholly owned federal or provincial organization, structured like private or independent enterprises." "Government" is not said explicitly in that opening, but is plainly meant. If you need more, though, lower down in the article we have, "The federal government also owns and operates coal mines...", and "...the Alberta, BC and Ontario governments own railways" [my italics]. The federal and provincial governments own crown corporations; that is how an encyclopedia expresses the matter. (So no, the IP is not wrong.) -- 205.250.66.41 (talk) 21:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

If you think directly copying and pasting from statute law means interpreting it, then, yes, I am interpreting it. And statute law certainly trumps an online encyclopaedia article as a source. In fact, reading the Canadian Encyclopedia entry, I'm left wanting for clarification: what government does the author speak of? He never says for sure, concentrating more on an analytical history of crown corporations rather than the structure of them, but he does hint at it when mentioning ministers and cabinet, which you selectively left out. The Canadian Encyclopedia isn't useless as a source, but we don't have to use it's composition word for word; this isn't Wikiquote. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request (Dispute over terminology):

I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on Crown corporations of Canada and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

The IP's version of the lead is more clear and succint, while Miesianiacal's version of the "Structure" section seems to best explains the concept.—TorriTorri(Talk to me!) 23:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, but I still contend that because "government of [Place]" has more than one meaning, it's insufficient. Unless it's followed by an explanation; as in: "owned by the government of Canada— that is, the Crown in its federal council." The "government of Canada" part seems needless, though. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Would you consider "federal, provincial, or territorial" as clarification of which government it is? It seems to me that saying that these corporations are owned by the Crown or the monarch in the lead does not put the article in context for the nonspecialist, i.e., non-Canadian. --TorriTorri^{(Talk to me!)} 02:54, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Clarification between federal, provincial, and territorial government is necessary, yes; though, I think that's already been accomplished. The distinction I'm talking about is between the various uses in Canadian English for the term "government of [Place]" - it doesn't mean one, clear thing. I assume that in this sense it's being used as an alternate name for "the Queen/Crown/Her Majesty in Right of [Place]"; but, that's the point: one is left to assume.

As I said, I could live with something along the lines of the following:

Canadian Crown corporations are enterprises owned by the federal government of Canada (the Queen in Right of Canada) one of Canada's provincial governments (the Queen in right of a province) or one of the territorial governments. Crown corporations have a long standing presence in the country and have been instrumental in the formation of the state.

This, I think, explains exactly what's meant by "government of [Place]" and also inadvertantly helps highlight that the territorial governments are not sovereign (there is no "Queen in Right of [Territory]"). --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:40, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --TorriTorri^{(Talk to me!)} 16:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The Crown is not the monarch or the monarch's property. It is a separate legal entity distinct from the personal entity of the monarch or the monarch's personal property. See The Crown article.

article title

The title of this article needs to be changed. "Crown corporations of Canada" implies that these are federal crown corporations. A better title would be "Crown corporations in Canada". Mathew5000 (talk) 20:00, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

BC Ferries

It is misleading to list BC Ferries as a 'privatized' crown corporation. While it has a different legal structure than in the past, BC Ferries is 100% owned by the Government of British Columbia50.183.28.117 (talk) 16:52, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

BC Investment Management Corporation

BC Investment Management Corporation is listed on the page as a Crown Corporation. However, it is a privately owned investment manager. While it does, yes, service the Province of British Columbia, provincial government bodies, and publicly administered trust funds, public sector pension plans, it's not by def. a crown corporation. I am taking it off the list. If anyone has issues with that, please ping me so I can learn why.--Wuerzele (talk) 23:18, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

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Blue Water Bridge Authority

Currently the page suggests that the Blue Water Bridge Authority is both a current Crown Corporation as of May 2021 and a former Crown Corporation that is defunct since 2015. I'm not sure which of these is true, nor am I an experienced wiki editor. Just pointing out this inconsistency here for anyone who wants to and has the time to resolve it. 2001:1970:57A4:1600:11F9:8D84:BC52:2B18 (talk) 18:09, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

It amalgamated in Feb 2015 and is no longer an active corp, so I've removed it, thanks for pointing it out J Hooper (talk) 18:20, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 21 August 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Per consensus – robertsky (talk) 02:49, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

---

Crown corporations of Canada → Crown corporation – This content should be moved back to its original article, Crown corporation. The terminology is primarily, if not strictly used in a Canadian context to mean state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Given that the terminology is predominantly/strictly Canadian, "Crown corporation" on its own is precise enough (per WP:PRECISION). With its strictly Canadian use, the "of Canada" is redundant and its inclusion in the title be an examples of WP:OVERPRECISION, when we aim to beWP:CONCISE.

Precision and concision are is why other predominantly/strictly national-based term-based articles for SOEs, like Crown entity for New Zealand, are articles on that country's specific SOEs, as opposed to being a redirect to an article on the overall general concept of the idea. The current arrangement also goes against WP:PRECISION and WP:POVNAME, given the term's strictly Canadian use (as far as I can find in WP:RS), the expected search result would be Canadian SOEs specifically, and not a generic term with wider use given its limited application.

Looking in the article's history and talk to ascertain why move occured in the first place, I find that the move occured without any basis back in 2008 (diff=185493874), which a summary simply stating "copying Canadian information to a separate article". This resulted in it being a stub of an article (as the term is strictly Canadian there would be nothing left), and its eventual redirect to SOE.

Now I'm just making an assumption that the move occurred because of a discussion that took place in 2007 (Talk:Crown corporation#Canadianization), over the Canadianization of the article. The conversation seemed to have began on the basis that the lead of the Crown corporation article in 2008 was structured in a manner that made it sound like the term was used throughout the Commonwealth realms. However, at no point in that article's history, or in that talk page discussion, is any source of any kind provided to showcase the non-Canadian use of the term. The entire argument for needing to "de-Canadianize" the article has no basis, as its rationale is built on an erroneous assumption that its "Commonwealth terminology". A factoid had essentially been introduced unsourced in Wikipedia 20 years ago (diff=3228651), remained in the article unquestioned, until eventually it resulted in an unwarrated move in 2008 to the current arrangement.

That said, I'd drop this discussion if a RS was provided. But my own search attempts on Google Search and Scholars provides no non-Canadian uses of the term. Other Commonwealth realm countries seemingly refer to their SOEs by different terms. As mentioned earlier, SOEs in New Zealand are Crown entities. Australia uses the term government business enterprise to describe their SOEs, and UK uses the term SOE. Leventio (talk) 22:55, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support - It appears that the term Crown corporation is very heavily, if not exclusively, a Canadian term. I find that striking the "of Canada" portion of the title makes sense in this case. I am not sure it even makes sense to have Crown corporation redirect to State-owned enterprise, only to then have a hatenote immediately redirect people to an actual article about Crown corporations. – Handoto (talk) 00:24, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.