Canadian Corporation Behind Efforts to Shut Down Occupy Wall Street Has Ties to Big Oil

By Emma Pullman
14 October 11

Occupy Wall Street is about challenging the power of the richest 1%. But what happens when that 1% owns the land of the occupation? It has been revealed that a Canadian company was behind efforts to shut down the birthplace of the movement, Zuccotti Park.

Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD notified Occupy Wall Street participants about plans to “clean the park”— the site of the occupation—starting this morning at 7am. “Cleaning” has been repeatedly as a pretense to shut down peaceful occupations. It was used to evict protesters from the Wisconsin state house. It was used by Bloomberg himself to shut down a peaceable demonstration against budget cuts. The "cleaning" was essentially a ploy to evict protesters, but in a remarkable turn of events, the company backed down from threats to evict the park.

The attempted eviction comes hours before a global day of solidarity actions. The movement is taking the world by storm with a message that resonates powerfully with the millions of regular people: growing economic inequality is corrupting our democracies and making most people’s lives worse.

So, who is behind the eviction threats? Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian company, owns Zuccotti Park and the adjacent office building, One Liberty Plaza. The company has an agreement with the city that the park will be open to public use.

Brookfield, formerly Brascan Limited, is one of the largest companies in Canada, a global asset manager with a wide range of interests. The company has over $120 billion in assets. Brookfield is headquartered in Toronto and New York City; the parent company is publicly traded on the NYSE and Toronto Stock Exchange. It was founded in 1899 as the São Paulo Railway, Light and Power Company.

So why would a Canadian company want to shut down a movement that is asking powerful questions about how the richest 1% has managed to soak up almost all the new wealth created in the last thirty years?

Well, Brookfield is at the top of the 1%. They are connected to the biggest players on Wall Street - the people who feel most threatened by Occupy Wall Street. Brookfield’s buildings are literally filled with the offices of the 1%. According to a Canadian Business article, at its peak, the represented a third of the Toronto Stock Exchange’s value and owned parts of more than 200 companies, including Labatt Ltd., MacMillan Bloedel, Royal LePage and Royal Trust, all connected through a web of holding companies.

One of the central focuses of the company is power generation, and the giant owns 165 power plants. They certainly have an interest in maintaining the status quo, a world without climate action where oil interests dominate.

The board of Brookfield Asset Management paints a picture of how the very top of the 1% are networked together with strong connections to Big Oil. The total assets of all board members is close to $10 billion dollars.

Let's look at some of the oily connections from Brookfield Asset Management’s Board of Directors:

Continued at website