Who is Norman Murray Edwards, the wealthy owner of the Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR) company criticized for its erratic management of Mont-Sainte-Anne? For his admirers, he is a genius investor like few in Canadian history. For his detractors, he is an oil magnate skilled in extracting public aid and around whom floats a strong scent of tax avoidance. The duty portrays one of the world’s richest men, Canadian oil baron and controlling shareholder of the company behind the biggest mining disaster in Canadian history.
The origin of a fortune
Growing up in Regina, Saskatchewan, N. Murray Edwards played hockey and dreamed of becoming a politician. The decades passed and the child who became an adult never strayed from the rinks or from politics: he is today co-owner of the Calgary Flames, and he has always carefully maintained his relations with the mysteries of power.
Modesty marks the beginning of one who has climbed the ladder of fortune to become part of the 0.00001%. Son of an accountant and a teacher, N. Murray Edwards rises today to 1053e rank on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world.
As a teenager, he officiated as a hockey referee. Once graduated, it was as a garbage collector in a summer camp that he financed part of his university. “This job gave him a strong motivation to succeed in his studies,” says the biography dedicated to him by the Horatio Alger Association, an NPO dedicated to maintaining faith in the American dream.
Edwards discovers, during his law studies, a strong penchant for business. When a friend develops brain cancer, N. Murray Edwards promises him on his deathbed to always follow his passions. Already a partner, at 28, in a Calgary law firm, he left everything to go into investment.
It is in the oil and gas of Western Canada that the 63-year-old man drew his wealth. In 1988, he invested $100,000 in Canadian Natural Resources (CNR), a faltering company that has now become a colossus sitting on at least 7.5 billion barrels of oil from the tar sands and whose tentacles extend from British Columbia to Manitoba, via the United States, the African coasts and the North Sea.
N. Murray Edwards remains to this day the chairman and chief executive of CNR and is worth, according to Forbes, 2.6 billion US dollars – or as much as the GDP of Lesotho in 2021.
The Mount Polley Disaster
His interests, like his investments, are varied. Since 1989, he has chaired the board of directors of Ensign, one of the largest providers of petroleum services in the world, with operations on three continents. He also acts as chairman of the board of directors of Magellan Aerospace, which notably manufactures the CRV7 missiles, considered a flagship of the Canadian military industry.
N. Murray Edwards was also the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals when, on August 4, 2014, a dam burst near the Mount Polley gold-copper mine in British Columbia, discharging approximately 25 million cubic meters of mine tailings into three adjacent lakes.
The disaster, considered the worst of its kind in Canadian history, remains unpunished to this day. Imperial Metals received no fines or penalties for the disaster. Eight years later, only three engineers have had to face justice, ordered to pay a total of 225,000 dollars for negligence.
N. Murray Edwards had been contributing to the BC Liberal coffers since 2005. A year before the spill, the businessman had notably collected nearly a million dollars to fill the electoral fund of Christy Clark, the British Columbian Prime Minister at the time of the disaster. To this day, he still owns 44.8% of Imperial Metals.
Public aid
In addition to his links with the upper echelons of power, some criticize N. Murray Edwards for soliciting public aid despite his fortune. The Calgary Flames are asking for a new amphitheater, for example, but refuse to build it without significant funding from the City, a controversial saga that has been going on for years.
More recently, in 2020, N. Murray Edwards received a symbolic salary of one dollar for his role in Canadian Natural Resources – in addition to bonuses and compensation of all kinds totaling more than 13.5 million. The sum, according to a compilation by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, ranked him 19e ranked among the 100 highest paid business leaders in the country.
The same year, however, CNR received the emergency wage subsidy put in place by Ottawa to help companies keep the workforce employed despite the pandemic. This year, RCR also proposed to the Government of Quebec to invest $100 million in Mont-Sainte-Anne — on the condition that the State pay half of the amount.
N. Murray Edwards is also under fire for moving to London in 2016, a change of residence that coincided with tax hikes in Alberta and Ottawa.
Despite the principal’s denials, some see it as a tax avoidance maneuver. In 2020, the main residence of N. Murray Edwards was, this time, registered in Saint-Moritz, Switzerland – a country renowned for its welcoming taxation of large fortunes.
Profit and skiing
N. Murray Edwards acquired RCR in 2001. A bad season and poor financial health had forced this company, a veritable ski empire, into bankruptcy. Overnight, the transaction propelled the oil magnate to the rank of one of the largest ski resort operators in North America, with assets comprising eight mountains, including Stoneham and Mont-Sainte-Anne.
Under the direction of N. Murray Edwards, several new chairlifts came into operation, including the Panorama Express at Mont-Sainte-Anne in 2014 and the Eclipse at Stoneham in 2017. During this time, however, voices lamented that the profit slowly but surely taking precedence over customer service. The eccentric founder of RCR, the former stake and mountain guide Charlie Locke, confided to the magazine Ski Canada that since the takeover of RCR by N. Murray Edwards, the Lake Louise resort was “purely and simply a business and that “customer service wasn’t quite up to par.” »
The recrimination is echoed, 12 years later, in the discontent aroused by the setbacks of Mont-Sainte-Anne, a jewel, according to many, which is losing its luster due to the indifference of its current owner.