Profiting The Crown

Polymer Corporation Ltd. was founded during the Second World War and became Canada's only manufacturer of synthetic rubber. For more than half a century it held a vital and lucrative position in the national economy. Its wartime output from 1943 to 1945 supplied the rubber the country needed to sustain the war effort. Afterward, Polymer anchored the chemical complex in Sarnia, Ontario, sold its products across the globe, and returned substantial earnings to the Crown. Historians often cite it as the first clear case of state capitalism in Canada. Its scientists and engineers embraced new technology, which helped move a steady stream of innovative materials into everyday commercial use. The government later honored the corporation's significance and profitability by printing its image on the reverse of the ten-dollar bill.

Crown corporations are often described as a distinctly Canadian creation, and they have been used as tools of public policy since 1841. Their merits have been argued heatedly for generations. Yet the collapse of several state-owned firms in the twentieth century convinced most Canadians that government does not belong in corporate boardrooms. Matthew Bellamy's thorough history of Polymer's growth and transformation challenges that prevailing view. It documents the achievements of one of Canada's early crown corporations.