'Best-case scenario': Hudson's Bay charter to remain in public hands after joint $18M bid
CBC
Two of Canada's richest families appear to have been successful in their bid on the royal charter that formed Hudson's Bay about 355 years ago, putting an end to months of uncertainty over the document's fate and keeping it in the public domain.
The charter, signed by King Charles II in 1670, granted the Bay a trading monopoly covering the drainage basin of Hudson Bay and the right to exploit mineral resources — all without the consent of the Indigenous people who already lived there.
Holding companies owned by David Thomson, the billionaire chairman of Thomson Reuters, and Galen Weston, whose family made its fortune through Canadian retail chains, expressed interest in purchasing the charter earlier this year, after the Bay filed for creditor protection in March under the weight of $1.1 billion in debt.
The two families announced a joint $18-million bid in mid-November, saying they would permanently donate the charter to the Manitoba Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Archives of Manitoba.
A source confirmed to CBC News on Tuesday that no other bids emerged for the charter, which paves the way for the Thomson/Weston bid.
A virtual auction will go ahead Wednesday morning even with just the single bid, and a court is expected to approve the sale on Dec. 11, the source said.
Thomson's company proposed the charter's permanent home be in Manitoba, court heard last week.
The Thomson/Weston bid also comes with a $5-million donation to preserve the document, as well as fund consultation with Indigenous people on how to present it to the public, court heard.
Kathleen Epp, keeper of the Hudson's Bay Company Archives at the Archives of Manitoba, said many were concerned the charter would be sold to a private buyer and possibly leave the country.
"I think the number 1 motivation … was to have it preserved in a public institution so that it would be accessible to Canadians," Epp told CBC News on Nov. 26.
Epp said she was excited by the idea of the document being held by the four institutions.
"I think each of those institutions will offer something great to the ability to provide access to that document and to preserve it together with us."
Cody Groat, a professor of history and Indigenous studies at Western University, says the charter was a foundational document for Canadian colonialism, as it was "based on an idea that Indigenous nations didn't have a legitimate claim to their territories."
Groat is also part of the UNESCO Memory of the World advisory committee, which he said has recognized the HBC archives as one of the most significant archival collections in the world, equating it with other documents such as the Magna Carta or the diaries of Anne Frank.
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