A Cold Cut Corporate Crime: Maple Leaf Foods and a Listeriosis Outbreak

Introduction A "health hazard alert" was issued by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Maple Leaf Foods - a major Canadian food processing company - in the summer of 2008, alerting the public to avoid serving or consuming “Sure Slice brand roast beef and corned beef” "because these products may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes" …

The Perfidious Gold Company: Barrick Gold in Argentina and Chile

Between 2013 and 2017 the Canadian mining firm, Barrick Gold Corporation, became subject to significant legal action in Argentina, Chile, and Canada concerning their Veladero and Pascua-Lama mining operations. These two open-pit mining operations sit high atop the mineral rich Andes Mountain range, with the Pascua-Lama mine straddling the border of Argentina and Chile. Activists …

The Lac-Megantic Runaway Train: Corporate Harms that Destroyed a Town

In the small hours of July 6, 2013, Thomas Harding, a train engineer employed by the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Company (MMA), arrived at the hotel room he would be staying at overnight in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic. Harding was traveling for work and had finished his shift for the night. Before Harding …

Critical Case Study Analysis – White Collar Crime: Ponzi scheme

Introduction White-collar crime refers to non-violent harm with the motive of financial gains. The most common white-collar crimes include money laundering, embezzlement, security fraud, Ponzi schemes, and corporate fraud. One of the significant characteristics of white-collar crimes is that they are hard to detect and prevent as they are complex. The Sorenson and Brost Ponzi …

The Westray Mine Explosion

The horrible tragedies of the Westray Mine Explosion occurred in Plymouth, Nova Scotia in 1992 (Tucker, 1995). At approximately 5:18am on May 9th, 26 miners lost their lives due to a lethal underground explosion, and this event led many to question who was responsible, and why they did not take the precautions that could have …

Brave Whistleblower Exposes Facebook Harms to Users

Overview Facebook, also the owner of Instagram, was recently found at the center of a major scandal involving harms their platforms cause to its users. They are accused by former employee Frances Haugen of being aware of this harm and refusing to act. Although Facebook is a United States-based corporation, its harm spreads to its …

Conrad Black: A Case of Dramaturgical Strategies and Neoliberal Facilitators

Fraud, racketeering, tax evasion, money laundering, obstruction of justice – these are all potential charges that media mogul Conrad Moffat Black has faced since 2003. After years of questionable business practices as executive and shareholder of the media empire Hollinger International, Black would fall under the justice system’s suspicion, within the target range of infuriated …

Rana Plaza Collapse Exposes Power Dynamics Between Employers and Employees, Corporations and Factory Workers.

In April of 2013, an incident occurred in Bangladesh that shook the foundations of the fast fashion industry. For reasons that are debated to this day, a garment factory known as Rana Plaza fell to the ground in a fatal -and to many, preventable- collapse. This incident not only killed over 1100 workers but over …

Are J.D. Irving’s Environmental Harms Being Properly Regulated?

In October 2007, an effluent spill from the Irving Pulp and Paper Mill located in Saint John, New Brunswick, leaked an estimated 680 000 litres of green liquor into the Wolastoq. Green liquor, a by-product of pulp and paper manufacturing, has been known to pose a serious threat to fish and is considered harmful to …

Critical Case Study Analysis: The Westray Mine Explosion

The Westray Mine explosion in 1992 in, Plymouth Nova Scotia, killed all 26 miners who were in the mine at the time, 11 of the miners who died in this explosion still remain buried under the rubble at the mining site (McMullan, 2006, p.906). The explosion occurred due to sparks “from the cutting head of …