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.
‘More than just an asset’
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.
Pushback from archival institutions and Indigenous communities, on top of the financial backing of the Thomson and Weston families, made it possible for the charter to stay in the public domain, he said.
The pushback ignited public debate over the fate of the charter, forcing the HBC to view the document “as more than just an asset” and instead as “something of national interest,” Groat said.
“In some ways, it was a necessary evil, I think, to include these wealthy families and corporations in the public donation of this item, but I think it did result in a best-case scenario overall,” he said Tuesday.
The joint bid came after the Weston family’s $12.5-million offer to buy the charter came to light earlier this summer, with a promise to donate it to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que.
Thomson said he was “taken aback” by Weston’s offer and proposed an auction, indicating he was willing to spend at least $15 million on the document and donate it to the Archives of Manitoba.
Colin Coates, president of the Canadian Historical Association, says this isn’t the first time the two families have been in competition involving the company, as Thomson’s and Weston’s fathers both sought to purchase the Hudson’s Bay Company in the late 1970s.
“The Thomsons won out [and] held on to the company until 1997,” Coates told CBC News on Nov. 24. “So they’ve got a history of competing — it’s kind of nice that they’re co-operating in this particular context.”
Premier Wab Kinew voiced his support for Thomson’s goal to keep the charter in Manitoba, saying as much in an Aug. 20 letter included in the court proceedings.
“The charter initiated a legacy of Indigenous-European relations that has spanned more than three centuries and shaped today’s Canada,” Kinew wrote.
“The charter is of national significance and should be preserved in a national institution so that it is accessible for generations to come.”
Raymond Frogner, the director of archives at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, said he supports the Weston/Thomson offer because of the $5-million donation that will be used to engage with Indigenous communities.
The charter forces Canadians to reflect on how to resolve the document’s characterization of Indigenous people and their lack of recognition in the text, Frogner said.
The charter was one of the first documents where Indigenous people were defined by European governance models, he said.
“It demands recognition, but it also demands a kind of reset,” he said on Nov. 25.
That reset is a starting point for Canadians to begin to “build a society based on values of respect and equality and human dignity, and not like feudal values of governance and dominance and control,” Frogner said.
“We’re what we choose to remember, but we’re also what we choose to forget.”
