Sam’s Public Philanthropy and Private Tyranny

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This is the second episode in our series about Brookfield, the Canadian financial giant. In our first episode, we told you about one half of the company’s corporate lineage — Brascan, the Canadian monopoly that dominated Brazil for half-a-century.

But Brookfield has another parent — the Bronfman family. And their story is even more remarkable.

It begins in the dusty prairie towns of Saskatchewan at the turn-of-the-century, where Jewish cowboys and American gangsters came together to create one of the great fortunes in world history.

And behind every great fortune, there is a great crime. And the crimes of the Bronfmans were numerous. But they were able to get away with it all, thanks to bribery, destruction of evidence and the intimidation of witnesses.

For decades, the Bronfmans were able to write their own history of how their wealth was acquired. But the truth can only stay buried for so long.

The Bronfman dynasty is one of the greatest dynasties that the Americas have ever seen. But like so many dynasties, they would fall apart into ignominy.

And at the centre of all of this was the most powerful businessman in Canadian history, the kingpin himself — Sam Bronfman.

Featured in this episode: Stephen Maher, Jordan Cornish

To learn more

The Bronfman Dynasty: The Rothschilds of the New World by Peter C. Newman

“The ties that bind the Liberals and the Bronfmans” by Stephen Maher in Maclean’s

The Brass Ring: Power, Influence, and the Brascan Empire by Patricia Best & Ann Shortell

The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram by Nicholas Faith

Mavericks: Canadian Rebels, Renegades and Anti-Heroes by Peter C. Newman

Music

“Throne of the Soul” by Nihilore. Adapted. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Magic Escape Room"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque

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