# J. D. Irving

J. D. Irving Limited (JDI) is a privately owned conglomerate company headquartered in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It is a part of the Irving Group of Companies and consists of various subsidiaries such as Irving Tissue, Irving Equipment, Kent Building Supplies, New Brunswick Railway, New Brunswick Southern Railway, Eastern Maine Railway, Maine Northern Railway, Acadia Broadcasting, Irving Shipbuilding, and Cavendish Farms, among others. It is involved in many industries including forestry, forestry products, agriculture, food processing, transportation, and shipbuilding. JDI along with Irving Oil and Ocean Capital Investments, forms the bulk of the Irving Group of Companies, which groups the interests of the Irving family.

## History

J.D. Irving Limited (JDI) traces its roots to a sawmill operated in Bouctouche, New Brunswick by its namesake, James Dergavel Irving. J.D. Irving's operations were passed to his children, one of whom, Kenneth Colin Irving, assumed majority ownership and used JDI to expand into pulp and paper and other forestry-related businesses between the 1920s and 1940s.
In the post-war years, JDI acquired pulp mills in Saint John and upstate New York, as well as sawmills throughout New Brunswick. During the 1950s, JDI took control of a shipyard in Saint John and started several trucking companies and heavy industry companies like Irving Equipment to satisfy the growing needs of the company.
In the 1970s and 1980s, JDI expanded into trucking with its Scot Truck subsidiary based in Debert, NS. Now called Midland Transport and based in Dieppe, NB, it is joined by sister companies Midland Courier (Dieppe), Sunbury Transport (Fredericton) and RST Industries (Saint John).
JDI is also a shipbuilder in Canada with ownership of shipyards in Halifax, Liverpool, Shelburne, and Georgetown.

## Incidents

As a large regional industrial conglomerate, J.D. Irving Ltd. subsidiaries have been the focus of several notable incidents:
* In 1970, an oil barge named Irving Whale sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence causing periodic oil spills until it was raised by the federal government in 1996.
* In 2007, the Irving Pulp & Paper Ltd. mill at Reversing Falls accidentally released 680,000 litres of green liquid into the Saint John River; pleading guilty, the company received a fine of $50,000. In November 2008, Environment Canada investigators exercised a search warrant at Irving Pulp & Paper's head office to seek more information on this accidental spill.
* In November 2008, JDI Logistics and Atlantic Towing made the news over an accident involving the transport of 2 new turbines from Saint John Harbour to the nearby Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. The JDI subsidiaries had been sub-contracted by Siemens AG, Turbine Replacement sub-contractor for the facility's owner NB Power. The 2 turbines were manufactured by Siemens AG in Scotland and were shipped to Saint John on a road transport vehicle aboard a cargo ship. The cargo was off-loaded from the ship onto a barge owned by Atlantic Towing Ltd., however the cargo shifted and the barge tipped, sending the turbines and the road transport vehicle into Saint John Harbour.
* In late November 2008, the Atlantic Towing Ltd. dredging barge Shovel Master was being towed by the company's tugboat Atlantic Larch from Saint John to Halifax for a refit when it foundered in heavy seas 20 nmi (37 km) west of Yarmouth, NS. The barge crew of 3 was rescued by a CH-149 Cormorant search and rescue helicopter before the barge capsized. Several ATL tugboats and commercial divers responded and a tow line was secured to the capsized, yet floating, barge by the tugboat Atlantic Oak. The barge was towed 45 nmi (83 km) south of Yarmouth however it sank in 150 m (490 ft), carrying 70,000 L (18,000 US gal) of diesel fuel, as well as 1,000 L (260 US gal) of hydraulic fluid and 5,000 L (1,300 US gal) of waste oil.

## Controversies

J.D. Irving’s ownership of most major media outlets in New Brunswick has led to ongoing concern regarding control of the media. A report from the Canadian Senate in 2006, on media control in Canada singled out New Brunswick because of the Irving companies' ownership of all English-language daily newspapers in the province, including the Telegraph-Journal. Senator Joan Fraser, author of the Senate report, stated, "We didn't find anywhere else in the developed world a situation like the situation in New Brunswick." The report went further, stating, "the Irvings' corporate interests form an industrial-media complex that dominates the province" to a degree "unique in developed countries." At the Senate hearing, journalists and academics cited Irving newspapers' lack of critical reporting on the family's influential businesses.

### Censorship

On multiple occasions, J. D. Irving has attacked CBC News and Jacques Poitras, a journalist and author who is employed by CBC as their New Brunswick provincial affairs reporter. In 2014, Poitras published Irving vs. Irving: Canada's Feuding Billionaires and the Stories They Won't Tell, which Bruce Livesey of Canada's National Observer described as detailing about "the recent history of the Irvings' media holdings, as well as the deteriorating relationship among the Irving brothers and cousins as they squabble over the empire's wealth and future direction." On December 2, 2015, Poitras published an article about Eilish Cleary's sudden leave from her position as Chief Medical Officer of Health in New Brunswick, noting that Cleary had been studying glyphosate, a herbicide recently labelled as "probably carcinogenic to humans" by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, at the time. In the article, Poitras briefly mentioned that glyphosate was used by J. D. Irving and NB Power. Two days later, J. D. Irving spokesperson Mary Keith released a "sharply worded" statement in response, calling the article a "sensational story" and accusing CBC News of presenting "an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory as fact," further claiming that CBC "falsely implied that J. D. Irving, Limited (JDI) is or was involved in some sort of conspiracy against Dr. Cleary because JDI uses glyphosate". In their statement, Irving also demanded that CBC "immediately remove the story from their website, publish a full retraction, and apologize for their appalling behavior". Poitras responded back on Twitter with a tweet stating, "We stand by our story." In 2016 and 2017, J. D. Irving made two attempts to have Poitras banned from writing about the Irvings and their operations by filing complaints to the CBC ombudsman; both complaints were reviewed and dismissed. According to Esther Enkin, who reviewed the second complaint, restricting Poitras from writing about the Irvings or using his personal Twitter account "would amount to a form of censorship".

## Divisions

The following is a list of notable divisions of J.D. Irving, Ltd.
* Irving Tissue Co. Ltd.
* New Brunswick Railway Co. Ltd.
** New Brunswick Southern Railway Co. Ltd.
** Eastern Maine Railway Co. Ltd.
** Maine Northern Railway Co. Ltd.
* Saint John Shipbuilding
* Halifax Shipyard
* Irving Tissue (Royale, Scotties, private labels)
* Cavendish Farms (frozen potato processing)
* Irving Equipment (crane rental, heavy lifting, specialized transportation, pile driving and project management services)
* Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League

### A selection of former subsidiaries

* Acadian Lines Ltd
* Pictou Shipyard
* Brunswick News
** Telegraph-Journal (Saint John NB)
** Times & Transcript (Moncton NB)
** The Daily Gleaner (Fredericton NB)
** The Bugle-Observer (Woodstock NB)

### East Isle Shipyard

East Isle Shipyard is a shipbuilding facility in Georgetown, Prince Edward Island and owned by Irving. The small shipyard is located on Water Street with single slipway along Georgetown Harbour. It is the sole shipbuilding facility in the province.
It was founded as Bathurst Marine in Bathurst, New Brunswick in 1961, before moving to Georgetown in 1965. The facility has operated in various names but with current name since the 1990s.
The yard built trawlers in the 1960s, the diversified in the 1970s, before it began to specialize in tugs in the 1990s.
In 2010, the shipyard laid off staff due to lack of orders.
Notable ships built here include:
* Atlantic Spruce fireboat tug (1995)
* Atlantic Oak tugboat (2004)
* Royal Canadian Navy's Glen class tugs:
** CFAV Glenevis (YTB 642) (1976)
** CFAV Glenbrook (YTB 643) (1976)
** CFAV Glenside (YTB 644) (1977)

## Citations

* 1 2 "History". J.D. Irving, Limited. Archived from the original on 13 March 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
* ↑ "About Us". J.D. Irving, Limited. Archived from the original on 17 August 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
* ↑ "J.D. Irving, Limited". Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada. Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada. Archived from the original on 13 March 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
* ↑ Canadian Encyclopedia 2020.
* ↑ "CBC: Feds must examine Irving media empire". 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
* ↑ "The Star: Hot scoop burns reporter at Irving paper". 2009-06-17. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
* 1 2 3 Livesey, Bruce (March 24, 2017). "Are the Irvings trying to censor CBC reporter Jacques Poitras?". Canada's National Observer. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
* ↑ "Jacques Poitras". CBC News. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
* ↑ Poitras, Jacques (December 2, 2015). "Dr. Eilish Cleary studying glyphosate when put on leave". CBC News. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
* 1 2 "JD Irving Attacks CBC Over Glyphosate Story". Huddle. December 4, 2015. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
* ↑ "J.D. Irving, Limited Responds to Unprofessional CBC New Brunswick Story". J. D. Irving. December 4, 2015. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
* ↑ Lytvynenko, Jane (December 15, 2015). "Why Is J.D. Irving Calling On The CBC To Remove "Unprofessional" Story?". Canadaland. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
* ↑ "Irving Shipbuilding: Home".
* ↑ "Canada Business Listing".
* 1 2 3 "East Isle Shipyard Georgetown PEI".
* ↑ "Layoffs at East Isle Shipyard | CBC News".