Irving Group of Companies

Forestry and forest products

JDI's Pulp & Paper Division, Sawmills and Woodlands Division includes the following forestry and forest product companies:

Irving Lumber & Value-Added Products

Irving Pulp & Paper

Irving Paper Ltd.

Criticisms

Lack of transparency

Irving companies are private companies; as a result, there is less public information available as there would be for publicly traded corporations. This lack of transparency has led to significant criticism regarding Irving business activities.

Vertical integration

Irving companies are often criticized for their vertical integration. Examples of vertical integration within the "Irving Group of Companies" (as the Irving family refers to their holdings) include the acquisition or formation of businesses along the entire chain of production, from the Irving refinery (an Irving Oil subsidiary) and its retail outlets, to the transportation subsidiaries of J.D. Irving (RST, Midland, NB Southern, Sunbury), to various construction and engineering companies that assist in building, maintaining and expanding the conglomerate's facilities.

Further examples of vertical integration within the conglomerate include Industrial Security Ltd. (ISL), the wholly owned security company that guards facilities, as well as industrial suppliers such as Thornes, Universal Sales and Commercial Equipment Ltd. which provide specialty goods and services to its companies. J.D. Irving, the sister firm to Irving Oil, is a dominant forestry company in northeastern North America, growing trees, harvesting trees and producing lumber, pulp and paper, and various enhanced value products such as glossy paper grades, tissue, and personal care products.

Provincial media monopoly

The Dominion newspaper, an independent Canadian newspaper, has criticized Irving's ownership of Brunswick News, which published most newspapers in New Brunswick, as well as the newspapers' journalistic integrity, particularly when reporting on companies controlled by the Irving family such as Irving Oil. Canadian Business magazine wrote in a profile of the Irving Group in 2008, "A Senate committee that recently probed media ownership in Canada expressed concerns about the family’s near-monopoly over the province’s print media and "the implications of a dominant media force linked to a dominant industrial base." While a Brunswick News official denied any pro-Irving bias in the papers’ coverage, the committee’s 2006 report cited other witnesses who feared that Irving journalists exercise restraint and self-edit when writing about the family — "unconscious loyalty to the parental control," as one put it."

Political patronage

In 2003, there were accusations of Irving family political patronage, notably involving Allan Rock and Claudette Bradshaw of the Liberal Party of Canada. In 2016, the National Observer released an eight-part investigation on the family called House of Irving. It looked at many parts of the businesses including the expansion into Maine, its media monopoly, how they intimidate their critics and issues within the family.

Ecological degradation

Irving-owned facilities have been shown to emit a mixture of carcinogens, including benzene and lead. In 2009, the Conservation Council of New Brunswick produced a study which found that rates of lung cancer were 40 to 50 percent higher in Saint John than in Fredericton and Moncton – New Brunswick’s other major cities. In 2018 the Irving Pulp and Paper Ltd. pleaded guilty to three charges under the federal Fisheries Act related to numerous "significant" instances of effluent discharges from its pulp mill in west Saint John into the St. John River over a two-year period. This was the fourth time that this fine was issued in a period of two years.