Street Crime, Sweet Crime, or Suite Crime? Knowledge Claims and Media Framing of the "Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist."


Michael Fleming, University of New Brunswick

Snider (2000) suggests that corporate crime has been argued into ‘obsolescence’ through the construction and maintenance of plausible pro-corporate knowledge claims. This presentation discusses the role of media framing in sustaining pro-corporate knowledge claims in the aftermath of the case of theft of nearly 3000 tonnes of maple syrup worth almost $20 million in Quebec in 2011-12. This presentation demonstrates that in framing this ‘great Canadian heist’ as individualistic (‘street’) crime, the broader political economy of the maple syrup industry in Quebec has been obscured. In the absence of deliberate examination of the potentially criminogenic relationship between the Government of Quebec and the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FPAQ) – a state-sanctioned marketing and promotional body governing the province’s lucrative and iconic maple syrup industry – the most enduring media frame to emerge from this case was one that conceptualized it alternately as a quintessentially Canadian escapade, or otherwise unserious (‘sweet’) crime. In this case, media framing of maple syrup theft effectively un-interrogated both the pro-corporate knowledge claims making process and the impacts of cartel-like control over Quebec’s maple syrup production, sale, and distribution on Quebec maple syrup producers as a form of state-corporate (‘suite’) crime.

This paper will be presented at the following session: