You can take Brian Cheffins out of Canada, but you can’t stop him from illuminating aspects of the world around us.  In “Hedge Fund Activism Canadian Style“, Cheffins drops us into the world of offensive shareholder activism (minus the judgement that label suggests).  The paper offers tentative explanations for why Canada, with its (historic?) culture of passivity, is one of the most popular targets for hedge fund activism.  Among other reasons to read the paper, it provides a comprehensive review of offensive shareholder activism in Canada, leading with the Canadian Pacific story, it offers an impressive version of the Canadian history, and it posits a corporate influence heuristic that should inform future work in this area.  Offensive shareholder activism doesn’t have an extensive history in Canada, but its rise (and to some extent decline) make for fascinating reading.