Archive for June, 2007

I see Galen Weston the Younger is planning to launch an ad campaign next week in which he will be front and centre as the official Loblaw spokesman. There’s been a lot of foofaraw comparing him to Dave Nichol, but the more interesting comparison is familial. If G2, as he is known around the office, wanted to set himself apart from the previous generation, he couldn’t have chosen a better way to do it. For years G2’s father, W. Galen Weston, kept a low profile, and for good reason. In 1983, seven armed members of the IRA showed up at Roundwood Park, the Weston family estate south of Dublin, bent on kidnap and ransom. Fortunately, the family had been warned and were safely ensconced at Fort Belvedere, their place in Windsor Great Park.

The incident forever colored W. Galen’s view of public life, as well it should. When we lived in England in 1987-88, I tried to interview Galen but as close as I got was watching him play polo with Prince Charles. It was a wonderful day’s outing, but there was no story.

I finally fared better in 2000 when I was at the National Post, interviewed Galen at length, and wrote a 3,000-word feature. I found him to be an engaging individual, a wonderful story-teller and the consummate retailer. As I left, he asked where I’d bought my blazer and was disappointed to hear Harry Rosen rather than Holt Renfrew.

So good on G2 for granting interviews and stepping out in public. With the stock price down in the $50 range from $75 a year ago, there’s a lot to do. On the Weston family tomb in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery, the carved words refer to the importance of setting your sails. So, G2, as they say in Ireland: May the wind be at your back.

Hurrah for Frank Giustra! Not only has the Vancouver merchant banker set a new standard for corporate giving - US$100 million plus half what he earns from resources for the rest of his life - he has twisted a lot of competitors’ arms to join him in fighting poverty in the developing world.

Philanthropy used to be more commonplace at the end of a corporate career. Geezers would see the face of death and then try to redeem a lifetime of greed by lavishing money on something, anything, at the last minute. Like a lot of young people in North America, I grew up devouring the contents of the local Carnegie Library long before I knew who Andrew Carnegie was.

The unusual mid-career generosity demonstrated yesterday by Giustra was what first drew me to do a book about BlackBerry and Research in Motion. In 2000 RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis announced he was donating $100 million to create the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and in 2004 gave $50 million to the University of Waterloo for the Institute of Quantum Computing.

In 2001 RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie donated $25 million to create the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He’s also given at least another $10 million to local causes in the Waterloo Region. If news reports are accurate, on Monday he will be adding more than $10 million to his previous endowment for academic chairs and scholarships. Both Lazaridis and Balsillie were forty when their gifting began. And, equally interesting, this was not about ego: their names are not featured.

Money from the likes of Giustra, Lazaridis and Balsillie send a message to institutions that raise funds: You need to be imaginative, not just have an atrium or a business school for sale. Anyway, it’s so much better to do good works and let the good name speak for itself.

UPDATE: On June 25th, Balsillie donated $50 million with $17 million going to the Centre for International Governance Innovation and $33 million to the newly created Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo. The good name still speaks, as does a new name. The University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University will each contribute $25 million to the Balsillie School while the Government of Ontario will add $17 million to CIGI.

As the Conrad Black trial comes to an end, the question arises: has the prosecution proved its case? Certainly, David Radler was not the star witness he was meant to be. Some of his answers contradicted his earlier recollections and, in particular, he was made to look well aware of his sentencing arrangements even though he said he was in the dark when he cut his deal.

Yes, Black’s lawyer Eddie Greenspan seemed to score points making Radler look like a liar, but did he go too far? Did the jury tire of the tactic? Still, nobody likes a rat. Just ask any office whistle-blower how much fun it was to expose the truth and then try to remain among her peers.

And what was the impact of so many big name directors who looked silly admitting they hadn’t read what they signed. The jury, two-thirds of whom are middle-aged women, will shake their heads over that one. Isn’t that what financial advisors urge the “little people” to do? Read the fine print? And what the Hollinger directors missed wasn’t even the fine print, it was found on the front page of documents they didn’t even bother to browse.

But of all the revelations, strangest to me was an interview Greenspan gave mid-trial to the Globe and Mail about his legal career. He was at pains to point out that he’d been raised near the Canada-U.S. border and bemoaned the fact that if only his emigrating parents had settled a few miles away from where they actually did, he could have grown up in the U.S., practiced law in that country, and emulated his hero Clarence Darrow who performed so magnificently at the Scopes monkey trial.

Greenspan has not found the U.S. court system as welcoming. Indeed, he allowed as how he was looking forward to getting back to Canada where defence and prosecution tell each other well in advance which witnesses are coming and what information has been uncovered.

As to why did Lord Black not testify, there are only two explanations. Either Greenspan feels his case has been sufficiently made without his client having to take the stand or he feared what would happen during cross-examination. If I were a juror, after forty-seven days of proceedings, I would have liked to have heard about these weighty matters from the horse’s mouth.

For my part, I think he will be found innocent. But even if I am wrong, one thing is certain: whatever the outcome, an appeal will follow. As Winston Churchill said in 1942, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

UPDATE: I couldn’t have been more wrong about the verdict. The jury found Lord Black guilty on obstruction of justice and three counts of mail fraud. To cite Churchill again offering advice for the convicted felon, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”

The previous post about my honorary doctorate was the “news” story. But, as the sports writer asked the pitcher who just threw a no-hitter, how did it feel? I can only say that Monday’s ceremony was truly an out of body experience. I’ve never had such a sensation before, but as I sat on the platform and heard the citation, everything sounded familiar - ?yes I’d written that book, won that award, or lived in that country - but it couldn’t have been me. It seemed like me watching someone who had lived my life. But, it must have been me, right?

As the day progressed through the Chancellor’s lunch at Somerville House on campus and then dinner at the president’s house, Gibbons Lodge, with its beautiful views of the city, I had to keep reminding myself that these were events held in my honor, these people were on hand to celebrate my accomplishments.

Such occasions, when you get to swim in a warm bath of public recognition, don’t occur very often in life. You might as well revel in the moment, as I did, but was it really me they were congratulating? Apparently, it was.

UWO Chancellor Arthur Labatt and President Paul Davenport were both delightful hosts and raconteurs. I heard about the 1934 kidnapping of Labatt’s father, the first business leader ever held for ransom in Canada. Paul Davenport talked about his love for biking in the Loire Valley and a night school course he teaches on Impressionist painters. Both men are engaging and passionate, two traits we should all emulate.

Kathy Rumleski of The London Free Press interviewed me in advance of the great day for a story that ran in Monday’s paper. Among the questions she asked, “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever done?” My answer: “I’d like to think it hasn’t happened yet.” Meanwhile, Monday’s out of body experience ranks right up there.

There was pomp, a brass band, and the pageantry of medieval garb as the official party entered Alumni Hall that was packed with more than 2,000 graduates, friends and family members at The University of Western Ontario yesterday. And there I was, wearing a black gown and floppy purple hat with gold tassel, among the faculty in their colorful robes from Canadian universities and such far-off institutions as Oxford.

The occasion was most memorable; I received an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws. To be exact, Doctorem in Legibus (honoris causa), according to the Latin parchment I was given along with a purple-and-white hood that was also mine to keep. The hat and gown had to be returned. You can see me here or listen to my ten-minute speech “Top Ten Secrets of Life” here.

The citation was delivered by Dr. Catherine Ross, Dean of the Faculty of Information and Media Studies. Among her many kindly comments was this: “With each new book, Rod takes readers on a guided tour behind the closed doors and boardrooms of corporate Canada?- places most of us will never visit in person - he tells us the most compelling stories and makes business history exciting and accessible.”

A few friends were on hand. Beth Schroeder, of London, whose late husband Bob won the London Free Press Editorial award the year before I did in 1963; Jim Erskine, a professor at the Ivey School of Business, and his wife Heather; Don Matthews, a developer we first met while in Ottawa where we both got mixed up in politics, and his friend Pat Royal. Family members present included son Mark and his wife, Andrea Whiting; daughter Alison and her husband, Ken McLeod; and my wife Sandy, who put me through school and is the root cause of any real success I’ve had.

Western’s chancellor Arthur Labatt and President Paul Davenport couldn’t have been more gracious. There was both a lunch on campus and a dinner at the president’s home in my honor.

If the group Monday morning is any measure of the 7,000 who will graduate from Western this week, we are good hands. They all looked eager to get on with life as they came on stage, knelt, and were hooded three at a time. I was seated near one of the action areas so could hear the answers when they were asked, before they rose to leave, “What next?” By my count, about 35-40 per cent plan to do post-graduate studies or go to teachers’ college; another 15-20 per cent have found a job; the rest are still up in the air. The most common answer from this latter group: “I have no idea.” Note to everyone who can: Hire a grad. Our nation needs their contribution.

Next Monday will be one of those lifetime days. I’m being honored by my alma mater, The University of Western Ontario, with an honorary degree. First word came in March with a phone call from Paul Davenport, president of Western, to tell me that the selection committee had picked me to receive an LL.D, doctor of laws (honoris causa).

I have to admit I was astounded. Honorary degrees always seem to be given to famous people or philanthropists who donate large amounts of money. I was neither of those.

I even get to deliver a speech at the 10 a.m. convocation for the faculties of graduate studies, arts and humanities, and information and media studies. My topic? The Top Ten Secrets of Life. There’s a lunch to follow and a dinner that night given by the president.

Others receiving degrees from Western next week include Flora Macdonald and Brian Mulroney, and appropriate recipients they are. I first met both of them in the early 1970s when I was press secretary to Robert Stanfield, then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. Mulroney, 68, remains active in business and is about to join the board of Blackstone as the hedge fund gears up to go public. A friend of mine, Tom Hopkins, was in northern Afghanistan last month and ran into Flora riding a donkey on a narrow path in the mountains. At 81, she was promoting one of her many worthy causes, in this case a hydro dam.

Now, there’s a particularly deserving honorary graduand, as UWO has taken to referring to me in communications. Just don’t call me Doctor.

Yesterday’s testimony at the Conrad Black trial by his long-time secretary, Joan Maida, brought back memories of my dealings with a previous office-holder. It was 1978, and I had just joined Maclean’s as business editor.

Conrad, then 33, had recently bought Argus Corp. but no one had interviewed him on the topic. I phoned his secretary, lodged my request and got nowhere so I used one of the oldest techniques in the journalism handbook, the campout. At 2 p.m., I showed up at his borrowed digs at Dominion Securities and asked his secretary if I could see him. She said, “No, he’s busy for the rest of the day.”

Having established that he was actually there, I said I’d wait, and parked myself in the reception area. At 5:20 p.m. he invited me in and said, with a smile: “I suppose you’re here to talk about Duplessis,” referring to the biography he’d just published on Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis.

He held forth for more than two hours and “The Argus Grab” was my first cover story in Maclean’s. So eager was he to read the results in the June 26 issue that he came to the Maclean’s office to pick up a copy. Our son, Mark, then a budding young photographer, happened to be in the office with his camera equipment, rode down on the elevator with Conrad, and convinced him to be photographed, leafing through the issue with the John de Visser photo on the cover.

On later occasions, Conrad was less willing to talk. He was on the board of Confederation Life, but declined to be interviewed for my book, “Who Killed Confederation Life?” Ditto for “The Eatons,” despite his lengthy relationship with the Eaton boys as a friend and director.

I look at photos of him now, aging before our very eyes as he enters and leaves the courthouse in Chicago, and feel the pain of what has happened to that young man of such promise.