Rod McQueen's Blog, page 15

The mired and the admired

Erin O’Toole is a dead duck. Despite the fact that the Conservatives won the popular vote in this week’s election, they did not win the seat count. That’s why the Liberals will never bring in election reform as they said they would. First-past-the-post works fine for them. Just as Andrew Scheer became a former leader after the last election, so too will O’Toole. If he doesn’t resign on his own, he will be pushed by the party and it will be as messy as it will be humiliating. The party will follow Oscar Wilde’s dictum, “A good friend will always stab...

They’ll have to go

Whatever the outcome of this election, the status of the Bloc Quebecois as a federal political party should be rescinded. The Bloc is little more than a bunch of hypocrites who take federal paycheques as well as federal funds for parliamentary staff and constituency offices all the while trying to create a sovereign Quebec. The party has had some electoral success in Quebec under a variety of leaders since its founding in 1991. Led by Lucien Bouchard and Gilles Duceppe, among others, the Bloc won fifty-four seats in 1993 and 2004 while hitting a low of two seats in 2014. At...

Ghosts from the past

Keith Davey, Pierre Trudeau’s campaign manager, also known as “The Rainmaker,” used to say that every election required a move to the “radical middle.” By that he meant a political party shifted to the left to capture votes but then turned back to the right to govern. That radical middle was where Erin O’Toole was headed until he got rudely interrupted by reality. A week ago, according to the Nanos poll, he was a “political freight train” in the lead ahead of Justin Trudeau. Now, O’Toole is beginning to look more like a train wreck.  After all, can a Conservative...

Rough times at the top

This is the first federal election I can remember when coverage of leaders and issues is often well down in the TV newscasts. There are no dulcet tones of politicians until after Afghanistan, forest fires, Haiti and other catastrophes. This subterfuge may be regarded as helpful by the Liberals who have been hurt by the unpopularity of the early election call, the resurgence of Covid and the so-so performance of Justin Trudeau. By contrast, the chipper appearances and fully fleshed-out campaign commitments of Conservative leader Erin O’Toole have surprised everybody.  But what if, as appears likely, the outcome is another...

You can bank on it

The first book I ever wrote was called The Moneyspinners: An Intimate Portrait of the Men Who Run Canada’s Banks. Published in 1983, it had chapters on each of the Big Five Bank Chairmen and Chief Executive Officers: Rowland Frazee of the Royal, Bill Mulholland of Bank of Montreal, Richard Thomson at TD, CIBC’s Russell Harrison and Cedric Ritchie of the Bank of Nova Scotia. Writing about businesspeople was so novel at the time that there were individuals who were shocked to find themselves quoted, even though I came to their offices, explained what I was doing and turned on...

William G. Davis 1929-2021

If you were sitting in an audience that Bill Davis was addressing, you knew that no matter his topic, you were in for some fun first. As a native son of Brampton, Ont., there would be more than a few complimentary remarks about his home town, what a great place it was to live and how investors were always welcome. Next, Davis – who spoke with the speed and agility of an auctioneer – would begin to pick out people that he knew and take a few pokes at the expense of each in turn. As Davis worked his way...

Unreal estate

During the last two years, the average price for a detached house in Canada has risen 25 percent, even more in Toronto. As a result, many hopeful first-time home buyers have been priced out of the market. This go-go period is all so reminiscent of the run-up in the 1980s that was followed by a 50 percent drop in values during the recession of the 1990s. It took until the early 2000s for values to get back to where they had been.
I’m not predicting a repeat performance. This economy is stronger … at the moment. But I do think that the current situation calls for a seachange in the way houses are sold and by whom. But first, a little background on the business of real estate. With the sale of a house, it’s the vendor who pays those who helped do the deal. The price is steep; 5 percent of the sale price, or $50,000 on a $1 million property. Individual offices have different internal arrangements, but essentially the money is shared by four people: the listing agent and the listing agent’s broker as well as the selling agent and the selling agent’s broker.
Do one of those deals every month and you could be making $150,000 a year. And therein lies part of the problem. In a good market, every Tom, Dick and Harriet prepares to flee their former career by taking some courses in their spare time, doing some simulated deals and they’re ready to join the real estate business. There are more than 50,000 licensed registrants in Ontario alone.
To my mind, this process creates the potential for greedy acts by too many newcomers who may not see real estate as a long-term career that builds slowly, one client at a time. As a result, you get agents pricing a property below market value just to create the frenzy of a bidding war.
The solution is simple. First, make the licensing requirements to join the real estate business more onerous. Second, create an open bidding system so all participants clearly know what the other bids are. With both changes in place, more heightened ethics and better information will be in play. Only the greedy could disagree.

Joyce McKeough 1937-2021

For Joyce McKeough, politics was a precious part of her life. Her father, David Walker, was a member of the House of Commons, a cabinet minister in the John Diefenbaker government, and later, a senator. Her husband, Darcy, served in the Ontario Legislature for fifteen years and was Treasurer in the Bill Davis government.
Educated at Branksome Hall and Trinity College at the University of Toronto, Joyce had been presented at court to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and came away with a vivid remembrance of “the devastating eyes of the Prince.” Joyce was working at an advertising agency, Ronalds-Reynolds, when she was introduced to Darcy by a mutual friend in 1964. They were married the following year. Five days ago, she died at home in Bally McKeough, where Darcy was raised. A closed funeral was held today.
As an avid gardener, Joyce helped beautify the grounds of Bally McKeough. (Bally is the Irish word for homestead or place.) The sprawling lawn at the back of the house runs to a bluff with views of Lake Erie where they built seven terraces right down to the water’s edge thirty-five feet below. Between the railway ties bloom forsythia, spirea, daffs and Russian sage. Oh, and there was one other important amendment. Having grown up in Toronto with its hills and ravines, the flatlands around Chatham bothered her so the earth dug for a new trout pond was mounded to create a “hill” nearby.
Locals kept a close watch. Once, when they were doing some remodelling to the house, a local man ran into Darcy and asked, “I hear you’re putting on an addition. Is Mrs. McKeough in the family way?” Given that she and Darcy were both in their sixties at the time, they took the query as a compliment. Jogging and skiing kept her fit. Her father’s urgings kept her involved when he said, “You can be the grovelling wife or you can make it work for you.” Entertaining Peter Lougheed, breakfast with Brian Mulroney, and tea with Margaret Thatcher were just a few of the ways she made it work.
When Darcy’s memoirs were nominated for the 2016 book award presented by the speaker of the Ontario Legislature, Joyce wanted to remain after the ceremony. “This may be the last time I’m in the Legislature for something personal, but Darcy’s tired and wants to leave,” she said. “My mother always told me, ‘Stand by your man.'” Then she paused, laughed, and said, “Mothers!” They left together. Arm-in-arm. As always.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publish and perish

At first glance, Google appears to be doing what it should have done long ago, making global product and licensing arrangements that will pay billions of dollars for reproducing other peoples’ articles. Until now, the originating organization received no payment for what clearly has been nothing less than copyright infringement. Around the world Google has signed with the Murdoch-owned News Corp. as well as media organizations in Germany and Australia.
This week, Google announced deals with eight Canadian participants, including the Winnipeg Free Press, the Globe and Mail and Métro Média. That’s only a fraction of the organizations that exist, but Google says there are more such deals to come. We’ll see how many that actually means. Moreover, since financial details have not been made public, there’s no way of knowing how much this offering will actually benefit Canadian outlets. The federal government has been talking about forcing the likes of Facebook and Google to pay for articles they use, but that may just be so much election palaver.
Under the new deal, in addition to receiving payment for articles, the Canadian publications will be able to sell online advertising around those stories. And they can also sell digital subscriptions, something for which Canadians don’t seem to be clamouring. For all the gravitas of the Globe and Mail, for example, in some of its markets the Globe has been signing up fewer digital subscriptions than the New York Times.
Google has further committed over the next three years to train 5,000 Canadian journalists and journalism students on improving their digital skills. Google says this will be in addition to the 1,000 it has already trained. There will also be boot camps for budding news entrepreneurs as well as research projects to help publishers better serve their local communities.
I guess I should welcome all this largesse but I have to say that it does not correspond to the type of journalism that I practiced for thirty-odd years. Writing about business, as I did for most of that time, meant that I tried to conduct careful and accurate research, make sure I had sufficient knowledgable sources on every story, and above all, retain objectivity. This Google money might be welcome to publishers, but for the working stiff in the newsroom it’s just an outstretched hand trying to draw journalists ever closer to the Google orbit. The trillion-dollar company already has plenty of power. This money is meant to curry more favour, not improve an imperilled product.

Boys and their toys

We all know about type A personalities and their driven behaviour, but some senior business leaders have taken their private passions to new heights. Literally. Next month Amazon’s Jeff Bezos will take a ride to space in a reusable rocket launched by Blue Origin, his space company. This is not just any ride, this is the maiden flight with passengers. Coming along with him will be his brother, an unnamed individual who paid US$30 million for the privilege, as well as an astronaut yet to be named. In fact, the rocket, called the New Shepard, is named after Alan Shepard, who in 1961 was the first American in space. Maybe it’s Shepard who will be aboard.
The entire circuit up to 350,000 feet – almost but not quite into orbit – and down again helped by parachutes to land somewhere into the briny sea takes all of eleven minutes. Three of those minutes will, once everyone is unbuckled, provide a weightless zone where they can float about with grins wider than a crescent moon. For his part, Bezos is facing the danger despite his earthbound duties as founder, executive chair and largest shareholder of Amazon, the world’s biggest internet company.
Another modern-day billionaire, Elon Musk, has been working the same territory. Between them, Bezos and Musk are worth something like US$350 billion, a sum as astronomical as their plans. Musk’s SpaceX rockets are busy taking supplies to the International Space Station and have a contract with NASA for missions to the moon by 2024. Musk, whose tweets can move the market value of Bitcoin, also intends to colonize Mars with the first flight arriving on the red planet as early as 2026. He has admitted there are perils, saying of some of the early flights, “You might not come back alive.”
While all of this seems unlikely or impossible, or both, aren’t such adventures precisely what the human race is all about. In 1492, Christopher Columbus was looking for a faster way to get from Europe to the East Indies by heading west. Instead, he bumped into America, and became famous for finding something he didn’t know was there. But there must have been many who watched him sail away from Spain, thinking he was crazy. But without crazy people, there’d be less progress for the rest of us. May Jeff Bezos and his fellow high-flyers survive and his ideas thrive.