Rod McQueen's Blog, page 36

Under the influence

My neighbourhood Starbucks sold beer and wine for the first time today and the earth did not open up and swallow the sinners within. One of whom was me, drinking a Muskoka Winter Weiss, with a free bowl of spicy pumpkin seeds. The Bloor Street West outlet is one of three to be licenced in Toronto and the first such speakeasies in Canada. In the U.S. alcohol is already being sold at 300 Starbucks locations.

The sun has been known to rise over the yardarm as early as 11 a.m., but “Starbucks evenings” start at 2 p.m. In addition to craft beers, five white wines and five reds are also on offer by the glass. My beer was $5.65, about the same as a soy latte. Wine is a little pricier. The Santa Margherita pinot grigio runs $13 a glass, a hefty markup considering that the LCBO charges $18.95 for a bottle. New foodstuffs are also available, from truffle popcorn at $2.95 to artichoke and goat cheese flatbread for $7.95. Everything is prepared elsewhere then heated up in a convection oven before serving.

It must have been a slow news day. We were the focus of crews from both City-TV and Global. Tired of long shots down the bar and close-ups of half-empty beer glasses, both cameramen reacted with delight when one of my neighbours, who trains guide dogs, came in with a standard poodle pup. Gretel did not order but I’m sure will be featured on the newscasts.

Usually Starbucks is a quiet place with a few meeting knots but mostly loners with laptops nursing lattes. Today, there was a newfound ambiance, a more convivial atmosphere. People were actually talking to each other. What I liked best was I got carded. At Starbucks, apparently, they also serve Fountain of Youth.

Southern lights

Try as I might, I’ve never been able to figure out the purpose of the Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF). Founded in 1996 with the stated purpose of building bridges for journalists with public and private organizations, the only reason for the connection seems to be funding for awards and dinner at the annual bunfeed. While Canadian journalists will be feted at this year’s event on June 16, they’re not the headline used to promote the program.

The prime online attention is focussed on a special citation to be presented to the Pulitzer-prize-winning Spotlight team from the Boston Globe that exposed the child abuse scandal and cover-up by the Catholic Church.

A cynic might think that such bigfoot foreign journalists are being honoured just to sell tickets and tables. But the same self-deprecation seems to apply to other CJF events. Among the four talks scheduled over the next two months, only one is a panel comprised of people actually working in Canada. The other three feature Richard Gingras, of Google; Emily Bell of Columbia University; and Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of Democracy Now! It could be the spring schedule for the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.

CJF seems to believe that Canada’s cadre of journalists is (a) too feeble to be featured, or (b) awestruck by Americans. I, for one, will not be attending. I’m flooded with more than enough American coverage just sitting at home. Why pay good money to go out and get more of the same?

Cedric Ritchie 1927-2016

The citizens of Toronto have recently focused on the death of former Mayor Rob Ford, but there was another passing last week of a man who had a far more profound impact on Toronto and Canada: Ced Ritchie, chairman and chief executive officer of the Bank of Nova Scotia from 1974-1995. I worked for Ritchie for two years after I left Ottawa in 1976. I thought I had seen power in the nation’s capital but I quickly realized that was nothing compared to the raw power in the hands of a bank CEO.

I don’t think in all my years I’ve known anyone who worked as hard as Ritchie. Fuelled by cigarettes and black coffee, he was on the go 18 hours a day including many weekends. He strode the corridors of the bank at top speed with his entire body leaning forward as if into a headwind. If a corporate client in Calgary wanted to talk, Ritchie would climb on a plane and go. Decisions on multi-million dollar loans were made quickly; Ritchie could size up a business leader and a balance sheet in a few minutes.

Ritchie did not seek the spotlight. In fact, he avoided it. The very thought there might be questions from the media after the annual meeting made him squeamish. He faced his own board of directors with similar wariness. In his mind, he put his signed resignation on the boardroom table at the beginning of every meeting with directors. If it hadn’t been picked up after two hours, he was OK for another month.

In that era, bank CEOs tended toward the autocratic. With 23,000 employees and operations in more than 50 countries, Ritchie had to lay down the law from time to time. But he also gave responsibilities to others and let them get on with their jobs, a rare gift not always granted by the boss.

Once, at a dinner hosted by Ritchie during a World Bank/IMF meeting, a woman rose from her seat at one of the tables. She was Claire Giannini Hoffman, daughter of Amadeo Giannini, founder of the Bank of America. She praised Ritchie’s “great warmth and humanity” and then warned: “Don’t lose that quality.” He never did.

In the depths

Ian Brown’s fascinating piece in Saturday’s Globe and Mail was both a bit of nice writing and the kind of reportage too often missing these days. Brown sought to find out why Stephen Harper has been invisible since he lost the October election to Justin Trudeau.

But did Brown succeed? I think not. After travelling to Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton in search of the elusive Harper, Brown was finally standing a few feet away from his quarry but let a Harper aide dissuade him from approaching the man for a conversation. Normally, Brown is sufficiently vigorous to not let anyone stop him so close to success. “I let it go,” he wrote. Let it go? I think Brown let it go because not talking to Harper fit with his thesis that the former prime minister might just be obstinate.

Indeed, Harper’s disappearance does seem odd. No speeches, occasional visits to the House of Commons, no new jobs. But what Brown did not even mention was depression. As someone who has been in politics and lost – albeit in a far less public manner – I can tell you that losing an election is a lot tougher than you might think. I was just a lowly press secretary in the office of Robert Stanfield when he lost in 1974 after almost winning in 1972. I thought, “Well, I gave 110 percent, why wasn’t that enough?” Harper, who was actually in office, lost badly. The Liberal increase of 148 seats more than they held in the 2011 election was the biggest numerical increase by a political party in any election in Canada.

It took me months to find my sea legs. It may take Harper longer. Brown did not touch on this but Harper has no doubt received job offers from law firms such as Norton Rose and Bennett Jones, invitations to join the boards of Suncor and a chartered bank, think tank fellowships and teaching roles. He has accepted none of them.

I’ll tell you why. Stephen Harper hasn’t vanished. Nor is he in some sulk. He’s immobilized. He’ll only move forward when he can.

Good fences make good neighbours

Read everything I could, talked to anyone who hoved into view, and try as I might, I’ve been unable to discover anything of substance actually accomplished during the recent visit of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Washington. No Keystone approval, no sharing of costs on the Gordie Howe Bridge, just some far-off-in-the-future nod to reducing cow herds in Oxford County to lower methane gas levels.

The Canadian media was agog about the bromance between Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama. All that got us was a free dinner for Mike Myers who forgot his hair dye that day. Coverage in the Washington Post and the New York Times both focussed on dress designers with the Times describing a Romanian-Canadian designer and a Taiwanese-Canadian designer. Don’t they know that we got rid of hyphenated Canadians when John Diefenbaker was in office?

Believe me, nobody in the U.S. is thinking about Canada today. We’re quaint. From whence comes their cold weather in the form of Alberta clippers. In birding parlance, it was all just lame duck meets a juvenile.

Meanwhile, the United States is descending into tribalism. The cancellation of Friday’s Donald Trump rally at the University of Chicago-Illinois was a foreboding incident. It won’t be long before volunteer security squads form to “protect” Trump and his followers from malcontents. The last time this happened in the U.S. was in 1969 when, among others, the Rolling Stones performed at Altamont Speedway in California. The Hells Angels were supposed to ensure the well-being of concertgoers but a gang member killed a fan during a melee near the stage.

At times such as these, I’m fine with being quaint and in another country. Maybe we should build a fence for our own safety.

Ex libris

I love books. I love reading them, I love writing them, I love what books do inside my head. The trouble is I’ve ended up with more than 1,000 volumes and that’s after donating about 300 (half a dozen at a time) to the used book store at the Toronto Research Library over the last few years.

I’ve got some of the first books I ever read such as The Adventures of Danny Meadowmouse by Thorton W. Burgess and Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne. I’ve got the first book I ever bought, How The Great Religions Began by Joseph Gaer and, no, I can’t explain that purchase. I guess I was just curious. I’ve got novels from high school such as Where The High Winds Blow by David Harry Walker. And university texts, notably, The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

My books also serve as research. My current project is a history of CIBC from 1973-1999. I went through my shelves and found a dozen books that are relevant. It’s like living in the stacks at the Robarts Library but with more space than one of their carrels.

You also get to the point in life where great pleasure comes from rereading your favourites and deepening your understanding of them each time through. Here are my top 10 favourite books: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Goodbye, Darkness by William Manchester; any volume by Robert Caro on LBJ; The Scotch by John Kenneth Galbraith; A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving; Fifth Business by Robertson Davies; Lament for a Nation by George Grant; H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; Gentlemen, Players & Politicians by Dalton Camp; and The Life of the Skies by Jonathan Rosen.

 

A new face for The National

There’s a piece in the Globe and Mail this morning on the sports pages extolling the talents of a competitor, TSN’s Bob McKenzie, saying how solid his information always is. Setting aside the unusual pastime of a newspaper journalist complimenting a broadcaster, let’s focus on the praise. Solid. Shouldn’t every sportswriter have solid information? I assume from this paean that some do not.

It’s all so reminiscent of broadcaster Brian Linehan who used to interview all the movie stars swanning through town. People were always agog that Linehan actually conducted research in advance. He didn’t just ask simpleton questions such as, “What’s Julia Roberts really like?” Maybe the reason why newspapers and other media outlets are losing their audiences is that too many stories and interviews are weak and unrevealing.

Sometimes writers seem to just want to beat their chests like a lowland gorilla defending territory. Such an instance may have come about recently when one Jordan Michael Smith reviewed a new book called Cold Fire by historian John Boyko about the relationship between John Diefenbaker and John F. Kennedy. Smith’s machine-gun review made the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre look like a carnival game. Using such expletives as “flimsy positions” “unpersuasive” “wrong headed” and “flat-out wrong” Smith pretty much pulverized Boyko’s work. I thought, “Well, I guess I won’t bother with that book.”

Fortunately, Boyko was interviewed a few days later on TVO’s The Agenda by Steve Paikin. Paikin asked good questions; Boyko gave good answers. I went out and bought the book. It is excellent. Maybe Michael Jordan Smith was thinking about a book he would have written if he’d written a book because some of his criticism centred on things Boyko did not include.

All of which brings me back to excellence and its own rewards. As a long-time fan of Steve Paikin, I hereby nominate Paikin to replace Peter Mansbridge as CBC’s television news anchor immediately. I’m tired of Mansbridge. His one-on-one interviews are sycophantic. His chairing of the At Issue panel is disjointed because all he really wants is to ensure that his own views dominate. Paikin is a class act with clarity and aplomb who deserves a seat at the national table.

Quickie books

Time was when a non-fiction book would take at least two years to research and write. No more, if a recent release from Simon & Schuster is typical. The title is How Can I Help? A Week in My Life as a Psychiatrist. A week? Too bad Samuel Pepys wasted all those years writing his diary when a few days of scribbling would have been enough for him to achieve immortality.

In keeping with this new fast-paced approach, herewith are ten book titles that could be in your bookstore very soon:

One-Minute Stand: Pickup Lines for the Attention Deficit Disordered

Sunny Ways: The 10,000 Biggest Achievements of Justin Trudeau’s First 100 Days

Six Minutes With Morrie: Everything You Need to Know About Death

Me and My Mouth: Make a Year’s Worth of Meals in One Blissful Afternoon

No More Sore Loser: How Stephen Harper Got Back His Mojo in a Moment

Lose 50 Pounds in 50 Days: Stop Eating

Drill Anyway: A Dentist Looks for Oil in a $30-a-barrel World

Secrets of Kevin O’Leary: How to Become a Billionaire in Your Own Mind

Big Bucks: Earn an MBA in Your Sleep

Life’s Lessons: A Toddler Tells All

If a publisher is interested in these book ideas, I’m ready to write any or all of them in the blink of an eye.

No Saks please, we’re Canadian

Saks Fifth Avenue opened its first store in Canada today and while I missed the ribbon-cutting I did do a walkabout and can report that it is a bizarre bazaar. First off, it isn’t really a store. It’s 180,000 square feet on three floors within The Bay. There are goods from The Bay below in the basement as well as above on the fourth floor and to the west on all floors. Let’s call it a nestling.

Much of the first floor is boutiques run by other marques. Positioned in niches around the perimeter are numerous well-known names such as Piaget, Saint Laurent and Boucheron plus three handbag lines alone – Céline, Louis Vuitton and Valentino – with more handbags from Prada and Dior coming in the spring. Most of the bags looked big enough for two and with a price tag that required a two-income household. Several hours later the smell of fragrances sold on that floor permeates my nostrils still.

There seemed to be more space without any displays than actual selling area. The first floor in particular, festooned as it was in orchids, yawned in expanse where there was nothing. The second floor (women’s accessories and men’s fashion) and third (women’s fashion) were more traditional in style and substance.

The event certainly attracted a crowd and next week’s Saks opening at Sherway Gardens likely will, too. But here’s the bottom line. In the entire thirty minutes I spent gawking, guess how many of the black bags I saw with the white Saks logo and beribboned closure bearing goods actually bought on site: one. I wish them well, but in retail terms Canada is a third-world country. I really wonder if there are enough people here with sufficient funds to keep the place open.

Word on the street

You’re in your office. It’s noon. Someone sticks their head in the door and asks, “Jeet jet?”  If you read that as a lunch invitation, English is likely your mother tongue. No other language has more words; English has one million. There are only 200,000 French words. That’s why French was traditionally used in treaties. Everybody could take a different shade of meaning from the agreement they just signed.

Denizens of England will tell you they know best. I once attended a dinner at London’s Dorchester Hotel in honour of Cliff Thorburn, a Canadian who played professional snooker in Britain. In Canada, the game’s pronounced almost like “snucker” whereas in England they say “snooooker” as if the word had four o’s not two. There were Canadians in the audience, so during Thorburn’s brief remarks, he said, “It’s great to be among people who say snucker.” There was a riffle of knowing laughter. But as he left the podium the pompous Brit who was master of ceremonies looked phlegmatically at Thorburn’s back and said, “We say snooooker, and we invented the language.” Gotta love that British humour.

These days, anybody can invent the language. Smart-assed phrases travel around the globe before good rhetoric has a chance to put on her shoes. A few years ago, one such example was “not.” As in, “I like that movie.” Then the speaker would pause and add, “Not.” Thankfully, after a while, no one laughed anymore and that drollery disappeared.

But there is one phrase with legs that drives me crazy. You read it everywhere: “Not so much.” Bloomberg is a prime example. In the last week alone I’ve seen: “The labor data is strong. Price data not so much.” “Gold shines. The rest, not so much.”

We used to ban books. Let’s ban certain words and phrases. Here’s my list of five for the high jump: “not so much” “world-class” “The only poll that counts is on election day” “a deer in the headlights” and that favourite of head table introducers, “Last but not least.” More fresh phrases, please. Cliches not so much.