Rod McQueen's Blog, page 47

The gang that couldn’t shoot straight

The sudden announcement by Gerry McCaughey yesterday that he's stepping down as CEO of CIBC should come as no surprise. In fact, life at the top of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has always been about as unpredictable as it has been unproductive. Despite all the modernization CIBC has gone through in the last four decades the corporate culture of the place remains unchanged. All banks are political, but CIBC is like the Vatican. 

The story begins in 1969 when Gordon Sharwood was reading his morning paper and discovered that his colleague Russ Harrison had been named to the number two spot behind Neil McKinnon. Sharwood quit the bank immediately. It took another four years before Harrison replaced McKinnon who was ousted by the board. 

Then there was the period CIBC tried what was quaintly known as a duumvirate until they realized they only needed one autocrat. When Don Fullerton became CEO in 1984 the executive suite was in a mess. Of all the CIBC CEOs, I liked Fullerton the best, but he had his leadership frailties, too. One of the brightest young bankers, Warren Moysey, quit on Fullerton's watch. And when Al Flood was named CEO to replace Fullerton, the first thing Flood did was fire the other bright banker in the place, Paul Cantor. 

Are you getting the idea? At CIBC, when times get tough, they circle the wagons and shoot each other. In 1998, when TD proposed a merger with CIBC, it was all TD people who would be in charge, such was the lack of leadership at CIBC. In 1999 when John Hunkin became CEO, the other contender, Holger Kluge, decamped because they had some kind of bizarre suicide pact that meant the loser would leave. In 2002 Hunkin even offered to merge with Manulife and would have installed the insurer's CEO Dominic D'Alessandro as CEO such was Hunkin's desire to go do something else with his life. 

Which brings us to Hunkin's replacement, Gerry McCaughey, CEO since 2005. One year into a new four-year contract, McCaughey says he wants to retire. In 2016. Who ever gave two years' notice? I'd like to be able to tell you what will happen next at the beleaguered CIBC that used to be number two and is now number five among the Big Five Banks. All I know for sure is that there will be more calamity before there is any clarity.

 

The meaning of death

The recent deaths of Jim Flaherty and Herb Gray tell us something about the state of politics in this country. Flaherty was unique in the Stephen Harper cabinet. He was someone who cared about his role as finance minister, gave his all, and didn't take himself too seriously. When I look at the rest of the cabinet, I don't see very many others with Flaherty's breadth or gravitas.

In the 1970s, when I was working in Ottawa and saw Herb Gray up close, he was a study in contrasts. By all boring appearances he was the least interesting member of the Pierre Trudeau cabinet, but the closer you looked the more there was to see. As the longest serving MP of the modern era, Gray was more than just durable. He cared about important issues from social justice to foreign ownership and worked diligently to achieve his goals.

The difference between Flaherty and Gray is that Flaherty had few peers in his midst who were his equal; Gray was just one of the many minds in his cabinet with political courage. I've just finished helping Donald Macdonald with his memoirs, titled Thumper, to be published this fall by McGill-Queen's University Press, so I'm reminded of the depth of the front benches in those days. As house leader, Macdonald pushed through new rules; in national defence he oversaw troops during the War Measures Act; at energy he represented consumers against the demand for world prices by Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed; as minister of finance he tackled inflation with wage and price controls.

But other Liberal ministers were adept, too. Marc Lalonde on social programs, Don Jamieson in external affairs, Allan MacEachen on just about anything, even Eugene Whelan on agriculture. And there were individuals, such as Eric Kierans, who stood steadfast and alone for their beliefs. Even as someone who worked for the other side, Opposition Leader Robert Stanfield, I think it is fair to say that the Trudeau cabinet was the best of the modern era. Trudeau was a strong leader, but he permitted everyone to have their say, particularly on a topic about which he was not well informed. My sense of Stephen Harper is very different. I wonder how much thoughtful debate there is when his cabinet meets.

The death of Herb Gray reminds us not just to mourn the man but a way of life that has been lost. Today's cabinet, minus Jim Flaherty, doesn't have the personal heft or professional depth that once was commonplace.

Lesser lights

As I watched Adam Scott place the green jacket on this year's Master's winner, Bubba Watson, I was taken with the resonance of this annual event. It could be just another golf tournament but it has been infused with lore and made lustrous with legend. The CBS announcers have sombre voices as they talk reverently about Amen Corner and the Eisenhower tree. There's endless footage of Arnie and Jack and Gary walking on stone bridges. And of course the scenery, complete with rhododendrons and azaleas plus the sound of Carolina Wrens amid the loblolly pines. The Americans do sports so well: the World Series, March Madness and the Super Bowl, to name just a few.

But that's not all, there are parades, too: Macy's at Thanksgiving, the Orange Bowl parade in Pasadena, and Easter on Fifth Avenue. I've been to a few such events and there's nothing like them in Canada. Nor do we have anything to match Las Vegas or Branson, Missouri, or Disney World or walking the streets of New Orleans with a twenty-ounce cup of beer as you dip in and out of bars at 3 a.m. for various versions of the Muskrat Ramble.

Beyond jazz, think of the many genres of music that have been invented in America: ragtime, Broadway musicals, country and western, blues, rap, Motown and rock and roll. All we've got in Canada is Innu mouth music and Cape Breton fiddling. In the U.S. add actors, playwrights, and painters of international renown. We've contributed a few comedians who rarely come home again.

To be sure, there are elements in America we don't want: gunplay, the Kardashians, and the Tea Party. But for the most part we are a third-world nation with too few accomplishments and no legendary annual events other than the one repeat visit – for the first time since it happened 64 years earlier – of a Calgarian riding a horse in Toronto's Royal York Hotel lobby during the 2012 Grey Cup celebration.

Little wonder we have an inferiority complex. We are inferior. And terribly tight-assed, too.

The carrousel keeps turning

Apparently it's tough being the editor of a newspaper. In recent days, both the editor of National Post, Stephen Meurice, and the editor of The Globe and Mail, John Stackhouse, have departed. I'm surprised the Post is still alive under any editor. When I left in 2001, I didn't think it would last a year, but survive it has.

The Globe is struggling, too, but not to the same money-losing extent. Part of that battle seems to be the incapacity to keep editors-in-chief in harness. Phillip Crawley has been publisher of the Globe since 1999. The latest editor to come under his thumb, David Walmsley, is the fourth during those 15 years. People tell me that the newsroom was glad to see John Stackhouse go because he made them miserable. I've never worked for or with Stackhouse, but I can tell you this: I've toiled in four different newsrooms over the years and people are always miserable. 

What cheers me most about the Globe is today's announcement that Paul Waldie will be the editor of Report on Business. Waldie is a wonderful writer and a stellar investigative reporter. I'm hoping that, with him at the helm, the section will find its edge again. It takes me no time at all to read the ROB because there's nothing in it except Harvey Schacter's seven steps to leadership and Rob Carrick's investment advice for tots. As for the online version, you can look in the morning and check again at 5 p.m. and see precious little new material.

So, Paul, I'm sure you enjoyed living in England and covering the recent revolution in Kiev. But welcome home. I'm looking forward to more good reads as a result.

The passing of Peter Porcal

He called me professore, which I wasn't. I called him dottore, which he was. Peter Porcal died last Friday, March 28, 2014. I'm guessing he was somewhere in his late 60s. Even when Sandy and I first met him in Florence in 2004, he wasn't in the best of health. Too many years of walking Tuscany with his "children," as he liked to call his students, had taken a terrible toll on his knees. I wasn't the only one with a nickname. There was a young man who could have been a putto, he was so pretty. To his discredit, he didn't pay attention. I couldn't believe what he was missing. Neither could Peter, who called the boy Blondie, a gently derisive name that captured his insolence.

Peter was a resident art history professor for several schools in Florence including the Ontario College of Art and Design, as it was then called, as well as Vanderbilt and the American School in Richmond. I was the only spouse among the two dozen OCAD students attending in 2004-5 and was lucky enough to be included in his Wednesday classes and weekend trips. Wednesday was usually spent in Florence visiting such wonders as Benozzo Gozzoli's magnificent fresco cycle, Michelangelo's sculpture at the Bargello, Pontormo's strange deposition at Santa Felicita, or Fra Angelico at San Marco.

Most weeks he also led us on day trips or weekend tours outside Florence to Venice, Ravenna, Rome, Padua, Lucca, Assisi or Siena, anywhere there was beauty to behold. He not only knew every venue, he knew where the washroom key was hidden in the local pizza place. Even now, a decade later, I can close my eyes, see the works and hear his mellifluous voice.

Last Wednesday, I'm told Peter gave his usual class to this year's 23 OCAD students, then went to hospital with chest pains. They operated on Thursday; he died Friday. He'd been in and out of hospital these last few months. The service on Saturday was held at the church of Santissima Annunziata which contains a thirteenth-century painting begun by a monk and completed by an angel, or so the legend goes.

If you visited on your own, the painting was usually covered, but Peter always seemed to know instinctively when it could be viewed. I hope the venerable work was on display during his last rites. He would have been admiring it and getting ready to tell the sorrowful attendees how it came to be, what to look for, and what it all meant.

The eye of the artist

The opening last night of the latest works by Michael Awad was spectacular. A dozen pieces at the Nicholas Metivier Gallery feature a range of urban sites and events from house boats in Britain to the lineup for turkeys at Honest Ed's, all done in Awad's inimitable cinematic style of horizontal free-frame motion. The colours in Caribbean Parade could be brush work in oils.

Some of the works in the solo exhibit called The Entire City Project 2014 are the product of a weekend of photography, plus untold hours to arrange the results on 20 square feet of framed display. But one of the pieces took 25 years. That's how long Awad, who started his professional life as an architect, has spent trying to capture on film the eight-foot-wide interior of the Mars Diner. He finally felt he succeeded and has created a 12x96-inch work with only one row of photos, unlike his signature six-to-eight rows.

Most Torontonians are likely familiar with his four works that have hung at at Pearson Airport's Terminal One for the last eight years. But he's also at many other venues including the Schulich School of Business at York University and Telus House on York Street. In May, he'll have a solo exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum.

I'd show you a photo of his work, but Awad doesn't like people to view his art on a handheld device, not even on a computer screen. As a result, he's not on Twitter or Facebook and recently deleted his LinkedIn account. Instead, go see them in real life. The exhibition at the Nicholas Metivier Gallery, 451 King Street W. in Toronto, continues through April 19.

Gender politics

Alison Redford's departure as premier of Alberta was predictable. Of course, she brought it upon herself by charging personal items to official expenses. But even without such behaviour, the good old boys would have done her in at some point. It's not easy being a woman in charge of men, least of all Alberta Conservatives. Little has changed in the macho Alberta legislature since the 1970s when Peter Lougheed and Don Getty and others who'd all played football together were in charge.

As recently as last summer a new world order had supposedly arrived; there were six female premiers. Then Nunavut's Eva Aariak announced she'd had enough, Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland and Labrador walked the plank, and now Redford's gone. Only Quebec's Pauline Marois seems to have full command. Pushing her star candidate, Pierre Karl Peladeau, away from the microphone was both bold and wrong. No man could have done that to a female candidate and survived.

Female politicians seem to do better at the municipal level where there are no mean-spirited male caucus members to deal with, only voters. It's interesting that Ontario Municipal Affairs Minister Linda Jeffrey is quitting provincial politics to run for mayor of Brampton. So much for the big time.

When will men, whether in a political party or corporate office, respect a female leader? I've been watching this issue for thirty years and I can't say I've seen much progress. When a senior woman recently left a major Canadian corporation, the story was put about that she was so crazy and they wanted to see her gone so badly that she wasn't even given the traditional office from which to look for work. Whether the story was true or not, that's what the boys said. 

The current debate to ban the word "bossy" speaks to this very issue. Men can be the boss, but women leaders are bossy, and therein lies the problem. Men who get bossed in the privacy of their own home don't want to be bossed by a woman at work. The office or the legislature is the last refuge of male supremacy. Men ain't going to give up those bastions anytime soon.

Going home

A man I know, who was born in the Caribbean but has lived in Canada since he was eleven, was telling me about his recent Caribbean holiday. He said that the wind on his cheek and the smell of the sea felt like home to him. 

A few days later I was shovelling my driveway. The snow had stopped, the stars were sparking in the night-time sky and tires squeaked as cars passed by. I thought: Winter is home to me. Toronto has had the sort of winter we used to have in Guelph when I was a boy. I vaguely recall the coldest temperature being –13F. In my memory there might have been more snow, but it has certainly been colder this season in Toronto.

Just as home arrived unbidden in my mind, so do my neighbours of those days. I've lived among lots of neighbours in numerous cities since, but I know that boyhood bunch best. There was Vic Burroughs who owned one of the first TVs. It was black and white but he'd bought a special piece of plastic to cover the screen that was supposed to produce a colour picture. The blue line on top and green across the bottom almost looked realistic if there was a cowboy riding a horse, but it didn't work well for The Howdy Doody Show. His wife Hazel fed me my first piece of ice cream cake. No finer dessert have I tasted since.

Jimmy Gray wasn't all there plus he had a speech impediment, the worst I've ever heard. I was one of the few who listened and it got so I could understand what he said. Then there was Rowlie Hillis, a dentist and a fisherman, who let me watch as he tied flies. Once when he and his wife were away, burglars broke in through a basement window. The door to the main floor was locked so the intruders gave up and broke another basement window to get back outside again. Burglars in Guelph were not that smart. 

David Smith sold chickens so had crates of them on his pickup truck cackling at all hours. The Cuttens, who inherited wealth, were running out of money but still managed to live in the mansion across the park. Joe Wolfond, who began business with a pushcart, owned half of downtown. I could go up and down the streets and tell you more, but you get the idea. The further away you are, in time and place, the closer you get to home.

Speakeasy

Everybody's got their shirt in a knot about a speech Peter Mansbridge gave to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. I know everybody's got their shirt in a knot because a lot of journalists are telling me so. Of course, it's only other journalists who have their shirts in a knot, but it's news because Mansbridge was paid, do you hear me, paid, to speak to this group. Because he took their money, he's supposedly now in bed with those dirty hucksters who run the oil sands and can't possible read the news anymore because he's tainted goods. 

Maybe the real reason so many journalists have their shirts in a knot is because nobody asked them to speak and they wouldn't mind some of the easy money that goes with such gigs. I've got no problem with Mansbridge speaking to any paying audience because I've given such speeches myself. Not, of course, at the mighty fees that Mansbridge charges which are likely in the $20,000-$25,000 range, but I have sung for my supper.

Other journalists do the same and here's what happens. You show up, stand around at a head table reception, give the identical speech you gave three weeks ago and three months before that on what a great country Canada is and how everybody should be able to live their dream and then you take it on the lam as fast as you can. There's no time to get brainwashed by the Association of Canadian Candymakers or whoever it is you're speaking to.

So I'm not worried about Mansbridge becoming a shill for oil or candymakers or anyone else. No, what bothers me is that he's lost his journalistic edge. His interview with Rob Ford was obsequious; his demeanour on The National is boring. He's been the anchor since 1912. It's time to replace him with Ian Hanomansing or Amanda Lang. Then let him speak wherever he wants. I just don't want him speaking to me anymore.

It’s the mayors, stupid

I won't be watching Rob Ford on Jimmy Kimmel tonight but I can imagine how it will go. As usual, Ford will mistake notoriety for renown and a high-profile appearance with appreciation. Even so, I don't know why we're all so fussed about our current mayor, he joins a long line of officeholders who accomplished little and didn't go on to do much after they left.

My memory of modern mayors begins with Nathan Phillips (1955-1962). The best story about him is what he missed. In the dying hours of his time as Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker told his staff in 1963, "Send that fellow Phillips to the Senate." The mayor was so little known outside Toronto that staff thought The Chief must have meant Orville Phillips, an MP and dentist from PEI. He got the appointment instead and sat in the Upper Chamber for the next 36 years.

Then there was William Dennison (1967-72) who once welcomed a dignitary from an African nation. Dennison handed the visitor a pen with which to sign the guest book, saying very slowly as if to a child, "This is a ball point pen." "I know," said the visitor, "I went to Oxford."

Art Eggleton (1980-1991) was mayor for 11 years. I can't remember a single thing he did. It's like his legacy was written on Etch-A-Sketch. Mel Lastman (1998-2003) worried about travelling to Africa in case he ended up in a boiling pot of water as dinner for cannibals. David Miller (2003-2010) brought Major League Soccer to Toronto. That turned out so well he sent back his season tickets in disgust part way through the 2013 schedule.

As Mel Lastman once said of Miller prior to his taking office, "You will never be mayor of this city because you say stupid and dumb things." Apparently it's a prerequisite for the job. In that regard, Rob Ford fits in just fine.