Rod McQueen's Blog, page 8

Peter C. Newman 1929-2023

After serving five years as press secretary to Robert Stanfield, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, I tried to get back into journalism, but no one would have me. I guess they thought I would sneak Tory propaganda into my writing. So I became director of public affairs for the Bank of Nova Scotia. Two years later, suitably drycleaned, I tried again.
Peter C. Newman, editor of Maclean’s, was about to take the magazine weekly in 1978. My job interview with him took place during his lunch hour. He was sitting in the slot of a kidney-shaped desk, unwrapping his sandwich. He removed the top slice of bread and threw it into the waste basket. The lettuce met the same fate followed by the tomato slices. Down to the chopped egg, he ate what was left. I thought, “What else would an editor do but strip something down to the essentials?” He hired me as business editor. Two issues later, I wrote the cover story about Conrad Black who had just acquired Argus Corp. What a way to return to journalism!
At some point, Peter said to me, “I’m not going to do a book about the banks, why don’t you?” It was classic; he gave me something he didn’t want. But I embraced the idea and began research and writing what became “The Moneyspinners,” published in 1983, that spent fourteen weeks on the best seller list.
I even mimicked Peter’s writing habit – get up at 4:30 a.m. so you can write and then go do your day job. After a while, I said to him, “I’ve written sixty pages and I can’t get the first chapter stopped.” “You write the first chapter last,” he said, “it’s the epilogue.” With such advice, one can prosper.
For all Peter’s savvy, I did not follow all his ways. Many politicians accepted his invitation to come to his office for an interview and then be featured in his weekly editorial. Such a one was Joe Clark, PC leader after Stanfield. In his editorial Peter described him by saying something along the lines of: He came into the room like a faun eating broccoli from a cupped hand. This was the kind of situation where Peter stopped being a journalist and became a writer of creative non-fiction. He wrote that sentence before they even met.
Peter had detractors for other reasons. Historians dismissed him because his books sold better than theirs. Lazy journalists robbed material from his research without giving credit. For me, Peter was a wonderful mentor. Without his prompting, I wouldn’t have written seventeen successful books in the last forty years. So, thank you, Peter. One last time.

The silent service

The troubling aspect about Justin Trudeau is that we know his every wonky policy proposal and his detailed travel schedule including what leader he’s meeting with in what far-off country. But we don’t know the answer to the most important question of all – who is his paramour? Since the announcement that Trudeau split with his wife, there has been total silence on who he’s been seeing.
Oh, I’ve heard four different rumours, but I don’t know the truth. Yet there must be at least one hundred people in Ottawa who know the name of the person in question. Many of those one hundred are members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery so I texted one of them to ask.
The answer was illuminating, not because I learned the name, but because of the tone of the response, which went something like this: “The prime minister may have had an affair, lots of people in Ottawa have affairs. I’m not going to spend any time seeking the answer because it’s not worthy of pursuit.” Translation: Such prurient inquiries were beneath her/him.
I bet most Canadians want to learn who’s the love interest and maybe, as I am willing to admit, as soon as they hear they will feign lack of interest. That’s our character: wanting to know, unwilling to acknowledge.
The real issue is this: what else is the Parliamentary Press Gallery keeping from us? Obviously, I don’t know, but I know why. They might desire a job in Ottawa someday and they don’t want to blot their copy books by writing that which Ottawa higher-ups don’t want to read. 
Here’s what happens. After eight years or so in the Press Gallery, a correspondent gets tired and maybe is ready for a career change. They don’t want to go back to home base, whether in Toronto or Split Lip, Alberta. No, they want to do communications for a cabinet minister, become an assistant deputy minister in some department, or even be appointed to the Senate as has happened to journalists in the past. 
In that regard, Ottawa’s in a time warp. The situation is reminiscent of the 1960s when President John F. Kennedy’s philandering was kept private by the White House press corps. Is there no one in the Parliamentary Press Gallery who’s brave enough to tell Canadians what we really want to know? We’re all ears.

Foreign affairs

There’s been a lot of foorfaraw lately about the 800,000 foreign students in Canada including: whether it’s all just a smokescreen for immigration, a trip through a diploma mill, or working underground for less than minimum wage. Among the numbers I’ve recently read was that foreign students comprise 17 percent of Canadian university enrolment and supply cajllions in annual revenue for those institutions.
I’m going to address an even thornier and far-less-discussed issue: what are those foreign students actually learning in university classes? A few years back, I was regularly invited to speak for several years running to a university class. The student audience usually numbered about sixty with about one-third obviously foreign.
After my remarks, the floor was opened for questions. Never did a foreign student ask a question. The students then broke into smaller groups; each group would report their findings back to the full class. No foreign student ever delivered that report.
My assumption? There was a language barrier. I also presume they had taken a language test that couldn’t have had a very high bar. As a result, I hereby urge all universities to set a more realistic level of fluency before permitting registration.
If that were done, there would almost certainly be fewer foreign students and a sizeable drop in the money received annually by Canadian schools because of the far higher fees paid by foreign students.
In order to make my tougher test idea more palatable for those schools, I have two income-generating suggestions. First, any Canadian student who graduates from a Canadian university and leaves Canada for a job or further degree in the U.S. must repay to the Canada Revenue Agency the public-supported portion of their undergraduate program. Second, to take a page from the IRS and its treatment of American citizens, any Canadian who moves to the U.S. must pay Canadian tax on their worldwide income. Even if they renounce their Canadian citizenship to avoid that continuing Canadian tax, that tax on their worldwide income will continue for another ten years.
I readily admit that I have no idea how much revenue would be generated for universities by my suggestions. Let’s change the tax laws and find out.

Hugh Segal 1950-2023

Let me begin by telling my favourite Hugh Segal anecdote. In 1972, Hugh ran as the Progressive Conservative candidate in Ottawa Centre. Although the riding had been a Liberal stronghold for years, he managed to finish second, falling only 1,202 votes short. Another election was likely within two years, so while he continued campaigning, he was made a special assistant to Opposition Leader Robert Stanfield, and moved into the leader’s Parliamentary office next to me where I was press secretary.
Among his early assignments, Hugh was asked to write the annual Christmas message for Stanfield, words that would be distributed by the Canadian Press and Broadcast News to newspapers and radio stations across the country. As a Jew, Hugh said he got a kick out of writing about the three wise men following a star to the manger in Bethlehem.
The next Christmas, I was the designated writer for that message. I did a draft and gave it to Stanfield. A couple of days passed and I hadn’t heard anything, so I asked the leader about my words. Stanfield gave one of his thoughtful pauses and said: “Why don’t we just use what Hughie wrote last year.”
For years after, whenever Hugh and I happened to attend the same reception and found ourselves standing near each other, he loved to tell all and sundry the first half of that story, knowing I would chime in with Stanfield’s memorable response.
Hugh was a Renaissance man. Not only was he a candidate for MP, he also ran for party leader in 1998, served in the Senate, and was chief of staff to both Ontario Premier Bill Davis and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He was successful in business, served as master of Massey College, and was the author of numerous readable books. He also had policy ideas that included a guaranteed annual income. He’d grown up poor in Montreal, knew what it was like for a family to go without, and wanted to improve the lives of everyone who faced similar circumstances.
Most of all, Hugh was a pleasure to be with. He had a rapier wit and a ready laugh that I will always be able to hear in my head and hold in my heart. My condolences to his wife Donna and daughter Jacqueline. We shall not see his like again.

Positive steps

It’s been almost a month since Olivia Chow was elected mayor of Toronto and I have to admit I like the tone and tenor of her comments and comportment far more than I thought I would. I also have to admit I did not vote for her. My ballot was cast for Ana Bailão who came second with 37 percent to Chow’s 40 percent.
With the vote counted I realized how important former mayor John Tory’s late-in-the-campaign endorsement of Bailão was. But let me add an aside. Once Tory resigned as mayor because of an affair with a staffer, he should have run in the by-election. He probably would have won. Some voters these days seem unconcerned about the morality of candidates. Donald Trump, for example, is favoured by a majority of Republicans even though he raped a woman in the change room at Bergdorf Goodman.
Chow certainly has the career training for her new role. She’s been a school board trustee, councillor, and NDP member of Parliament. As mayor, Chow has declared she will follow the decision of the previous council to change the name of Dundas Street because Scottish politician Henry Dundas purportedly supported slavery. I’d rather they didn’t proceed but there are enough fights ahead without reopening cold cases.
As for Chow’s activities to date, I like her initial steps toward more housing for refugees and asylum seekers. I also admired how she spoke out on battered wives, thereby raising awareness about one of the major issues of society today. I don’t even mind that she has pledged to raise taxes. We can’t keep running huge budget deficits.
To be sure, there is plenty to do. Toronto traffic is more constricted than New York’s. More housing must be built for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrive annually in Canada and want to live in Toronto. There’s also too much meth done in the streets thereby causing mental illness among users and angst among citizens in general.
As for Chow herself, we’ll be watching. “A week is a long time in politics,” British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said. A month is even longer. For Chow, this first month has been positive. Let’s wish her well. The last thing Toronto needs is any more setbacks.

Going for baroque

Who could have imagined the new Pierre Poilievre? Not me. One day he’s a geeky, bespectacled nonentity, and the next day he’s sleek, newly sartorial, with a swirled head of hair and eyes that see and can be seen. Put it all together and I’d almost call him handsome.
I cannot imagine the hours of staff meetings that went into this transformation. Well, as a former political staffer to another leader who had image problems, in fact, I can well imagine. A journalist was commissioned to write a magazine piece on my leader, Robert Stanfield, and we foolishly allowed said writer to sit in on a staff meeting. When the article appeared we were surprised just how much time we’d spent discussing the leader’s image.  
But we made no progress. Poilievre has. Coincident with his makeover, some polling is circulating that that has him five or six percentage points ahead of Justin Trudeau nationally. To be sure, that doesn’t necessarily translate into seats, but it is said that Poilievre is doing well in some of the Toronto ridings where Conservatives have won in the past, but not recently. If that’s the case, then there are other regions in the country where Poilievre has made headway. It is a political truism that Toronto is the last to know.
My favourite political columnist, Andrew Coyne of the Globe and Mail, has written extensively of late how Trudeau might be returned after a close election because, as prime minister, he can meet the house, and call a vote. With the continued support of the New Democratic Party, he could hang on to power. What Coyne has not factored into his equation is the number of seats the NDP might have. At the moment, they have 25, but I doubt they will command that high a number after an election. NDP voters in the past haven’t liked supporting Liberals. They might stay home or vote Green.
Nor has Coyne made much of the idea of Poilievre combined with the Bloc Québécois. The Conservatives have 116 seats, the BQ 32 for a total of 148. The Liberal-NDP consortium have 183. I can see the possibility for Poilievre and the BQ to have more seats after an election than the Liberal-NDP duo. 
Did Poilievre’s do-over work? Absolutely. The country is taking a closer, more positive look. I’d bet my next haircut on him.

Smokin’ mad

At the Major League Baseball Home Run Derby the other night, we viewers were treated to a wondrous version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by American Idol winner Iam Tongi. When he was done, T-Mobile Stadium in Seattle resounded with cheers.
And that was it. There was no “O Canada” sung by Tongi or anyone else despite the fact that the Toronto Blue Jays had the third-highest number of players in the game after the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers. Tongi later apologized for not taking off his hat during his warbling but Canadians got no acknowledgement for our anthem going missing. And this after I have stood in Rogers Stadium I don’t know how many times listening patiently to the U.S. anthem.
What gives? Have we not apologized enough for the smoky air in the U.S. because of our forest fires? We’re good at that. Apologizing, I mean.
And the atrocities continued in the Derby as a bunch of batters tried to hit as many homers as they could in a designated period of time. When it was all over, the winner was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Blue Jays. Vlady made the win even more heartfelt because it was the first time a father-and-son duo had ever won the Derby. His father won fifteen years ago. Then Canada got sideswiped all over again when they announced Vlady’s victory and said he was born in Cuba. What the blazes? He’s a Canadian, born in Montreal.
I’m afraid that such atrocities are not limited to baseball. During the program aired on the occasion of the 4th of July celebrations in Washington, the only two singers who performed were both female: Alanis Morissette and Shania Twain. You might recognize both as Canadians but there was no announcement of their nationality. They appeared on the U.S. network Independence Day show just like they hailed from Cheyenne and Chicago respectively. What do we have to do to get a little respect around here? 
Here’s an idea. Let’s stop apologizing for everything, all rise in our places and sing “O Canada” as loudly as we can. That’ll really smoke them, eh?

No way out

My definition of a conflict of interest goes like this: If you have to think about it, you probably have a conflict. I hereby declare that I knowingly have a conflict but I’m going to write anyway about the proposed merger between Postmedia, a public company, and Nordstar Capital, run by Jordan Bitove.
Here are my two conflicts. I used to work at Postmedia. Indeed, I was among the first group of National Post journalists fired in 2001, a week after 9/11. Postmedia has fired hundreds more journalists in the last twenty-two years and never once made a profit, proving that fewer can never make more. My second conflict is that I know Bitove. We’re not close, but he has certainly made all the right noises about keeping a strong newsroom at the Toronto Star. In fact, he and his former partner came apart because of this issue. 
My first fond hope is that the Competition Bureau will scotch this proposed new deal. So, since I’ve taken to talking Scottish, let me offer a response to my own wish, “A hae ma doots.” The Bureau doesn’t seem to have the strength to get up in the morning let alone do something useful. Postmedia owns thirty-seven newspapers. Nordstar has seven. No one would make a bet on all forty-four titles still being alive a year after any approved merger.
Ironically, the result will be newsworthy. Journalists who still have jobs will lay crepe on the graves while worrying about their own skin. Readers will mourn for a day or two and then go back to getting their news from Apple or some other online freebie. Meantime, I will be the first to admit that I am among the many who read far fewer newspapers and magazines than I used to. I have pretty much limited myself to the Globe and Mail (thank goodness for the deep pockets of the Thomson family) and the New York Times which says it has 9.7 million subscribers of its print and digital products. I no longer read Time, Newsweek or Maclean’s, another former employer. Whatever happens next, no good is going to come of this for journalists and readers alike.

Walking off the field

In a world where the Saudis have taken over the PGA Golf Tour, money is everything. Even those professional golfers who scoffed when the Saudis set up their own tour last year – and lured away some big names with massive payments – are now on side. Rory McIlroy, my favourite player, refused to join the Saudis despite being offered a reported $300 million. He’s apparently okay with the new arrangement. Word is that he might get that mullah moolah after all. 
The Toronto Blue Jays have decided to join the greed gang. A friend of mine has been a Jays subscriber since that first game in the snow at CNE Stadium in 1977. During all that time, he has been joined by others who split his tickets. After all, few individuals can go to 81 home games a year. As a result, there are about eight of us who share. Some take as many as ten pairs; others as few as four pairs. The seats are excellent, so excellent that the Jays are licking their lips in glee.
About a month ago, we learned that the Jays would be charging about 30 percent more next year for the same seats. That was acceptable. After all, they had just spent $200 million on upgrades to the stadium. They also said the seats would be larger, padded, and would come with free snacks.
But the Jays then had second thoughts and devised a new scheme. They said at the end of this season they would literally take back “our” seats. We would then be offered an opportunity to try and secure a new pair of seats from them with little chance of maintaining the same authentic “in the action” experience as we had previously enjoyed. We were, in effect, put at the back of the line. And even if we did proceed, we had to sign up for a two-year commitment for what would be much more expensive for undoubtedly lesser seats. As you might imagine, my friend, the seat-holder for 46 year, declined.
Michael Douglas starred as Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie, “Wall Street.” You remember the scene, I’m sure, when he famously declared to the audience, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good!” Maybe for some. But not for us little folks at the bottom of the pile.

The name game

So much in business is based on perception, from the feel of a handshake to faith in the system, that it’s hard to imagine the suffering of a man burdened by an unusual name. Take David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media, who had a role in the hush money payment that kept Donald Trump’s name out of National Enquirer. Being stuck with a surname of that ilk must haunt a man throughout his natural born days.
Just as a surname can mark a man in business, nicknames can backfire badly. Look at what happened to “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap, a downsizing denizen whose claim to fame was firing thousands of employees at Scott Paper Co. When he failed to achieve a similar killing-fields turnaround at Sunbeam Corp., he was himself turfed.
Some nicknames are so nonsensical that they don’t seem to suit their wearer, like Stuart “Bull Moose” Mackersy, one-time head of the Imperial Bank of Canada. After Imperial merged with The Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1961, Mackersy became chairman of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and was best known for taking a daily nap in his office after lunch.
The most sophisticated name I’ve ever known in Canadian business had to be the one borne with honour by Osler, Hoskin lawyer Gordon Dorward de Salaberry Wotherspoon. His friends called him “Swatty,” a nickname rendered even more unlikely by the fact it was also applied to his brother, children, and nephews.
As for me, as close as I came to claiming any kind of name status was my erstwhile association with Steve McQueen. In France, where the movie star remained popular long after his career had faded elsewhere, I used to make restaurant reservations by telephone then try to be helpful with the spelling of my surname by explaining, “Comme le vedette, Steve.” Like the star, Steve. The result was much excitement over this pathetic attempt at riding on someone else’s coattails until I showed up and the maître d’ realized that I was not Steve, and furthermore, he was dead, and I was nowhere near as handsome. My excellent table often became instead the one by the kitchen door. So cheer up, Mr. Pecker, you’re not the only one who has suffered in the name game.