Bell Globemedia on one side, Liberal Party on the other, and a lobbyist in the middle;
A lobbyist for the corporate giant that owns two of this country’s most prominent media outlets is now running the Liberal campaign in Ontario in the upcoming federal election. Isn’t that lovely?
And like all good Liberal lobbyists, he comes with Earnscliffe credentials!
(Previous post here.)
The sandwich is: hockey puck on shoe leather, with a side of rusty nails.
That’s what the Liberals want us to swallow.
What drives me nuts about this is that the MSM is reporting absolutely nothing about this. Can you imagine if the CP had a lobbyist for CNRL (Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.) a huge player in the tarsands as its campaign manager? The MSM would be chasing him with mics all over the place.
Heard a discussion on Bill Good CKNW Vancouver on style vs. substance in leadership. They used Bill Clinton as an example of someone with style, who could persuade the masses and get elected despite very questionable integrity. Stephen Harper, they said, had no style.
What is really absurd is that people will agree with this premise that we should elect people on the basis of their charm and persuasion! What about Hitler? He could get the crowd going.
Why will people fall for this? Why are there so many stupid people? They say “elect the man who impresses me with his personal charisma!!!!” What an idiotic, infantile and shortsighted thing to do!
What about the RCMP investigation on the Trust Tax leak? That’s not newsworthy???? At the Globe there’s nothing.
Instead they’ve got articles attacking Duceppe, and Harper on his “American style” prosecutor.
Well there’s no question that the Globe is running zone defence for team Martin.
The Liberals and the MSM Again: Way Too Close?
The evidence keeps on mounting day after day. Once again we see more evidence of MSM bias in favor of the Liberals, this time with regards to Bell Globemedia.
Wow jeff, what was your first clue? For me it was the lead Globe editorial a day or two before the last election that clearly and strongly advised Canadians to vote Liberal.
Nothing in today’s Post either…couldn’t believe it and to top it off, Kenney’s Omni gaffe makes the front f***in’ page.
Just cancelled my subscription.
“Prior to joining Earnscliffe in February of 2000, Bird was Policy Advisor to the Hon. Ralph Goodale”
Speaking of Finance Minister Goodale – the guy who is in charge of the banks – I see the banks are cashing in with record profits. Now, profits are good and all, don’t get me wrong, but….
First I read this:
RBC nails new bank profit record
Royal Bank of Canada has shattered the profit record for Canadian banks…
then I read this:
TORONTO (CP) – The Bank of Montreal and rival Scotiabank posted fatter fourth-quarter and year-end profits Tuesday driven by solid lending gains in their mainstay Canadian operations.
Analysts called it a “terrific” showing as the Bank of Montreal delivered an annual profit of $2.4 billion before being upstaged by Scotiabank’s $3.21-billion earnings and its stepped-up quarterly dividend.
Then read this bit that I just posted:
Bankers pay for Liberal soiree Caucus retreat event
Andrew McIntosh
National Post Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Members of the Liberal government attending their annual summer caucus retreat last week were treated to an open bar and platters of food during a private party paid for by the Canadian Bankers Association.
…
“It seems rather strange that the Liberals cannot differentiate between accepting the hospitality of bankers and deciding on bank mergers. The ethics and the optics of accepting the hospitality are all wrong,” John Williams, an Alberta Canadian Alliance MP, said.
Howard Wilson, the Ethics Counsellor, declined to comment on whether it was appropriate for the Liberal caucus as a whole to accept a party from a banking industry group. “My orbit extends to ministers and public office holders. The rules do not prohibit them as individuals from accepting this kind of hospitality,” he said.
Asked about the ethics of a governing party accepting a private party from bankers, Mr. Wilson laughed and said: “I really don’t have a comment on it.”
I completely understand what Stephen Harper is saying when he says:
“Friends, it seems like every day in the newspapers, we read about powerful and privileged insiders, who are better off than they were 12 years ago. But we must ask ordinary Canadians, �are you any better off?� Under a Conservative government, they will be.”
And don’t take it from Harper; take it from Catherine Swift of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Bottom line: the banks have been cashing in off the Liberals for over a dozen years now, while closing branches.
Banks? People dumb enough to use them deserve to have their money swiped I use a credit union.
NO SERVICE CHARGES!!! [if your debits and credits > 30k got a mtg?] Oh wait 50 cents to pay my credit cards online non refunded.
http://www.cambrian.mb.ca
However, I do have RRSP’s with shares in the Banks so feel free to keep giving me your hard earned money.
: )
Actually, I am disgusted with the Bank profits, not because I am anti-profit, but because I am anti-protectionist.
The Banks are the ROC’s Bombardier. We think it’s a good thing to have strong banks. Five or six of them that are literally given the license to print money by having favourable access. (read: low cost access to the BOC’s money supply).
In the US there are over 10,000 banks competing for your deposits and debt. It is in my opinion, the singlemost important reason why the US has consistently had higher productivity growth than Canada.
Yet, were the CP to even breathe that the industry be deregulated they would be crucified. Saying similar things about the OIL industry would get exactly the opposite reaction.
Living behind a protectionist wall has made our banking system fat, inefficient and increasingly uncompetitve versus the rest of the world. The longer Canada dithers over deregulation the more vulnerable the banks become and our economy becomes.
Gord Tulk
It�s not the banks asking for protection it�s the Liberals keeping foreign ownership out despite the Liberal�s own report, MacKay, recommending mergers and foreign ownership.
The foreign disallowance all began with the �father of nationalism�, Finance Minister Walter Gordon, who in the 60�s disallowed Chase Manhattan Bank of New York from buying TD.
Bring �em on, let foreigners buy banks; HSBC could buy any Canadian Bank out of petty cash. We need strong global banks in Canada if we expect to have our corporations deal in countries other then the USA. Also as consumers we need global banks to help us get our money out of here into a safe tax haven. While we�re at it let�s allow Murdock to buy Bell/Globe and Mail/CTV and so on.
Also another posting above mentions the usual Catherine Swift rants against the banks but the links don�t mention anything specific as to what her problems are- other then insurance. But Desmarais/Great West Life has made sure the banks can�t sell insurance, so why doesn�t Swift rant about that? Why can�t banks sell insurance and lease cars? These are financial products; every other country lets banks sell these products to offer wider competition to consumers. Answer � it�s the cartel. If foreign companies owned banks they�d insist on change. Also, Murdock would create a FOX Canada etc.
At this point in time we should resign ourselves to the reality that any large business interest operating in Canada which makes money, is patronage connected…this is simply how business is done…they have accepted this in the central Canadian business cliques and now we see even the media hinting to us we should not be shocked… that to make it big in Canadian business it takes political connections with federal politicians.
Powercor set the standard…Magna followed and now bay Street acquiesces to this 2nd world fate. In a corrupt state, market access is gained through the right political connections…perhaps this is why Martin, Strong and Desmarais do so well in communist China’s politically controlled markets.
WL M R, exactly, if you�re the CEO of a Bank , subject to review of the Bank Act and subject a whole multitude of regulatory bodies coming out of Ottawa , you have an obligation to your shareholders to be �friendly� and �dance with the one that brung ye�.
Librano$$ use the CRTC and their television production grants to bribe the media. Bell/G&M/CTV has it�s lobbyist running the Ontario Liberal campaign because it has hundreds of millions of lobby time tied up in the existing Ottawa civil service that it continually has to wine and dine.
It�s a very sick situation that will only get worse if we don�t bust it up.
Even the Mulroney years didn�t help because of Ottawa�s need to draw in the incestuous bilingual pool of civil servants out of the bilingual Montreal/Ottawa corridor. It’s nepotism gone wild.
Here’s old news but Fecan is still CEO of Bell Globemedia
“Monday, July 12, 2004
Media not merely liberal, it’s Liberal
Gillian Cosgrove of the National Post in Canada added the following bit to the end of her column almost in passing. It�s as if conservatives are the only ones who have faced reality and upon seeing the beast have thrown their hands up and conceded defeat. In contrast, Liberals rally around an unseen unknown fictional Conservative Party �hidden agenda� and win elections based on the dissemination of ether.
(Gillian Cosgrove, National Post, Friday July 09, 2004:
(…)
The intimate ties between Bell Globemedia, owners of the Globe [and Mail newspaper] and CTV, and the Martin Liberals were underscored in Sun Valley, Idaho, Wednesday when Paul Martin, in his first major event since the election, was an honoured guest at a closed-doors media mogul gabfest hosted by a Wall Street bank. According to the Globe, it was Ivan Fecan, the CEO of Bell Globemedia, who persuaded the PM to show up�to the derision of opposition parties and ire of the press gallery.
Other connections between the PMO [Prime Minister�s Office] and the Bell conglomerate include transferring Jack Fleischmann, editorial head of the Globe�s business channel, to direct the multi-million-dollar Grit advertising campaign that did those nasty attack ads against Stephen Harper. Then, too, Mr. Fecan hosted a huge Grit fundraiser, and his wife, Sandra Faire, staged the Martin fundraiser that netted a record $2.8 million in Toronto just before he became PM.
Conservatives are the only ones not astounded that the key people at the company that owns the television network that the vast majority of Canadians watch, which disseminates �news� and opinion and their own special tilt to stories that they cover and choose not to cover, are clearly and inconspicuously in bed with the Liberal Party and Paul Martin himself. Liberals have yet to see anything wrong with that. Conservatives have given up trying to wake people up.”
From http://www.proudtobecanadian.ca/blog/index/weblog/110/
And here’s Fecan’s bio.
http://www.bellglobemedia.com/x/bios/detail/?cid=2620
nomdenet:
The banks most definitely do want protection. They do not wnat anyone else getting the inside track on the BOC’s money. They do want deregulation of the Bank/insurance chinese wall but that it simply a case of wanting to have and eat their cake.
Continuing to keep them protected from foreign (and domestic) competition only weakens them and us. Someday competition will be allowed – it already is building in site of the rules – check out what Wells Fargo is doing here already – and the Banks and their shareholders (read: ALL of us)will fall hard.
W.L.M.
…”At this point in time we should resign ourselves to the reality that any large business interest operating in Canada which makes money, is patronage connected…this is simply how business is done…they have accepted this in the central Canadian business cliques…”
I agree with analysis that certainly many large businesses in Canada operate this way but certainly not all (Westjet and CNRL spring to mind) and I most certainly will not resign myself to letting it remain this way.
I think that this issues is perhaps the number one thing that the business elite in eastern Canada fears about Stephen Harper and the new Conservative party.
I emailed CTV ” ask us” on Nov 28th, about this, their reply was: “Mr. Bird has stepped down from his Bell Globemedia position at this time.” I guess you could just phone his office to confirm it, if you wanted to.
Gord Tulk, how do you know Banks don�t want foreign ownership? As I said before, TD tried to merge with a New York bank; it was disallowed.
I�m not sure what you mean about Wells Fargo � their small business loan telephone loan offering? They�ve been working on that for 10 years. Why can�t Wells just buy a Canadian Bank? Why doesn�t Catherine Swift at the CFIB encourage that? Furthermore 5 or 6 nationwide banks is a lot of competition, we don�t have 6 Airlines, nor 6 hydro companies in each province, nor 6 telephone companies nor 6 cable companies. Canadians should not fear a couple of Banks being bought. Greenspan essentially runs our monetary policy anyway.
Gord, I think we both want the same result; only I disagree with your stance that the Canadian banks as part of the �eastern business elite� are stalling on foreign ownership.It�s the Librano$$ that are the problem.
You allude to the real problem with Canadian Banks, i.e. there�s too much capital invested in the Banks. It needs to be freed up, diversified and reinvested elsewhere in the economy. They represent a third of the TSX, that’s nuts.
Like you, as a Bank shareholder I�d like to see it open up. But also, as shareholders, I�m sure the Bank CEO�s are heavily incented to want that too. It�s the Librano$$/Desmarais cartel that doesn�t want it to happen.
I think you are mistaken to lump all the �eastern business elite� into the same cesspool. The cartel of �controlling shareholders� like Desmarais and Stronach and the Bombardier family, behave a lot differently then CEO�s of widely held companies. But if that�s true I admit this opens the question of widely held Bell. Is Bell trying to make their conflicted situation obvious with their lobbyist? Why wouldn�t the Bell CEO want his stock options to gain value by selling out to a foreign buyer if he could?
Every Canadian should own bank shares, but *especially* those who bank at the major banks and get slapped around so. The profits are crazy.
We bank at BMO (my husband’s accts, ’cause he’s banked there forever) and TD (my and joint accts, ’cause they’d let me bank w/o an SIN and I insisted on using them). I think TD is much better than the others, but that has to do with one-half’s earlier history as a credit union. You pay a bit more than at a credit union, but you get much much better service than the other big banks. JMO.
Remember: in a pure capitalist system decisions would be based purely on what’s best for shareholders, but in a crony capitalist sitch like you have here, gov’t deals and protection factor in heavily, much more so than other countries.
Gord said: “I agree with analysis that certainly many large businesses in Canada operate this way but certainly not all (Westjet and CNRL spring to mind) and I most certainly will not resign myself to letting it remain this way.”
I concur with your will to resist this corruption of free market capitalist dynamics…however the Banks are a different matter. Ever since the federal government wassuckered into a Canadian form of fractional reseve banking by monopolists and banking moguls in the US, the government has essentially been out of control of its own money supply…this is a complicated system to understand but suffice to say the Canadian government has abandoned its constitutional duty to “issue currency” and does so through private proxies called chartered banks. Our currency is at the mercy of external market forces and currency speculators as a result . so worrying about what may or may not happen as a result of fed protection of these banks is moot…essentially Canadian currency value is set by global forces beyond government’s control.
You have been bought and paid for.