Here’s one more casualty: The bank’s high profile CEO, Gord Nixon, has fallen from his lofty perch atop Canada’s business and political pyramid.
So, too, have his fellow big bankers, who wield disproportionate influence in our national discourse. Canada is having second thoughts about outsourcing so much of its political thinking to these rarefied business elites.
Few noticed last year when RBC’s Nixon was entrusted with the keys to Ontario’s economic future by then-premier Dalton McGuinty. Lavishing praise upon this lavishly paid banker — $12.6 million last year — McGuinty described him as the perfect fit to head the new Jobs and Prosperity Council that would diagnose the province’s economic ills and prescribe thoughtful remedies.
Nixon was joined by a group of other business heavyweights on the Jobs Council who probably know more about outsourcing than sourcing jobs at home. Only one of its 14 members, CAW economist Jim Stanford, was a unionist who could plausibly speak for working people on the premier’s council.
It was a sign of the times. As for Nixon, he also chairs MaRS, a provincially funded “incubator” for start-ups and other fledgling firms that keeps promising to yield those elusive high-paying jobs of the future.
Nixon’s not a big bad banker. He’s just a massively overpaid banker who sees things differently from you and me.
If he has a weakness for outsourcing over crowdsourcing, it’s because he’s not a politician trained to take the province’s pulse; not an academic who understands the broader economy; not a bureaucrat whose brief is public policy; not a unionist who listens to working people.
Keenly aware of those blind spots, Canada’s politically astute, image-conscious banks have been consciously cross-pollinating their corporate structures, recruiting well-connected troubleshooters from the political classes:
BMO’s vice-chair is Kevin Lynch, a former top civil servant who joined Nixon as vice-chair on the premier’s Jobs and Prosperity Council and gives speeches on innovation and competitiveness. Over at CIBC you’ll find vice-chair Jim Prentice, the former federal cabinet minister and possibly future Conservative prime minister. TD Bank’s deputy chair is Frank McKenna, the glad-handing former New Brunswick premier.
These recruits are looking out for Number One — themselves, and their employers. How did they insinuate themselves into the big public debates of our time as self-styled big thinkers — or in the current parlance, “thought leaders?”
As RBC’s latest PR debacle shows, making money isn’t the only measure of success. Pushing the envelope with outsourcing may deliver value for money in today’s corporate culture, but it’s not a core value in Canadian political culture.
We have long fawned over Canada’s big bankers as exemplars of business savvy and virtuous thrift, even though they are largely the beneficiaries of dumb luck and political protection. Now, with RBC’s clients in an uproar, corporate Canada and the Conservative government are doing damage control, vowing to impose prudent limits on the way domestic jobs are exported to foreigners.
Outsourcing can’t be wished away. A temporary foreign worker visa program that alleviates urgent skills shortages can’t be stopped cold.
But our big banks owe it to us to outsource more selectively. They are in a league all their own: they can’t plead poverty; they have unrivalled scale; they are largely insulated from low-cost foreign competitors; and they make big money off their Canadian customer base.
RBC’s $7.5 billion profitRBC’s $7.5 billion profit last year translated into a 19.3 per cent return on equity. Not good enough? Need to squeeze more from the bottom line?
I suppose their value(s) proposition is their affair, and none of my business. But it’s a matter of credibility: When did big bankers gain such currency on the broad national stage?
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Martin Regg Cohn
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