OUTTAKES
Department of External Affairs
/// Bernard Madoff, 71, was sentenced in June to serve 150 years in prison and to forfeit US$170 billion in assets for his role in one of history’s biggest scams (started as far back as 1991, Madoff has stated), which bilked thousands of his firm’s investors out of their life savings valued at up to US$65 billion. Arrested last December, he pleaded guilty in March to 11 charges.
/// Billions of dollars in “emergency loans” from the U.S., Canadian and Ontario governments proved insufficient for General Motors and Chrysler to stay out of bankruptcy. Extending further aid, the governments effectively become owners of the carmakers and force them to restructure in a hurry. In May, 300 dealerships across Canada are given notice that their operations will end by October 2010, resulting in about 10,000 jobs lost.
/// Massive printing of money by the U.S. Treasury and other central banks forestalled the threat of deflation but raised the likelihood of an inflationary spiral when the global economy recovers, or at least a devaluation of the U.S. dollar. Then there’s the not inconsiderable matter of paying down governments’ newfound debt.
/// The U.S. unemployment rate leapfrogged Canada’s for the first time in decades, passing the 10% threshold by October.
/// “Smart” cellphones moved beyond the business market as new, cheaper handsets and carrier plans attract consumers. Teenagers now peck at Qwerty keyboards on public transit.
/// An epic battle shaped up between Internet goliath Google and privately held upstart Facebook, which lured vast numbers of web surfers into its tightly controlled domain. At the behest of Canada’s privacy commissioner, though, Facebook agreed to deny access to users’ personal information by third-party developers.
You May Say I’m A Dreamer
Bob Blair: Aug. 13, 1929 – April 17, 2009
“I have personal dreams for the future, but they don’t matter right now,” Bob Blair once said. “Right now, everything is Nova.”
To his critics at the time – 1990, when Nova’s purchase of Ontario-based petrochemical producer Polysar Ltd. was souring on post-peak output – those were words of a man desperate to salvage his sprawling industrial empire. To admirers, they were proof of a nationalist’s unfaltering dedication to the dream of building a Canadian-based international resource giant. Either way, the words place Blair, the former Nova Corp. president and CEO who passed away this spring at the age of 79, amongst the most ambitious figures of Alberta business.
He’d also rank amongst the most focused. Born Sidney Robert in Trinidad, where his father managed the Trinidad Leaseholds oil refinery he’d helped build, Blair enrolled in chemical engineering at Queen’s University when just 16 years old. The dots connecting that to becoming president of what was then pipeline utility Alberta Gas Trunk Ltd. in 1970 suggest an almost single-minded drive. Time spent at Canadian Bechtel Ltd., then as president of an Alberta subsidiary of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., furnished Blair with the background in resource development and corporate management he would rely upon in transforming AGTL into the multibillion-dollar conglomerate of Nova Corp.
Largely, that was a product of Blair’s commitment to growth through acquisition. After an early shot at an Alaska pipeline proved fruitless (though earned him unexpected supporters amongst northern First Nations), the company bought into pipe networks outside Alberta. To the chagrin of Petro-Canada, it also quietly purchased a majority share in Husky Oil. It also diversified, with spotty success, into manufacturing: everything from gas valves to heavy trucks to cellphones through a stake in NovAtel Communications Ltd. At the behest of Premier Peter Lougheed, then worried about Alberta’s tightening focus on oil and gas, Nova moved into petrochemical production. It was a pioneering effort, and one that, given the volatility of commodity prices to come, would place Nova at the mercy of the markets in ways Blair regularly apologized for failing to have foreseen.
Despite that, Blair never showed diminished passion for making Nova a major international corporation. That his personal dreams didn’t matter during that 1990 interview with the Financial Post is poignant in retrospect. The following year, Blair would quietly step down as the company’s leader, his legacy to be both praised and disparaged.
Even if Nova never became the resource giant Blair had envisioned, evidence of its heights remains. Now Nexen Inc. HQ, Nova’s head office – Calgary’s knife-edge, silver skyscraper – was completed in 1982. Blair involved himself intimately in the design, recalls architect Fred Valentine, insisting it not only convey Nova’s integrity but also contribute to the downtown community.
“We advised him that the building could be three or four storeys higher… second to Petro-Canada’s in terms of height,” says Valentine. “And he said – I’ll never forget it – ‘I don’t want it to be the highest. I want it to be the best.’”
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