I’m sure that every French dilettante who ascended the steps to the gallows during those cleansing day of the French Revolution were wondering the same thing as many titans of business are today.

“Why do they hate use so much? I mean really we’re not that bad.”

Yet, as U.S. public perception of big business rapidly turns from hero to villain, from placid Canada, nothing.

Oh, maybe I’m being a tad harsh. There is the slight grumbling of resentment and outrage. That sort of coffee talk indignation that ends at the finish of a mocha latte. But no marching in the streets. No mass calls for righting an egregious wrong.

Maybe, you say: “Canadian business is not that bad. Not like those money grabbing, soulless vipers of Wall Street.
We’re not like that up here.”

Well, yes, we are.

And let’s start with the biggest red flag two-word combustible combination that has come down the pike in the last few years.

Executive bonuses.

Just saying it causes arguments to flare, shackles to rise, and indignation to skyrocket.
So, let’s take a look at a few homegrown examples.

NORTEL NETWORKS. Granted bankruptcy protection from creditors on January 2009. Nortel went to court to grant executives bonuses (totally 45 million Yankee dollars) two months later. Nice. Very nice. Stocks may plummet, the sky may fall, and workers may be laid off. But baby must get his bottle.
And Nortel’s brass certainly got theirs. A gold-covered diamond-encrusted bottle for a job not that well done.

Next, the CBC.

The crown corporation’s sole purpose of existence is to produce Canadian programming. So amid program cuts to both radio and television. And soon-to-be implemented staff reductions, which will further reduce the quantity and quality of on-air programming, CBC executives have decided to retain executive bonuses.
Albeit, scaled back by 50 percent.

Sounds good? Right?
Wrong.

Why are executives of a money losing Crown Corporation getting bonuses in the first place? For being able to lose money quicker?
Or for cutting more programs?

Unfathomable.

Even more unfathomable is that the president of the CBC gets paid between $350,000 to $500,000 a year. The exact number is based on varying bonuses
To put that into perspective, the Prime Minister of Canada gets paid $310,000 a year. The Governor-General gets $121, 000 annually. I guess running the country is less taxing than putting on a couple episodes of “Little Mosque on the Prairie.”

QUEBECOR WORLD INC. Only holding the job for about a month before the company went bankrupt, Quebecor CEO, Jacques Mallette received a 1.4 million dollar bonus. Then, the company went to court so that nearly 400 of its managers could get their slice of a $400 million executive bonus pie. How about fix the company first, then get the bonus.

Nonsense. Simple greed always trumps simple logic.

So don’t feel left out Canada. We have our own proudly Canadian corporate raiders. Ready to stick it to you, just like they do it in the good ol’ U.S.A.

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Tags: bonuses, business, executives

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