Good morning,
On a Friday in mid-September, several days before many Canadians would cast their ballots in a federal election, Joe Natale had cellphones on his mind.
It’s fair to say the 57-year-old chief executive officer of Rogers Communications Inc. almost always has cellphones on his mind. The company he runs provides more than 10 million people with wireless service, which means roughly one out of every four Canadians uses a device powered by Rogers, and the telecom’s wireless network facilitates millions of calls per day.
But on this day, Sept. 17, Natale was preoccupied with just one phone call in particular, an accidental one he was never meant to be on.
That inadvertent phone call exposed a plan that has plunged one of the country’s largest telecom and media empires into chaos, and ignited the most spectacular boardroom and family drama in Canadian corporate history.
- Directors who support Edward Rogers fire back at accusations
- Joe Natale was set to earn $200-million severance package before family fought to retain him
- Andrew Willis: Since Ted Rogers died, the ‘Old Guards’ are the powers behind the throne
Traffic drives past the Rogers corporate head office and headquarters along Mount Pleasant Road in Toronto on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Evan BuhlerEvan Buhler/The Canadian Press
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Pope Francis to visit Canada for Indigenous reconciliation, Vatican says
Pope Francis has agreed to visit Canada as part of the reconciliation process, bowing to years of pressure from Indigenous groups and Catholics appalled by rampant abuse in the country’s residential schools.
If the Pope apologizes when he visits, it would fulfill a Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendation from 2015. The TRC called on the Pope to apologize for the “Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools” within one year.
The Pope, however, is bound to have a mixed reception when he visits. For many survivors of residential schools, he embodies a past that cannot be forgiven.
Existence of mysterious brain disease questioned by New Brunswick health officials
New Brunswick’s Health Minister says public-health investigators are increasingly questioning the existence of a new and mysterious brain disease that has sparked fears across the province.
Health Minister Dorothy Shephard told a news conference yesterday that an epidemiological study into 48 suspected cases of the illness did not find any evidence of a common exposure that could have triggered a potentially new neurological syndrome. Instead, she said, provincial health officials believe many of those cases may have been misclassified by a single neurologist working in the province.
For months, New Brunswickers have been anxious to learn more about a cluster of patients with symptoms similar to those of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, including memory loss, balance problems and hallucinations – all supposedly associated with an unknown brain disorder.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Blackhawks abuse scandal raises culture questions: For three weeks in 2010, they did nothing. That’s how long it took for the leadership of the Chicago Blackhawks to act on allegations that an assistant coach sexually assaulted a player. Three weeks that – more than a decade later – rocked a once-proud franchise and raised more questions about the culture of sports.
Bank of Canada moves forward timeline for rate hikes: The Bank of Canada is ending its quantitative easing program and moving forward its timeline for potential interest-rate hikes as supply chain disruptions and surging oil prices have forced it to reconsider its outlook for inflation.
- David Parkinson: BoC leans its weight against inflation fears without changing its view about temporary nature of price spikes
O’Toole won’t say how many of his MPs have not received the jab: Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says members of his party who enter the House of Commons will “respect and abide by new rules which require parliamentarians attending the House of Commons to be vaccinated.” However, O’Toole said, the Conservatives will challenge those rules.
Containers that fell off ship could harm marine life, Coast Guard says: The Canadian Coast Guard now says that more than 100 shipping containers, at least two of them carrying hazardous chemicals, fell off a vessel that later caught fire, and marine experts are concerned fish and even whales could suffer from chemical burning as a result of the accident.
MORNING MARKETS
Global stocks traded in narrow ranges near recent record highs on Thursday as investors digested a stream of mixed earnings ahead of key central bank meetings.
The MSCI All World Stock Index was little changed at 741 points, barely below its lifetime high of 749.16 points hit last month. In Europe, the STOXX index of 600 companies was also flat at 474 points, some two points below its record high from August.
Markets awaited the European Central Bank’s meeting later in the morning, with the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of England meetings next week also a focus against the backdrop of inflationary pressures from bottlenecks in global supply chains.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
John Ibbitson: “[Justin] Trudeau’s cabinet choices suggest that this Prime Minister is also sending a message. He has decided to give up placating Prairie concerns. Fighting global warming is his highest priority, and fight it he will. Even if the Grits are estranged from the West for another 40 years.”
Editorial: “But the larger story is the shift in ideology in Conservative ranks. There is a simple reason for it. After adopting the populist tactic of accusing Liberals and others foes of being wealthy, self-serving ‘elites’ who only care about the downtown crowd, they’ve finally figured something out: that a growing number of blue collar people are voting Conservative. And to get more of those voters, Conservatives have to offer them something more nourishing than resentment.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Lynn Crawford and Lora Kirk let home chefs in on some of their kitchen secrets
When chefs Lynn Crawford and Lora Kirk opened Ruby Watchco in Toronto a decade ago, their passion for championing locally grown, organic products soon caught on and helped to mobilize the farm-to-table movement in Canada. Their new cookbook, Hearth & Home: Cook, Share and Celebrate Family-Style, is testament to their simpler way of life.
MOMENT IN TIME: OCTOBER 28, 1973
Secretariat gallops down the home stretch to win the Canadian International Championship stakes at Woodbine race track, October 28, 1973.John Wood/The Globe and Mail
Secretariat rides off with his 16th and final victory
In the rainy dusk at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack on this day in 1973, some 35,000 people exhibited a level of adulation normally reserved in Canada for rock-star prime ministers. Which was fair enough – Secretariat, the subject of their fandom, had won more races than Pierre Elliott Trudeau. With 15 victories to his credit, including the Triple Crown, the stallion widely regarded as the most talented horse in thoroughbred history would run his last race at the Canadian International Championships Stakes. Before the contest, as flashbulbs flared from the frenzied crowd near the paddocks, the massive animal known as Big Red hardly noted the attention he was being paid. Astride him was American jockey Eddie Maple, a substitute for the horse’s regular rider, the New Brunswick-born Ron Turcotte (who was serving a suspension). As for the race itself, the three-year-old champion outclassed the older horses pitted against him, winning by 6½ lengths on a slick turf track. Afterward, Secretariat’s owner, Penny Tweedy, was asked what had excited her most about the day. “The fact that we won,” she replied. Brad Wheeler
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