I seldom review books here, but this one really deserves it.

I first stumbled onto Paul Downs when he was writing for the New York Times’s You’re The Boss blog, where he regularly chronicled the day-to-day challenges of running his small custom-design conference table company. (Look at his website to see the amazing pieces he and his team have created for the World Bank, the United Nations, the US Defense Department, Fortune 500 multinationals and on and on. Beautiful craftsmanship.)

I enjoyed his NYT posts immensely, for the clarity of his writing (you felt as if you were on the shop floor with him) but as well, for the honesty he demonstrated in describing how he faced – and sometimes failed to solve – the myriad of problems that cascade down on any small business owner. We have shared emails about profit-sharing and no layoff policies, which I wrote about in SPARK.

Downs has just published an excellent, highly-readable book, Boss Life: Surviving My Own Business, which explores how he and his firm made it through one calendar year, 2012. Not his worst year ever, not the best.

Just because your stunningly beautiful conference tables can sell for $50,000 and grace boardrooms of some of the world’s major institutions and private companies – it doesn’t mean there is always another sale just ahead.

In fact, the stories of how Downs and his sales team struggle to drum up contracts from opaque government departments, vague and weird foreign firms, semi-deceptive private companies and the odd dream client make for fascinating reading.

As reader, you hold your breath to see if he is going to make the next payroll – the relentless nightmare that appears every two weeks.

Meanwhile, he’s navigating the minefield of labor relations, pondering how to motivate both new workers and old-timers, be open about looming financial disaster, find time and money to train the sales staff, face the pain of firing someone who has cheated the company …

In other words, business as normal for any small company’s founder and now CEO.

Downs doesn’t shy away from also bringing his family into his work life – who can? One of his sons is navigating the highly precarious high-tech economy in Silicon Valley. Another son, now in his 20s, has autism, with all the attendant personal and financial challenges that places on a loving family.

This is a great story, with real characters, real suspense (would you want your firm’s future in the hands of a company across the world that never answers emails after promising you the moon?) and a demonstrable sense that this CEO really cares about his workers as people.

If you have ever run your own firm, perhaps worked in one or are harbouring dreams of starting one, you’ll love this. Especially the dreamers – because you have no idea what’s ahead of you!

All Paul Downs ever wanted to do when he graduated with an Ivy League education was to work with wood and make beautiful furniture.

29 years later, every once and awhile, he can take a few minutes to walk through his workshop in Philadelphia and chat with the craftsmen he employees about their latest projects – before racing back upstairs to his office to try to fix a website that has crashed, calm an irate customer 500 miles away when a delivery goes awry or worry about how to avoid a layoff.

Everyone in public life throws off the phrase about “small business being the foundation of our economy.”

Read this and you’ll find out what it means to actually run one.

Hats off to Paul Downs.  A survivor.

“I had an obligation to fulfill my end of the arrangement with him (Duffy). I couldn’t think of another way of doing it.”

Is anyone else profoundly insulted and deeply offended by this self-effacing statement from Nigel Wright as to why he forked over $90,000 of his own money, in secret,  to pay Mike Duffy’s debts? (Oh wait a minute, today in court (Thursday,) Wright quoted the Bible as justification for his charity. What’s next? A request for a papal indulgence?)

And for this piousness, we are supposed to somehow shrug off his amazing leading role in this tawdry political scandal, because after all, Nigel did the right thing, as he saw it? Gee, what a nice guy!

I have had it with the endless portrayals of this Bastion of Bay Street as an honest, noble, loyal, faithful, honorable, dedicated  ….. any more hagiographic adjectives you can add, please fill ’em in … servant of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Wright may well be all that … but that doesn’t give him a free pass when he messes up, big time.

The salient point of interest here is that Wright was the Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Canada. Read this official description of his job description. The focus is on governance by the Prime Minister for the development, strategizing and administration of those policies which the Prime Minister feels are in the interests of the country.  Nigel Wright’s obligations are to the Prime Minister and through him, to the people of Canada. He was part of a structure of responsibility in our parliamentary system.

We should all be offended that someone in that position decides that, because he happens to belong to the 0.1%, he can reach into his pocket to personally solve problems – in this case, to cover up financial shenanigans (crime, not crime, yadda, yadda) – because it is simply the easiest way to clear his off his crowded desk.

Nigel Wright didn’t have a personal obligation to pay Duffy’s debts, as he self-excusingly proclaimed.

His personal responsibility was to serve Canada and to maintain the integrity of its political institutions.

We should be repelled by any notion that we should admire – and excuse – an incredibly rich individual who goes into public service and then uses his personal resources to make political problems disappear.

He’s responsible, all right. For setting a very bad precedent in public service.

After I recently argued that CBC must stop calling Rex Murphy “just” a freelance opinionator, several people wrote to explain to me that there are actually two Rex Murphys at CBC.

They’re right, at least in the muddled minds of CBC managers. But it is a sham.

On CBC Television – Rex #1 is hired as “a freelancer,” encouraged to say whatever he wants. As a freelance commentator, he can also write opinionated columns for the National Post and make paid speeches.

On CBC Radio – Rex #2 is hired as “host” of Cross Country Checkup and contractually obligated to abide by CBC’s Journalistic Practices and Standards. He can’t reveal his own opinions, he must avoid any suspicion of conflict of interest and he must stay out of public controversies. Nor can Rex #2 write opinionated columns for the National Post or make paid speeches.

Hands up who thinks this works in the real world?

Example 1:

The National, CBC TV, 2011 – Rex praises the oil sands: “this one project, more perhaps than any other in Canada, has kept us out of the worst of the recession.”

Cross Country Checkup, CBC Radio, 2012 – Rex (contractually obligated to be impartial) asks Canadians their opinions on “The Appropriate Role of the Oil Sands in Canada’s Future?”

 National Post, 2015 – Rex says “I am a supporter of the Newfoundland and Alberta oil industry.”

To be blunt, why shouldn’t listeners to Cross Country Checkup suspect that Rex (the impartial radio host) might be skewing his phone conversations with Canadians to support what Rex (the freelancer on television) believes about the subject of that Sunday’s program?

Because Rex says so?

Example 2:

National Post, 2013 – Rex criticizes the “deplorable effort to frame the interactions between Canadians and Canada’s aboriginal peoples as a genocide — an accusation both illiterate and insulting.”

Cross Country Checkup, CBC Radio, 2015 – Rex asks Canadians and First Nations peoples about their opinions on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s report on residential schools. (Which was called a genocide by the Chief Justice of Canada just a week earlier!)

To support this nuttiness, CBC management has convinced itself – and asks Canadians to believe! – that Rex is a psychological Superman.

In management’s view, Rex (1 and 2) is in such complete control of his perceptions and biases that he can switch from one personality to the other while walking from a radio studio on the 3^rd floor of the Broadcast Centre in Toronto to a TV studio on the 5^th or to his kitchen to write a column for the National Post. That is obviously impossible, although convenient wishful thinking for CBC executives stuck in a pickle of their own making.

Arguing that this schizophrenic role playing makes journalistic sense is an insult to Canadians, who overwhelmingly think (as CBC’s Ombudsman admits) that Rex is a CBC employee just like Peter Mansbridge. Many Canadians are understandably troubled that Rex – unlike all his other CBC on-air colleagues – is allowed to offer his opinions on important public issues.

It’s like someone turning up in a courtroom to act as a judge one day and then the next, as an attorney – both working on the same case! It corrupts the clarity of the proceedings.

Finally, a question to CBC managers: would you ever advise another public broadcaster to hire one person to play two mutually opposing on-air roles?

How does this improve programming? What journalistic problem does it solve? Is it easily understood by audiences? Is it ethical?

This is not about Rex’s politics. It would be equally worrisome if CBC hired Rick Salutin or Chris Hedges to do what Rex does.

It creates confusion and mistrust among Canadians who value the CBC.

It is certainly not the way to ensure support for the CBC in these perilous times nor to protect the quality of its journalism.

Two new items about CBC prompt this morning’s comments on the struggles inside my former employer.

The first is John Doyle’s excellent column in today’s Globe&Mail A New and Better CBC Must Start From Within in which he tackles the corrosive impact on CBC’s badly-damaged reputation arising from the relentless “lack of discipline and outbreaks of arrogance among on-air staff” – referring to the slew of scandals over the past year and a half involving CBC journalists Peter Mansbridge, Rex Murphy, Amanda Lang and others.

I would only add that Doyle goes much too easy on CBC management in all this, as I wrote in Huffington Post two weeks ago. Bad behaviour allowed is bad behaviour encouraged – and that is why this keeps happening over and over.

The second item is the release of an opinion from the CBC’s Ombudsman, Esther Enkin, answering a complaint from a Canadian upset that Mansbridge (until two weeks ago) and Murphy (still) serve as patrons of the controversial Mother Canada war memorial project in Cape Breton.

Again, CBC management’s comments in the Ombudsman`s review caught my eye.

Jack Nagler, the Director of Journalistic Public Accountability and Engagement for CBC News, told the complainant that because he is only a history buff, Mansbridge “did not have any intention of being part of the decisions about design or location of this project. Since aspects of the project have become a matter of some contention, Mr. Mansbridge has resigned as one of the honorary patrons.”

Whatever Mansbridge thought about what he did/did not intend to do by becoming a patron is irrelevant. The CBC’s own rules are crystal clear on a situation like this. He – like all CBC journalists – is not allowed to take a position on any public controversy.

But Enkin adds that “is not always easy to assess what will create a conflict of interest. The line between a perceived conflict and the rights of an individual, even one who is a high-profile journalist at CBC, is not obvious, and each case must be judged on its merits.”

That anyone – anyone – in CBC management would think that a war memorial project could not become controversial, is amazing and disturbing. Which does lead to this question …

Did Mansbridge ask permission before accepting the patron offer?

Finally, in the Ombudsman`s review, we again read a tortured defense (cum apologia) of Rex Murphy`s status as a so-called freelancer for CBC.

And I mean tortured, as you will read. Enkin clearly believes the CBC is creating its own problems here, despite the fact she defends it. She states that it is no surprise the vast majority of Canadians believe Murphy is a journalist with the CBC just like Mansbridge and his journalist colleagues (despite the ridiculous distinction-without-meaning trundled out  every time that he is a freelancer.)

I don`t care what Rex Murphy talks about.

This is about good journalism and the abuse of privilege.

So here’s the problem to be faced by CBC managers and programmers who seem so committed to keeping Rex Murphy in the CBC public’s eye and ear – which came to me from a former CBC journalist.

“You can just see disaster looming here and when it strikes, we will all be wondering how and why the CBC thought it was wise to put all their commentator eggs in one basket. Sure Rex is a freelancer and sure he can take money from whomever, but that doesn’t mean that the CBC can’t employ lots of other commentators to dilute whatever horrible impact awaits when the next and then the next crisis erupts over Rex’s so-called “freelance” status.”

Fix this mess for the good of the CBC.

End Murphy’s fictional (and disaster-magnet) status as a freelancer.

And much better, start paying for a much broader range of commentators.

But please, do something.

Just out from the Institute for Research on Public Policy  ..  Who Are Canada’s Top 1 % Earners

Lots of details on Canada’s richest folks here, comparing 1981 with 2011 (the latest good data available)

Quick profile of the Top 1 %:

To get into the 1%   ..  you need $160,232 in income

80 % are men …. down from 92 % in 1981

Average hours worked / week ….. 46  versus 38 for all workers in Canada

Major industry …  Business / services

Province with the most 1% … Ontario (43%) followed by Alberta  (21 %)

Last factoid before you read the full report … fewer doctors in the top 1 % in 2011 (15 %) than in 1981  ( 19%)

Read the full report

According to the website of the controversial Never Forgotten war memorial proposed for Cape Breton Island, the name of Peter Mansbridge, the CBC’s Chief Correspondent and anchor of The National, has just been removed as Honourary Patron of the so-called Mother Canada project.

(Note: Later this Sunday afternoon, CBC’s national radio call-in show Cross Country Checkup will debate “What makes a good monument and praise-worthy public art?” with specific reference to the Mother Canada project.)

Mansbridge’s appearance as a project supporter for many months was, to say the least, unusual as controversy over the memorial grew across the country.

It broke the CBC’s very clear rules on preserving journalistic impartiality.

 Section 2.2.17 …  Corporate Policies ….. Independence and impartiality are fundamental to CBC/Radio-Canada’s credibility. Not only must the Corporation be independent, impartial, fair and honest, but it also must be perceived as such. It is essential that CBC/Radio-Canada not take a position on controversial issues.

  Section 2.2.3  … Conflict of Interest Procedures and Guidelines 16 .. Employees may not take a stand on public controversies if CBC’s integrity would be compromised.

Nonetheless, given the long battle to convince CBC management to order a complete ban on paid speeches by its journalists, it is still troublesome that Mansbridge was given permission to act as a supporter of this project in the first place.

War memorials around the world have long spawned public furor over who is remembering what and why, and where memorials should sit.

These controversies often last years and they can stay nasty.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

The Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo.

The Valley of the Fallen in Spain.

The Bomber Command (as in “Bomber Harris”) Memorial in London.

Right now, the proposed Monument to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa has everyone from the Chief Justice of Canada to architects to immigrant groups to politicians at all levels trading barbs.

What were CBC executives thinking when Mansbridge first asked for permission to become an Honourary Patron of the Mother Canada project?

(CBC commentator and host Rex Murphy is also an Honourary Patron of Mother Canada. As a freelancer, Murphy is technically exempt from the CBC’s rules on journalistic impartiality. But until a few hours ago, as the author pointed out to CBC Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire last week, he was described as “Journalist CBC News.” He is now a “Freelance Journalist” with no mention of the CBC.)

In recent months, the Mother Canada controversy has been covered by newspapers, the web, TV and radio stations across the country.

According to the CBC’s website, the story has appeared on local CBC television and radio across the Maritimes and nationally, on As It Happens and The Current on CBC Radio.

As of this posting, Sunday afternoon July 5^th, according to CBC.ca, the Mother Canada controversy has yet to appear on the network’s flagship national TV news program The National.

Black-uniformed officers in body armour assume combat postures, the sharp “bang” of stun grenades, smoke bombs releasing white clouds, a huge, black armoured-personnel vehicle circling the scene .… ending with the take-down in the sand of a bad-guy in jeans and no shirt, who is then thrown into the truck and whisked away. All while an enthusiastic voice-over extolls the important goal of keeping Canadians safe.

Welcome to the 2015 version of the RCMP Musical Ride, showing nightly at “N Division” in Ottawa and featuring the legendary equestrian skills of the Mounties as “ambassadors of goodwill … promoting the RCMP’s image throughout Canada and the world.”

Is there no place now where Canadians can be spared the Harper government’s jingoistic militaristic bleating with its conjured-up images of dangers lurking around every corner, nurturing the fear that “others” are out to rob us of our freedoms?

Oh, there were beautiful horses and red uniforms and long lances and exciting charges and smart jumping police dogs too, fear not.

After all, that’s what thousands of families – virtually all with children below 8 years old – visiting the capital from all over Canada had come to see. So they thought.

But within minutes of the show’s opening – and well before the amazing horses performed their fantastic routines – the audience is treated to a bombastic, paramilitary show-and-tell that had many adults around us shaking their heads in bewilderment. And a few little kids crying too.

Along the way, there were some anodyne recruiting messages for the Mounties, and at the end, a mass recitation of the pledge all new Canadians make when they become citizens.

But Commissioner Bob Paulsen, really …..  who takes their children to a horse show on a Saturday evening expecting a scene from an average day’s viewing on CNN  of heavily-armed police working the streets of Ferguson, Missouri?

The RCMP should be embarrassed.

Yesterday, June 10, a day after Evan Solomon was fired for running his own private art brokering business out of his office at CBC TV’s Power&Politics, Ottawa Morning (CBC’s morning radio program) interviewed Kevin Donovan, the Toronto Star reporter who broke the story (and who had also been the lead reporter on exposing the Ghomeshi scandal.)

As her final question, host Robyn Bresnahan  asked him “So who is your next target at the CBC?”

It was an appalling moment in journalism. It’s bad enough what this latest sad story says about the place I worked in – and loved doing it –  for so many years without a question like this to nurture the public impression of a near-Senate like sense of self-importance and immunity from scrutiny at CBC.

I wrote to Robyn, Karla Hilton (the show’s exec) and Rob Russo (head of CBC in Ottawa) suggesting an apology was needed. None came.

This morning, June 11th, Robyn interviewed Brian Stewart about the story. No clams this time, but the overall tone of the discussion prompted another note to Robyn, Karla and Rob. Have a read.

*********     Dear Robyn, Karla and Rob …

This is a big story in our city, no question, and so it was completely appropriate to continue the discussion again this morning.

There are grey areas here, as in any part of real life … i.e., is accepting a coffee and croissant offered by an interview subject appropriate?, can I attend her organization’s office Christmas party?, etc.

The problem on display again this morning on the show  – and writ large, this is the CBC management error that is bedeviling the organization in so many areas of recent controversy –  is that grey does not mean a discussion of these questions coming from the acceptance of the idea that “there are always 2 sides to an issue.”

No. In some cases, there aren’t 2 sides to an issue of policy, whether public or in this case, inside the organization.

A perfect example in our world of journalism involves climate change and whether or not, mankind is seriously jeopardizing the health and safety of the planet by its burning of fossil fuels.

The BBC and several other public broadcasters (not the CBC, I don’t think, correction please?) simply won’t allow this to be debated on air – as a statement of corporate/journalistic policy – because the debate has been settled overwhelmingly by the international scientific community at every level.To do otherwise would be irresponsible to the public interest.

Over the past few years, there has been way too much of this kind of fuzzy thinking from senior management at CBC on the broad constellation of issues surrounding the paid speeches fiasco and now, by extension, Evan’s involvement with the art brokering business.

There is no “other side” to these kinds of issues, nor has there been for decades as I and a number of other worried former CBC folk (Jeffrey Dvorkin, Andrew Mitrovica, Jesse Brown, etc.) kept hammering home over the past year.

A CBC employee (or his family members) cannot personally profit –or be seen to profit – in any way from her or his role as a CBC employee. It is codified in the Broadcasting Act, in the Code of Journalistic Practices and – perhaps most powerfully – in the “stink test” in any CBC newsroom across the network.

Jennifer McGuire and Heather Conway got themselves in such horrible rhetorical knots last year by their refusal to issue this clear statement – a re-statement, in fact!  – of longstanding CBC policy, no matter how awful became the story of prominent CBC journalists taking huge amounts of cash from organizations they cover. The two of them ended up saying foolish things in public about so-called grey areas when in fact, everyone knew this was nonsense. And their intransigence terribly damaged our organization’s reputation as a result.

It is entirely possible to make concise, clear – and yes, appealable – policy statements about an employee’s involvement away from work.

While I am no longer inside the CBC, it seems that there has NOT been a continuing, forceful and blunt campaign of clarification from senior management on this issue.

Changing a corporation’s culture involves much more than publicly firing someone after a clear violation, as in Evan’s situation. He did it and then lied, according to the Corporation, and now he is gone. Fine. But changing a culture requires determined, consistent and relentless repetition of what is expected and required from everyone on an ongoing basis. And now, sadly, that will require repeating it almost ad nauseam, given what’s happened. So be it.

This is now the only way to prevent any CBC employee from having any trouble in the future in answering the question  “gee, could I perhaps make a few bucks on the side by ________ ? (fill in the blanks.)

Finally, and I stand to be corrected, in none of the coverage by CBC on this story have I heard it mentioned that Evan was also involved in the paid speeches mess, as I pointed out last year. He seems to have had previous trouble answering the question in the above paragraph. You should have mentioned this.

Cheers

Frank

To: Mayor Jim Watson and City Councillors, Ottawa    (click for contact info to make your opinion heard)

From:  Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC)

Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA)

Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU)

Ontario Association of Architects (OAA)

Heritage Ottawa

DTAH Architects Limited

Barry Padolsky Associates Inc Architects (BPA)

SUBJECT: OTTAWA CITY COUNCIL MOTION MAY 27,2015: RELOCATION OF MEMORIAL TO THE VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM

Dear Mayor Watson and City Councillors,

We are writing in support of the City of Ottawa motion to formally request that the Government of Canada relocate the proposed Memorial to the Victims of Communism to another site.

The current site has been earmarked for a major building in the Government of Canada’s own Long Term Vision and Plan for the area. Building a monument at this location would undermine decades of planning to complete the Judicial Triad of buildings, a symbolic and physical counterpart to the Parliamentary Triad.

Our organizations representing architects, landscape architects, city planners, and heritage planners from across the country have expressed concerns about this location. Below are some extracts from the official statements that have been issued.

We believe the City of Ottawa have a strong stake in the use of this site, and are highly appreciative of the City’s willingness to express its opinion about this matter.

We hope you will support Councillor Tony Nussbaum in adding your vote to pass this resolution. (TEXT BELOW.)

Sincerely,

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC): “The proposed location, adjacent to the Supreme Court of Canada, represents Canada’s democratic values and respect for justice. We believe this land should be reserved for a building whose purpose, quality and dignity are commensurate with its context. Any addition to this immensely significant national site should reflect the impartiality and apolitical aspiral aspirations of Canada’s justice system. We believe this site should be representative of all Canadians, just as the principles of Canada’s judicial system speak for all Canadians.”

Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA): “The monument appears to be designed as a permanent fixture, whereas in this location only a temporary monument should be considered. The Long Term Vision and Plan not only shows a building but also indicates underground parking, material handling and a connecting concourse spine in that very location. Clearly, placing any monument at this location would impede the construction of any other future parliamentary or judicial building, and hamper all long-term plans for the area.”

Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU): “The proposed site has been earmarked for a federal building to complete the Supreme Court triad by leading urban designers retained by the federal government for over a century, including the 1915 Federal Plan Commission report prepared by Edward Bennett, the 1950 National Capital Plan prepared by Jacques Gréber and the 1989/ 2007 Parliamentary Precinct Plan, which won several national and international urban design awards.”

Ontario Association of Architects (OAA): “The National Capital Commission (NCC) has long identified this site as a vital component of the ‘Capital Plateau.’ This site should be developed with a building that completes the judicial triad and is eflective of the surroundings. It is crucial to recognize the important contextual cues for this site; any built form for this site must recognize the scale, massing, materiality, detailing and relationship to the adjacent buildings.”

Heritage Ottawa: “The Supreme Court of Canada, designed by Ernest Cormier, and the Justice Building designed by Burritt and Horwood Architects—the two existing buildings in the triad—are handsomely designed structures that make important contributions to Canada’s architectural heritage. On completion of a third building in accordance with long standing plans, the judicial precinct will have significance for future generations as a reflection of Canada’s justice system and the democratic ideals on which that system is based. Maintaining the thematic integrity of this nationally significant site is key.”

Barry Padolsky B.Arch.,M.Sc.Urban Design OAA, FRAIC, RCA, CAHP

Contact the Mayor of Ottawa here

Contact your City Councillor here

 Text of Toby Nussbaum’s resolution:

Just up on the newly designed Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s website.

My interview with Lee Kuan Yew