16 minute read
BIV PROFILE: Jody Wilson-Raybould
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT JODY WILSONRAYBOULD
Reflections on a tumultuous year
HAYLEY WOODIN
Jody Wilson-Raybould walks onstage to a warm, roaring standing ovation from dozens of female Indigenous leaders gathered at a British Columbia Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN) women in leadership event in Richmond earlier this year.
“We come from an oral culture. And if you do not speak the truth, then your culture dies,” shared the independent member of Parliament for Vancouver-Granville.
“I come from a long line of matriarchs, and that’s what gave me strength to do what I needed to do,” she said. “The strength that we have as Indigenous Peoples, and particularly as Indigenous women, is that we show the way. We guide the path. We guide chiefs. That’s my role in the Big House. And that’s what’s carried me through this last tumultuous year.”
Tumultuous. That is the word Wilson-Raybould says most appropriately describes her past year.
“It was tumultuous because I navigated something that wasn’t of my own making and something that was very public. I went from the front benches as a senior minister of the Crown on a very public journey to the far reaches of the corner of the House of Commons, sitting as an independent,” she tells BIV Magazine. “I started 2018 as the Minister of Justice and we all know where I finished it off.”
A little over a year ago, Wilson-Raybould delivered what was described by many as “damning” testimony to Canada’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. It made headlines around the world and consumed airtime and print space at home for days.
“For a period of approximately four months between September and December of 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney general of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin.” Her opening line was followed by a four-and-a-halfhour account that detailed, from her perspective, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s interference with Canada’s prosecution authority.
The event was preceded by Wilson-Raybould’s shuffle out of her role as minister of justice and attorney general weeks before.
“It started immediately, the day that I was shuffled to Veterans Affairs,” Wilson-Raybould tells BIV Magazine. “I knew immediately and I was prepared for the reality of what might come.”
But the media circus, the speculation, the smear campaigns and her expulsion from the Liberal caucus were nonetheless challenging.
“It was very public. It was very challenging for my husband, for my family, particularly my mother, who felt a sense of helplessness watching it all,” she says.
“I resigned from cabinet and the prime minister alone made the decision to eject me from the Liberal caucus and to eject me from being the already confirmed Liberal candidate in Vancouver-Granville. And at that point, I had a choice. I could have walked away,” she laughs, “or continued and ran.
“I feel OK with the record. There are parts of it that are ridiculous, completely untrue. Spiteful.” She quotes Martin Luther King. “It’s always the right time to do the right thing, and I know I was confident I was doing the right thing and that I was speaking my truth and acting as I think every public servant should – with integrity.”
THE RACE Wilson-Raybould sits onstage at the BCAFN women in leadership dialogue session with a microphone she barely uses. She makes a few quick introductory remarks. The setting may have suggested she was there to talk; in reality, she was there to listen. One at a time, audience members took turns at their own microphones to thank her, to share their stories, to talk about leadership and to share a moment with the former BCAFN regional chief who became – and perhaps still is – the most talked-about woman in Canadian politics.
Offstage, Wilson-Raybould signs copies of her book, From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada, published in September 2019. She takes selfies and photos and listens some more.
“I really am a bit uncomfortable talking about myself,” she admits in a one-on-one interview near the end of the conference.
She also shares that she received thousands of letters from constituents and Canadians over the course of her tumultuous year.
“It dramatically impacted me in terms of the positive responses,” Wilson-Raybould says. She learned she’s “kind of tough,” she says with a laugh. She learned a lot about politics and political personalities and blind loyalty, a term she repeats throughout the interview.
“I went through a whole series of reflections and it was never clear that I was going to run again. I mean I found myself in a place where I could never have anticipated being,” she says. “Ultimately the decision to run again, if I can boil it down, was I didn’t feel that any one person could determine my longevity in federal politics.”
j Jody Wilson-Raybould MP, Vancouver-Granville
As an independent candidate, Wilson-Raybould’s second term as a member of Parliament will be different. She says there are pros and cons – but mostly pros – to being non-partisan in what she calls “hyper-partisan” politics.
The cons include less power to effect change. Wilson-Raybould drew No. 78 in the private member’s bill lottery, which she says generally means she will be about two years into her term before she has an opportunity to bring new legislation forward. By comparison, she passed 14 pieces of legislation as minister of justice.
But the issues are still the issues, and Wilson-Raybould’s passion for them remains. As an independent, she has an opportunity to work across party lines to bring bills forward, and it’s one she plans to seize.
“The electorate here, I think, sent a pretty strong message to Ottawa that ... the way we do politics right now is not the way that it should always be done. That we should actually have more representative democracy,” she explains. “The opportunity to work across party lines as an independent not constrained by the central control that exists within political parties – I mean I only know one political party and there was a huge amount of control in the centre – gives you the ability to talk to people and understand what they want and get support for legislation that you want to advance. Which is what I’m going to do.”
THE ISSUES Social justice, democratic reform and Indigenous issues remain priorities for Wilson-Raybould, who says her focus is on doing a good job as an independent, and not on her political future.
She’s interested in working with members of the Senate on bringing forward public members’ bills. Criminal justice reform around mandatory minimum sentences is an area of interest for Wilson-Raybould, who earned her law degree from the University of British Columbia. When asked about what she would like her legacy in politics to look like, reconciliation is front of mind.
“I would love to play a role in creating that space for the transformative change of Indigenous nations within this country. That is the biggest passion of why I got involved in mainstream politics in the first place, and I was hopeful it would happen in the previous government. But if I can play some role in opening that door, that would be a pretty amazing part of somebody’s legacy.”
She is clear that in addition to truth telling and healing, reconciliation requires laws and processes to change, and that that necessarily requires the political will to change them. That pace of change has been incredibly slow, she says. But she’s hopeful it will change, just as she’s hopeful the political landscape in Canada will change as well.
“I was raised from a very young age to be a leader and to contribute my skills to issues that are important and to help advance quality of life for our people. I come from a communitarian culture, which means that everybody has a role to play,” she says, including independent members of Parliament in the far reaches of the corner of the House of Commons.
“If I have a leadership style, it is one of trying to build consensus where possible. It is incredibly hard and it takes a lot of time, but it’s always in the background of who I am.”
Wilson-Raybould says she’s been toying with when to write her memoir. She’s settled on writing two books. One will chronicle her time as Canada’s minister of justice. The second will simply be a memoir.
Whether Wilson-Raybould will or should or could become prime minister one day follows the Vancouver-Granville representative to events and interviews like a shadow. A video of her father, Indigenous leader Bill Wilson, telling then prime minister Pierre Trudeau that both of Wilson’s young daughters aspire to be lawyers, and both want to be prime minister, surfaced in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
“I love that video,“ says Wilson-Raybould. “He was at the table in that video at the constitutional discussions after Section 35 just came in and full of optimism about Aboriginal title and rights being recognized and what that meant for rebuilding Indigenous nations. And he was and is incredibly proud of both my sister and I. And his comments reflected his optimism about his daughters and that they could achieve anything that they wanted to achieve,” she says, adding that she has never had and does not have ambitions to one day lead the country as prime minister.
“My voice is still amplified and people still listen when I say things. I don’t know how long that’s going to last but I want to continue to say what I feel and what my constituents want.” É
SECTOR SNAPSHOT: TOURISM Tourism growing faster than forecasted
Albert Van Santvoort
B.C.’s tourism industry has enjoyed significant growth for some time. In 2019, overnight stays increased 2.6% to 6.2 million. That growth followed a 6.4% increase in overnight visits between 2017 and 2018. Over the past five years, the province has seen U.S. multi-day trips increase by 36% while visitors from all other countries increased 49% from 2013 to 2018.
Despite slowing year-over-year visits, Destination BC expects revenue to grow by 5% each of the next two years. B.C.’s economy is the second most dependent on tourism in Canada after Prince Edward Island. It contributes nearly 3% to the province’s GDP. Some 5% of B.C. workers are employed by the sector, and the industry estimates 106,000 new jobs will open in the sector between 2018 and 2028.
B.C. COMPETITIVE TRAJECTORY THREATENS INVESTMENT LANDSCAPE Past economic performance won’t dictate B.C.’s economic future
GREG D’AVIGNON
B.C. has enjoyed an extended stretch of solid economic growth over the past decade. Some readers may be surprised to learn that from 2009 through 2018, B.C. actually posted the strongest average annual economic growth rate of any province. When GDP growth is averaged over the past three years, B.C. also topped provincial rankings.
This performance, however, is backward looking. And there is evidence that the competitive landscape for many of the industries that drive our economy has deteriorated, even though the top-line growth numbers have held up. While we wait for Statistics Canada to produce its data on 2019, estimates indicate the province’s economy downshifted and grew by a meagre 1.8% last year. This marks the slowest growth since the 2009 recession and global financial crisis. Several current economic indicators are pointing down, suggesting the economy will continue to moderate in the near term and struggle to grow by more than 2%.
Much of the recent slowdown is due to external factors beyond the province’s control. The sluggish global economy and ongoing trade conflicts are weighing on B.C.’s export sector, which in turn has negative spinoff implications for many local service providers. This less favourable backdrop means weaker sales activity and pressure on margins. Rising costs – for energy, labour, property taxes and more – are especially challenging for export-oriented companies that cannot pass such costs on to their customers.
In this environment, many businesses “sharpen their pencils” and deploy capital with even greater rigour and caution. This is concerning, especially at a time when B.C.’s overall competitiveness is eroding. The overall tax burden on B.C. business has risen significantly in the past several years due to the introduction of the employer health tax, a higher corporate income tax rate and B.C.’s steadily escalating carbon tax. Steep property tax increases are also problematic for many businesses. The application of the provincial sales tax on most business inputs is also a cost that companies in most other Canadian jurisdictions do not face. Meanwhile, the corporate tax rate in the U.S. was slashed to 21% from 35%. Alberta, too, is cutting its corporate income tax rate to 8% from 12% in the next few years. In a short period of time, the overall business tax advantage B.C. once enjoyed has evaporated. In fact, relatively high and rising business taxes are now a source of competitive disadvantage for the province.
B.C. businesses also face higher costs stemming from a myriad of recent regulatory and policy changes. While some of these changes may be justified, amendments to the Employment Standards Act and the higher minimum wage are examples of government decisions that are adding costs. For businesses operating on the land base, increasingly cumbersome government-dictated regulatory and permitting processes create uncertainty for new investment and undermine the economic viability of existing operations. Additionally, B.C. maintains the highest carbon tax in North America. This is a particularly worrisome disadvantage because, unlike most other jurisdictions around the world, B.C. has no measures in place to offset any of the added costs borne by B.C.’s export-oriented industries, which include natural resource companies, manufacturers and providers of transportation services. B.C. is also a complex place to do business because of the need to address the legitimate interests and concerns of Indigenous communities.
In parts of the province, transportation and other infrastructure bottlenecks make it more expensive to move people and ship goods to market. In urban areas, the hiring challenges that many employers face are exacerbated by the fact that job seekers are unwilling to make long and increasingly uncertain commutes.
Add it all up, and there are reasons to be concerned about B.C.’s competitive trajectory and the extent to which we remain an attractive place to invest and grow a business. It is time for B.C. policy-makers to turn their attention to these issues and to refrain from taking further actions that make it harder for the private sector to operate and succeed. É
Greg D’Avignon is president and CEO of the Business Council of British Columbia.
ADVISING NEW BUSINESSES HOW TO EXCEL.
MEET THE CPA AND TECH-ENTREPRENEUR WHO’S LEADING START-UPS TO SUCCESS. Ali Pourdad is no stranger to throwing himself into new ventures. In fact, he’s made a career of it.
The tech-entrepreneur was born and raised in Vancouver, but lately he’s been spending three-quarters of his time in Toronto with his newest business. Pourdad Capital Partners focuses primarily on venture capital and private equity investments, helping new companies in the critical early stages of getting their businesses off the ground. Pourdad founded the Vancouver-based family office in late 2017, and lately, it has meant a geographical adjustment.
Pourdad’s track record suggests that his clients are in good hands. Although he’s best known for his role with financial technology (fintech) firm Progressa, he has been proving his ability to recognize a good investment for years. When he was exploring career options, Pourdad remembers wanting to expand his opportunities.
His choice wasn’t surprising. Pourdad’s father and uncle are both Chartered Professional Accountants -- “it just goes back generations,” he laughs -- but he found the CPA program complemented his existing experience.
Prior to getting his CPA designation, Pourdad dipped his toes into entrepreneurship, co-founding and leading an IT company. He received his CPA designation and then began articling for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. That’s where he says he honed the critical thinking skills that brought him to where he is today.
FROM FOUR PERSON OFFICE TO FASTEST-GROWING COMPANY IN B.C. With experience leading his own business and a CPA designation under his belt, Pourdad co-founded Progressa in 2013. The firm’s goal was to provide alternative loans that would help clients consolidate their debt instead of having to rely on payday lenders. Pourdad and co-founder Michael Jover rolled up their sleeves and poured their hearts and souls into the business, running operations from a four-person space in Fairview Slopes. Pourdad was the company’s first CEO between 2013 and 2019. Under his leadership, Progressa grew to $20 million in annual revenue and was recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies by revenue in B.C. and Canada.
“Running my own business and growing a leadership team, I was responsible for hiring senior leadership and guiding them over the course of the last seven years,” says Pourdad. “In the trenches of growing a business for myself again, I realized that being a CPA was my calling because the skill sets that I had picked up allowed me to be successful as the CEO of Progressa.”
ADVISING IN AN EVER-EVOLVING MARKET In September 2019, Pourdad announced he was stepping down from his role as CEO of Progressa, but he still supports the leadership team as a shareholder and board member.
Today, Pourdad brings his subject matter expertise in fintech to his work for Pourdad Capital Partners. The company has active investments in early-stage technology, including fintech and real estate, in companies throughout Canada and the western United States. His expertise is a boon in the current climate.
“The Canadian market right now is really tough for younger entrepreneurs to navigate,” he says.
The projected downturn has made investors cautious. Demographic and logistical issues revolving around big tech’s arrival in Canada have made it difficult for companies to raise capital. “We see ourselves as a guiding hand, a company that can see these issues when entrepreneurs are bogged down in the details and don’t see what’s happening around them,” says Pourdad. “Organizing yourself and your thoughts and dealing with problems efficiently instead of spinning your wheels, those little things just get entrenched in you as a CPA.”
His hands-on approach means that the majority of his time these days is spent personally advising the company’s investments.
EVERYONE NEEDS THEIR BUSINESS TO GROW, THAT’S WHY EVERYONE NEEDS A CPA.
From the smallest startup to the largest multinational corporation a CPA can find ways to help businesses succeed. Find out what a CPA could do for your business at BCCPA.CA
