Red River Murk

Larry 0's recent desire to emulate Winnipeg’s privatization plans have made my own internal ruminations quite au courrant. For some weeks I’ve been thinking about the links between Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien and Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz. Both are political neophyte entrepreneurs who rose from nowhere to sit in the big chair at city hall, and both used their business credentials to launch their rise to power. Although themselves dependent on public funding to launch their enterprises, both Mayor’s came to power preaching property tax freezes. As I never cease to insist, both can credit the public sector with a great hand in making them successful. The tag "self-made millionaire" does little to reflect their actual career trajectory.

Katz’s most recent entrepreneurial success is running the popular minor league baseball team the Winnipeg Goldeyes. The Goldeyes popularity can in large part be attributed to his good fortune of playing in a marvellous waterfront ballpark. The stadium was built and financed through public infrastructure investments and multi-level funding, including access to prime city-land for parking privileges. As readers of this blog can deduce, this public funding kick-start for his entrepreneurial spirit is quite similar to Larry 0’s dependence on federal staffing contracts.

However, it is their links to murky dealings which make this comparison compelling. Both Larry 0 and Sam Katz have been on the hot-seat over court revelations of unscrupulous deals. Larry 0,* as has been discussed at length here, has been under investigation for bribing a fellow right-wing candidate to drop out of the recent municipal election. For his part, Katz, the one-time concert promoter and nightclub owner, is also under legal pressure.** Last month it was revealed in documents relating to divorce proceedings that Katz has yet to pay any interest on more than $434,000 owing to the public labour fund Crocus Investments. Yet Katz continues to draw $217,000 as majority owner of the Winnipeg Goldeyes (that is on TOP of his Mayoral Salary). I guess he can’t use that salary to pay his debts.

Since becoming Mayor, Katz has been vilified for participating in city business which involved his business friends and associates. The murk is as thick on the banks of the Red River as on the banks of the Rideau Canal. Dubious distinctions. All this makes me question what kind of business acumen these entrepreneurs are bringing to city hall.

*Oh, and yeah, that is not a typo, I’ve decided that Larry Zero (0) is much more appropriate than Larry Oh (O).

**To be fair to Sam, this is nothing new, he has long been involved in dubious business practices, especially as a concert promoter. The list of unpaid creditors, shoddy accounting, and special government favours, to those with longer memories, is long. Hey, this guy is a promoter at heart.