Catching up
with CEO bandits

Sickened and repulsed by the corporate champagne-and-caviar culture that has seen CEO bandits abscond with fortunes while investors’ life savings disappear in the mist? Now the fight to uproot the rapscallions is being led by 77-year-old heavyweight investment honcho Stephen Jarislowsky. “These people have tremendously harmed the corporations, the shareholders, the employees and all other stakeholders,” he says. “The only guys who have benefited in many cases are these greedy executives.”

In June, the partner in Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., a 47-year-old Montreal-based investment firm that manages over $33-billion in assets, launched an alliance of 11 of the country’s biggest institutional investors. The Canadian Coalition for Good Governance, as they’re called, unites some long-time and fierce competitors. They represent a group Jarislowsky admits deserves some past blame for allowing weeds to sprout in the capitalist meadow. “I think the cult of corporate excess was partly the fault of the institutional investors, because they wanted these companies to report better and better earnings, sometimes without any claim to ethics.” They plan to flex their once-atrophied voting muscle to seek and destroy such executive perquisites as “golden parachutes, excessive compensation, stock options and conflicts of interest.”

Nickel-and-dime investors can also do their part by exercising their right to vote as shareholders. “I think people should look very closely at proxy statements and figure out what’s good for them and what isn’t,” says Jarislowsky, noting that many Web sites, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (www.ottp.com), offer specific advice for ethically-oriented investors. : » Kristian Gravenor

Zip lips
in protest

The drums of war against Iraq are getting louder by the week, but a burgeoning peace campaign will be using the opposite tactic to get its message across: instead of shouting slogans and beating drums, it will be holding a silent and sombre protest.

The group behind the new campaign, which will be holding its inaugural anti-Iraq-war demonstration this Saturday, is the Concertation comprendre et agir pour un paix juste (“Action for a just peace”). It formed in the weeks after 9/11 and consists of a coalition of various groups, including the Quebec Federation of Women, several unions, Rights and Democracy and other organizations with some political clout opposing the Afghan war. Now it, like the U.S., has shifted its sights onto Iraq.

The campaign’s threefold message is: one, to voice popular opposition to a U.S.-led war against Iraq; two, to urge the Canadian government to continue its refusal to support the war; and three, to urge the United Nations to not give the U.S. carte blanche to bomb Iraq with any resolution it passes.

“This will be the beginning of the mobilization process until it reaches a crescendo in mid-November,” says Jawad Skalli, one of the campaign coordinators. “We will be using several smaller steps, such as the action on Saturday, until we have a big action next month.”

The vigil takes place at Jarry Park next to the peace monument on Saturday, October 5, between noon and 1 p.m. Participants are asked to dress in black. : » Patrick Lejtenyi

Eco-perils
come to Mount Royal

Try not to freak out if you happen to swing by Beaver Lake sometime between October 5 and 15 and notice that it appears to have been flooded. It won’t be the result of any natural disaster—effectively displacing hundreds of discarded paper cups, sanitary napkins and cigarette butts from their natural habitat—but part of an art/information exhibit sponsored by l’Action terroriste socialement acceptable called Attention: Zone Épineuse (“Beware: Sensitive Area”).

ATSA organizers are hoping the event will help raise awareness of global environmental issues in this, the UN-declared Year of the Mountain. “With Attention: Zone Épineuse, we will be having six different sites on Mount Royal and inviting people to reflect upon the precariousness of our ecological heritage,” says artist and ATSA co-founder Annie Roy. “Each scene will address a different concern, like floods, clear-cutting or landscape integrity, and we’ll be handing out free pamphlets so people can learn more about the issues.”

Committed to ATSA’s goal of a “counter-industrial revolution,” Roy is promising that a soundtrack will be broadcast at each exhibit, with “sounds of the forest in danger” accompanying stories told by a host of local personalities from diverse cultural backgrounds. For more info, see http://atsa.qc.ca. : » Chris Barry

Angel >> The historic Main Last Friday, St-Laurent boulevard, aka the Main, was officially designated a site of national historic significance. The culturally rich, vibrant six-kilometre stretch from the Old Port to Jean-Talon has always been central to the city’s history and character. A backdrop for immigrant groups past and present, including the Chinese, Jewish, Italian, Hungarian, and Portuguese communities, St-Laurent now also embraces those coming from such exotic locales as Ontario, St-Leonard and the South Shore. St-Laurent has changed radically over the years, but somehow it’s always managed to remain the Main.
Insect >> More user fees at Royal, Scotia and National Bank machines Following in the steps of the CIBC, which boosted fees last year, three of the country’s big banks recently increased user fees on their automated bank machines, with the cost for non-clients jumping by $1.25 to $1.50 per transaction. Adding insult to injury, the banks have the gall to say that consumers are to blame. Customer demand for more features, and maintenance costs, are driving up service fees, they say, and the spread of white, no-name machines that pay retailers more for use of their stores has also forced them to push up prices. Poor banks—how do they make their billions?