| Peter C. Newman, senior contributing editor at Maclean's magazine, provided insight on Canada's financial elite and their global role during his dinner presentation at the conference. Gerry McGoey, a corporate gunslinger with many notches in his belt, got a taste of this country's insignificance while he was raising money for BCE in California, late in 1996. "We saw a number of the important pension funds, and weren't getting too far when I remembered there was a small fireman's fund running about $150 billion in a San Francisco suburb, on the second floor a strip mall," he recalls. "We introduced ourselves and they said, "Well, we don't know why you're down here.' And I told them that I wanted to talk about raising some money. So they summoned a fellow from the far corner of the office, a young kid in his thirties who had his tie undone, and they said, "Well, this is Bill. He's in charge of Canada. How much money do you run overall, Bill, including Canada?' 'About $6 billion,' he said. They apologetically explained that Bill was just learning. Then they asked Bill what he knew about our company. 'Bell is the biggest business in Canada,' he replied. 'Well,' they said, 'we wouldn't invest in you fellows up there anyway because, first of all, we'd have to make the decision, do we want to be in Canada? and secondly, do we want to be in a regulated industry? and thirdly, we'd have to know about the government's position on monopolies. There are too many decisions involved, so we don't bother with Canada." |