How about a bit of totally nonsensical speculation of the order of “Hitler is alive and well living in Argentina”. Something utterly absurd. I bring to this speculation a very unique history – I’m the only person in captivity who’s been fired twice by Jimmy Pattison.
I rather like Jimmy – going out for dinner with Mary and him on his yacht, Nova Spirit, tells you a lot about the way Jimmy’s mind works, for the guests are from different genres and, as often as not, don’t speak with one another. It’s clear that Jimmy enjoys watching the way they interrelate or don’t interrelate at all. Certainly a big man in accomplishments, Jimmy carries with him, dare I mention it in this age of politically correctness, the usual symptoms of, shall we say, height challenge, which accounts for his need to be the big guy at all times, even as he is over 80, to succeed.
Stories about employees abound – the late Bill Sleeman, to whom he gave a new Rolls Royce on his retirement. Long term employees like Enzo (sorry, Enzo I’ve forgotten your surname), Bud Eberhart and Maureen Chant, to name a few, feel or felt a great loyalty to Jimmy who, when concentrating on his car company, routinely fired the month’s lowest salesman saying, “I do them no favour keeping them in a job they can’t succeed in” was his theory.
You know the saying, “When a husband sends his wife flowers for no reason, there’s a reason.” Enter Dave Cobb, retiring from BC Hydro after 17 months as CEO; I have no trouble understanding why Cobb would leave. You will remember Cobb’s leaked conference call to employees, in which he slammed independent power projects (IPPs); his predecessor Bob Elton evidently bit the dust on the same subject.
In assessing this unfolding story we must know that the BC government is bankrupting BC Hydro, and in fact have already done so. As economist Erik Andersen has explained, if BC Hydro was in the private sector it would be in bankruptcy protection now! The reason they are not is that they can keep raising their rates.
From the outset, the government’s IPP policy has been to force Hydro to buy power it doesn’t need thus must either sell it at half to a quarter the price they paid for it or use it instead of their own power at a huge loss.
Why would a government do so silly a thing?
There are only two reasons: The Campbell/Clark government wants to bankrupt BC Hydro because of The Fraser Institute’s embedded “values” in the right wing unassailable tenet that there should only be private corporations because they are better business people; or, I suppose, they’re dumb as a sack full of hammers and don’t know what the hell they’re doing (I suppose we must admit of the possibility of both being true!).
This is the point I take leave of my senses. Jimmy Pattison has bought the services of Dave Cobb, for whom he must be paying a pretty penny – I mean this guy’s in the million a year range. What reason is there for this? (NDP leader Adrian Dix got off a good one saying that perhaps Cobb has found a Premier Clark he can work with!)
What if Pattison has an eye on BC Hydro? Yes, that’s what I asked – what if Jimmy Pattison, an acquisitor par excellence, buys out the jewel of the BC Crown!
If Jimmy were planning that, he would need someone close to home that knew where the bodies were hidden and Cobb squarely meets that criterion.
In the first place, Cobb is the only man in Hydro today who has admitted that these IPPs are going to wipe out Hydro’s assets. Knowing this and being the sort who can see the writing on the wall, saying, “Get the hell out before you’re tossed out”, he decided to do that.
Taking over Hydro is not a money-winner – at least not now – and won’t be as long as it has liabilities like $50 billion for money-losing (big time) IPPs. But what if Pattison could buy Hydro’s hardware and longstanding customers only, leaving the IPPs in the lurch with no legal rights against the government (the IPP deals were, after all, made by Hydro), nor the new BC Hydro which has no legal connection to the original one.
I’m admittedly groping in the dark here – I’ve never seen these private contracts. But what if the government said, “We’re expropriating your companies. Here’s the deal – take it or leave it, thanks a lot and good-by”?
Who better than Dave Cobb to help the lawyers and bankers to sort all this out?
Probably simply fantasy, idiotic conjecture. Certainly it’s just guesswork. But there have been worse conjectures…I think!
This for the closer – Jimmy Pattison has never winced from taking on an unusual proposition.
And what was that about the husband and the flowers?
“routinely fired the month’s lowest salesman”
Corporate greed!
You say Hydro would be broke if they didn’t raise their rates. So would the grocer if he sold milk at last years prices with this years costs.
You know very well that Hydro rates have been artificially low for years as a political sop. So much so that the infrastructure is going to start failing for want of repair and replacement….much like BC Ferries.
Thank you Socialism….
Cobb was not in place at BC Hydro long enough to learn anything about running a utility business. His CV demonstrates his experience in entertainment ( if thats what you call the Canucks) and the Olympics. He would be the last person JP would look to to run his acquisition. Remember what my old boss used to say “you don’t have to be paranoid to think someone is out to screw you”. Rafe this dog wont hunt. Just see Cobb for what he was – a man handed a political plum as Gordo felt he would drink the coolaid and keep cashing his paycheck, who realized that he had been handed a real bag of shit, and who did the only sensible thing he could -go work for JP.
Awesome blog. I enjoyed reading your articles.
Pattison always had a talent for picking talent. Cobb is talent and Pattison isn’t getting any younger. He may just be setting his corporations up so they can survive without him.
Of course if he is planning to purchase B.C. Hydro, Copp would be the person to hire. Yes and at least he will be working with a Clark who knows how to run a business and government.
At least if Pattison purchases B.C. Hyrdo it won’t be going to G.E. or some other foreign corporation.
Cobb may also just be finding a spot until the lieberals are defeated and he can return to run the company the was it should be
And since we are indulging in pie-in-the-sky fantasies, perhaps Glenn Clark has been whispering in Pattison’s shell-like ear about what a legacy it would be to buy it out, then return it to the people as his final act of generosity, far exceeding the several million he has already bequeathed to the likes of Vancouver hospital…
Nah………..
Rafe, remember what Napoleon said: “Never ascribe to malice that which incompetence adequately explains.” I think we tend to give more credit to the likes of Campbell and Clark than they deserve – attributing intricate conspiracies where the “sack of hammers” diagnosis does the trick.
Ooh….what a delicious thought, Rafe! If anyone can straighten out the mess the BC Liberals made of BC Hydro, Jimmy can.
Whoever buys it would need a lot of money. GE, for example. I would prefer that BC Hydro would go back to being a fully publicly-owned utility run for the benefit of the public.
This is exactly what I thought… as Cobb boarded Jimmy’s yacht after jumping the ‘SS BC Hydro’! You’re not far from the mark Rafe. If I had some billions of dollars, I might do the same.