To Stephen Jarislowsky
Dear Stephen,
Thank you and Gail for receiving me so graciously in your home and sharing your ideas. I saw our discussion as a continuation of our intriguing conversations while salmon fishing on the British Columbia coast. I’m sending you this note to ascertain whether I’ve grasped the three basic elements of our idea of the good society in Canada: ethics, trust, and excellence in public and corporate governance.
Personal and professional ethics, and the trust that ethical behaviour breeds in our fellow citizens, is a subject and cause that animates you. You indicated that all of the world’s great religions are based essentially on the golden rule: do unto thy neighbour as you would have your neighbour do unto you. You’ve lived your life according to this fundamental rule and in the spirit that human nature is inherently good. We agree, however, that authority not founded on ethics is dangerous for people and societies. In the wrong hands, particular religions and belief systems can do a lot of damage to subvert the golden rule by casting the “neighbour” as an enemy and then arguing that a strong nationalistic state or tribe is required to repel and conquer that dangerous, alien neighbour. As I write these lines, I’m reminded of a trenchant observation made by C.S. Lewis many years ago: “I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power has used that power benevolently.”
Ethics as a precursor to trust is evident in your life’s actions and decisions. You mentioned that the so-called secret to your advice being sought and accepted by people and groups so often through your nearly nine decades of life is that you have no concern for personal gain in the matter under consideration. People trust you and your ideas, because you have no self-interest from the outset other than acting ethically. Your moral principles forge and harden trust among those with whom you deal. You also realize that trust is a fragile quality. Trust, therefore, is built through a lifetime of actions and decisions inspired by the highest ethical principles: fairness, openness, honour, duty. By way of contrast, you remarked that, at your recent reunion of the Harvard Business School, the dean reported that the school is now giving courses on ethics. In your formative years, ethics was not taught at school but was practised regularly by those of your generation – men and women who had lived through the Depression and the Second World War. Both of us are all for teaching, yet rules alone don’t lead to ethical behaviour. Recent experience in the United States shows a pervasive willingness among some leaders in business, high finance, and law to ignore or look for ways around hard and fast rules. Ethics must be lived experiences first and foremost. Our moral principles are passed down from the old to the young through living. It is then up to the young to live these principles themselves. Ethics become more secure when they are truths embedded within us rather than directives codified in some manual.
To illustrate with an example, you referred to a remark made recently by a friend who is a lawyer and public servant in Quebec. She said there is a historical element in French Canadian thinking that making money and amassing wealth was inherently wrong and evil. Through your writings, speeches, and interviews, you have done much to change that thinking among young French Canadians. Your actions speak even louder than your words, though your words are vital to inspire and illustrate the actions. You’ve earned the trust of French-speaking Canadians by respecting their customs and culture, by supporting their art (the first paintings you showed me in your home were a fabulous collection by Jean Paul Lemieux), by involving yourself directly in their businesses and institutions, and by speaking their language well. That last point is not unsubstantial. As a person who speaks three languages fluently, you appreciate that learning and speaking the languages of others is a mark of respect and a powerful way to build trust.
Your professional life shows how the concepts of ethics and trust are intertwined. In our public life in Canada, we express these twinned ideals in how we govern our institutions. As an example, we spoke about the Canadian Coalition on Corporate Governance and the Institute on Fair Investing. These organizations manage about two and a half trillion dollars from pensions, investment funds, and other managed assets. Ohio University has recognized them both for excellence in good governance. Their principles are so respected that they have made their way into legal frameworks on corporate governance in Canada through influential reforms of various securities commissions and other capital market regulators across the country. Are they sustainable? Who knows? you said. What will endure is not entirely predictable, but the fact that they are institutionalized and part of the corporate cultures of the most important wealth-managing trustees in the country is a good start toward durability. Societies have been shaken disastrously when public trust in institutions is undermined or vanishes entirely. Greece is a recent example of what happens when the people of a country lose faith in public institutions as a consequence of the absence or perceived absence of ethics in the actions and decisions of political and financial leaders.
Excellence in governance extends beyond the political and financial, of course. Proof lies in your efforts to bring a modern and ethical governance model to Quebec hospitals. This model centres the activities of hospitals on patients, not doctors. It calls for executives being responsible for management of hospitals and strong boards to ensure the presence of active hands-on management and oversee efficient patient-centred activities. More particularly, you mentioned the Navigator program you helped establish at the Montreal General Hospital. By engaging several retired doctors and nurses, who know the hospital intimately, to manage, or navigate, various gates or blockages and move patients efficiently through to rapid successful treatment, the program enabled the hospital to reduce treatment time for lung cancer patients from 82 to 22 days. You indicated the model has been extended to patients suffering from several other cancer conditions, and you anticipate it can be replicated in other hospitals and health care institutions.
What can we do as a country to embed ethical behaviour in our people and institutions and thereby ensure that our leaders and the institutions they direct are trusted by Canadians? We talked a lot about the Order of Canada as one possible avenue. You remarked that there is extraordinary potential for good in the 3,200 or so recipients of the Order of Canada – for two reasons. First, recipients share a clear goal. That wish is captured in the Order’s motto: they desire a better country. Second, unlike many of the world’s honour systems, ours is non-political and based on merit. In this way, it does not perpetuate a class system; instead, it promotes equality of opportunity and excellence as mutually reinforcing qualities. You suggested that Order of Canada recipients should be encouraged to exchange ideas among themselves on what they continue to do to build a better country. These ideas could be grouped into mentorship initiatives, a speakers series in which recipients can share insights from their lives, and broad endeavours divided by disciplinary categories (the arts, science, volunteerism) that would stress ongoing local initiatives rather than one-off top-down projects. You also recommended no half measures – do the thing right or don’t do it – and bringing in younger people, perhaps via a junior Order of Canada that does not turn on lifetime achievements but on some other more punctual criteria. At a minimum, you recommended we collect ideas from Order of Canada recipients – that from this much talent there have to be some extraordinary ideas.
We agreed that the reason for taking all these actions is that the Order of Canada is an excellent vehicle to promote ethics, engender trust, and build and maintain public institutions in which citizens have confidence. I think this is our purpose in the end, isn’t it? Ethics, trust, and excellence in public and corporate governance create the good society we all want and deserve. If the effect of a life well lived is the drawing together of one’s fundamental principles in the pursuit of something larger than oneself, then the Jarislowsky Effect, you might say, is that special combination of ethics in action and trust in our institutions that leads to the good society about which we spoke so much. Isn’t that so? This is what I have learned from you, Steve. I believe it is what Canadians hope for in so many ways and what we fear we may be losing: that we do the right things and that we earn the trust of one another. This effect ought to be shared and advanced, not just between old friends like you and me, but also as a legacy for many to participate in. We should think about how to do just that and discuss the possibilities when we meet again. I would like that.
Thanks for what you do every day for Canada, my friend.
David
Stephen Jarislowsky is founder, chairman, and former chief executive officer of Jarislowsky Fraser Limited, one of the largest and most successful investment management firms in Canada. In 2002, he co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance to further the cause of business ethics. A companion of the Order of Canada and grand officer of the National Order of Quebec, he has received honorary doctorates from many Canadian universities and, along with his wife, has endowed many university chairs in Canada in disciplines as varied as history and biotechnology.