Gerald Schwartz is the Chief Executive Officer of Onex Corporation. Last year, Mr. Schwartz received $11,697,375 as compensation for his efforts.
His corporation made $176,694,000 in profits, representing $3,334 for each of his 53,000 employees.
Mr. Schwartz has new plans. He plans to "save" Canada's airline industry.
To do this, he proposes to purchase both Canadian Airlines and Air Canada, merge them, reduce inefficiencies, and create one, profitable airline in the country.
If you spell out his plan, you come up with one word -- layoffs.
The merger of the two corporations would lead to a minimum of 5,000 jobs being cut.
This should surprise no one.
A leading business reporter described Schwartz this way.
"The diminutive head of Onex didn't get to be a billionaire by taking on charity causes like Canada's airline industry. He did it by buying ailing companies and then whipping them into shape, sacking boatloads of employees and selling of the resulting entity at a profit."
He is Canada's Gordon Gekko, the job-killing corporate raider in the film Wall Street.
His "solution" to the crisis in the airline industry is a heartless response to a ridiculous situation.
Canadian and Air Canada have been trying to drive each other out of business for years.
Their insane competition has driven each to add more planes than it can afford. It was inevitable that one of them would go under.
The loser of the race, Canadian Airlines, has lost money every year but one this decade. Its losses are now unsustainable.
The workers at the two airlines are not to blame. They did not set up a situation where the market and corporate greed dictated how their businesses were run.
But thousands of them will pay for them with their jobs.
The demise of Canadian occurred just as Eaton's finally went bankrupt.
Some 13,000 workers will be on the streets as a result.
Again, the demise of the retailer is no fault of theirs. Eaton's was the plaything of the four Eaton boys, John Craig, Fred, Thor and George. They spent their time, according to one analysts, "burning rubber on the race courses with fast cars and with race horses and polo and that type of stuff." While they fiddled, their empire sank in a sea of red ink.
But again, they won't pay the price. Their race cars and polo ponies will not be seized by the banks.
It will be the 13,000 full-time and part-time workers who will pay.
Here we have the face of our "miracle economy." Eighteen thousand jobs killed by insane competition and idle dilettantism.
The airlines and Eaton's should be nationalized.
Every job should be saved.