He has impressed Frank Guarascio, a lawyer and partner with Blake, Cassels and Graydon. And if that is all that Jay Bradshaw manages to accomplish today, there’s still every chance that it should go into the books as a solid day’s work.
Blake, Cassels and Graydon is one of the seven sisters, the fabled group of leading Canadian law firms that have offices in Toronto. Even among that exalted group, Blake, Cassels and Graydon is a leader, said to have put together more big-league mergers and acquisitions in the last three years than any other firm in the country.
Read Also
Making space for a new generation of ideas in Canadian agriculture
In part four of our Making the Future series Country Guide spoke with Eugénie Officer from Hemmingford, Que. (Read part…
Blake, Cassels and Graydon thrives on the rarefied air of Bay Street, and Bradshaw has come to the Economic Club of Canada to convince Guarascio and his downtown neighbours that agriculture is good business.
Did he get the job done? Guarascio makes me believe he did. “The agribusiness and food sector is one of growing importance to national and international communities and Canada is well positioned to benefit,” Guarascio says after Bradshaw’s lunch-time speech.
In fact, Guarascio was already conditioned to hear that message. He points out his firm has set up a national agribusiness and food practice group. But he is walking away with a couple of other key messages too.
“It is important for Canada to have strong national players in the financial and legal industries who can focus on helping to take advantage of the business opportunities,” Guarascio tells me. In other words, there’s money to be made by Backing Canada’s Agriculture.
And the second message? It’s a LOT of money. For Guarascio, the key impact of Bradshaw’s speech was to show just how much potential exists in the agricultural industry — and that Canada is, and can continue to be, a leader on the world stage.
To come to the National Club, the exclusive private club in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, I had to fight fierce winds barrelling down canyon-like Bay Street. With the thunderous bells of the old city hall tolling behind me, and the elegant stone facade of the Canada Permanent Trust building across the street, this setting could be from another era.
It’s a part of Toronto that anyone can see from the outside, but few from the inside.
Checking in with the concierge, I feel underdressed despite my shirt and tie. In fact, photographer Drew de Haas is shown out the door when he arrives in jeans, forced to hustle up a suit before he can get in.
Drew and I find our seats at the back of a large room hung with chandeliers and a gallery wrapped around the top. At the front are pictures of powerful people including lieutenant-governors, premiers, prime ministers, and past club presidents. The message is, this is their kind of place.
And it is. The place reeks of Bay Street extravagance, and it’s the last place I’d expect to hear about agriculture. Yet at $79 a head, here we are, seated at linen-draped tables with silver-plate cutlery, listening to Jay Bradshaw, president of Syngenta Canada, talk about how agriculture is fuelling the economy.
Bradshaw’s talk today came about when Cohn and Wolfe, Syngenta’s public relations group pitched the idea to the Economic Club of Canada. The club, which bills itself as the only national, nonpartisan organization to stage talks by
influential business and political figures, holds events across the country, drawing members from the upper echelons of business, industry and government.
As the event gets rolling, club vice-president Rhiannon Traill tells us about past speakers, who include Stephen Harper, Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator John McCain, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and many, many others.
The room could hold 100. Today, there are about 70 here. There’s a table with Syngenta folks, and another with people from farm organizations. There’s the brigade of farm business representatives from nearby Guelph, and a table with University of Guelph students.
There’s a table too with a sign saying it’s reserved for media, but I’m the only journalist to show up.
I also see a couple tables with people who appear to be Bay streeters — and these are the people who are the real targets today.
“I want to address the financial opportunities in agriculture,” Bradshaw says, cutting straight to the point. Quickly he also brushes aside the image of farmers in straw hats and coveralls, telling the audience that today’s farmers today are educated, they’re smart, and they know how to do business.
In 2006, Bradhsaw says, the agriculture and the agri-food system contributed almost $90 billion to the Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) or roughly eight per cent of the Canadian economy. “One of these is a billion-dollar industry you may not have heard of…,” he says, and then goes on to talk about pulses from Saskatchewan. Chuckling, he says, “If you like Guinness beer like I do…,” then tells listeners about malt barley from the Prairies.
While I don’t see too much fidgeting, this audience is pretty sombre and polite.
Bradshaw openly acknowledges that agriculture isn’t used to being in the spotlight. “It is new for us to see agriculture in the National Post and the Globe and Mail,” he says.
But then he says that agriculture needs to get used to it, and so do other businesses. With three billion more people expected in the world by 2030, Bradshaw says, global farm output must increase by 17 per cent. “We need to grow a lot more with a lot less,” he says. And he explains that Canada is uniquely positioned to contribute to the solution.
Bradshaw touches on the rejection of biotechnology in the European Union, cautioning that despite our science-based regulatory system here in Canada, “We must be wary of junk science,” adding, “Political agendas should not replace science-based decision-making.” Bradshaw talks of a 40 per cent drop in food production worldwide without crop protection products — and adds that, unfortunately, the public is not aware of this.
Bradshaw closes with optimism, though, saying, “I would suggest we’re once again on the cusp of something unbelievable.”
Bradshaw is more at ease speaking without notes, and clearly he speaks a language that this audience understands, and he has the mannerisms and the polish that they respect. He becomes more animated when audience questions begin.
Later, as the crowd saunters out of the room, I chat with people from the business crowd. The consensus seems to be, agriculture may offer a chance to make some money.
Talking alone with Bradshaw later, he uses the analogy of concentric circles as he explains how to get out the message about agriculture and about his company: The message might start with small groups, but there is a ripple effect.
Did he get the job done? When I talk to Guarascio, at first he’s unsure he wants to talk on the record, or have his name used. Then he lets himself be talked into it. Clearly, he must think, getting linked to agriculture can’t be such a bad thing. CG
