The Citizen, 1998-03-11, Page 5Hold a true friend with both hands —
Nigerian Proverb
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 1998. PAGE 5.
Spring here!
almost ...
Now is the winter of our discontent...
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was, as usual, both bang on
the money and ahead of his time. Here's a
medieval playwright scribbling to a deadline
by the light of a candle and he manages to
encapsulate in one pithy phrase a malady that
wasn't even diagnosed until 500 years after
his death.
We've just come through most of another
Canadian winter and I know in my frozen
bones that Shakespeare was really writing
about SAD.
Its full name is Seasonal Affective
Disorder and for my money, you can forget
tingly ears and frozen toes, dead car batteries
and driveways full of snow — SAD is the real
downside of the Canadian winter.
How do you know if you're SAD afflicted?
It doesn't take a CAT scan. It's not hard to
tell.
With SAD, you'll tend to oversleep, by as
much as four hours a day. You'll feel listless
and bone lazy. Nothing will seem to be
worth the effort. You will probably find it
nearly impossible to concentrate. And you'll
find yourself craving massive amounts of
starchy foods.
What's more, you'll go through this
depressing ritual year after dreary year,
starting in late fall and getting worse as
winter wears on. By spring, the symptoms
lighten up and eventually disappear — usually
in time for barbecue season.
Is bigger better?
1998 was not very old when the Canadian
banking system dropped a bombshell in our
midst; the Royal and the Bank of Montreal,
our largest and third largest banks, announced
that they were going to merge, that is, if the
federal government would permit it.
The news caught everybody by surprise,
even apparently Finance Minister Paul
Martin, who is reported to have been more
than a bit miffed that he had to find out the
news like everybody else — via the media.
There has been, predictably, a lot of
negative comment about the merger.
However, there is little doubt that banks all
over the world are looking to mergers in
order to improve their performance.
Late last year, a merger similar to the one
in Canada took place in Switzerland, in that
two of that country's largest banks joined
forces.
There was an outcry in Swiss circles, but
all other things being equal, there is nothing
wrong about two banks getting together.
Either a strong one can take over a weak one,
or else two banks believe that, since each of
them has strong points, a combination of
these will result in greater success in
financial markets.
However, the argument of the two
Canadian banks that bigger is better doesn't
actually impress me with its logic. Those
wizards at the Royal and the Bank of
Montreal overlook the fact that many of
those "world class" banks are currently
posting very miserable performances and one
Experts don't know a whole lot about SAD
but they're reasonably certain that it is
triggered by sunshine -- or rather the lack of
it.
They are also pretty well agreed that it's
residents of the northern latitudes that are
most affected. People in Hawaii don't suffer
from SAD. People in Tuktoyaktuk do.
And most Canadians experience weather
patterns closer to those of the Arctic than to
those of the Hawaiian Islands. Unfortunately.
The doctors say only about two to three per
cent of Canadians seriously suffer from
SAD, but they admit that another 10 per cent
of us 'experience significant seasonal
difficulties'.
Personally, I'd put the numbers much
higher than that. As a matter of fact, I don't
know anybody in this country who doesn't
find the short, dingy days of our winters to be
a drag.
Where do you go in Canada to escape the
SADness? Forget Vancouver and Victoria.
Sure, their winters are milder, but they're a
lot grayer too. From November through
February, Vancouverites get only 258 hours
of bright sunshine if they're lucky.
Torontonians on the other hand, can expect
to receive 363 hours. Of course, they also
have to put up with hosting the Leafs and the
Blue Jays.
If you really want to get the maximum
amount of winter solar rays without using a
passport, pack up your ear muffs and move
to Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg or pretty
well any place on the prairies. Calgarians get
to bask in 452 hours of bright winter
sunshine — nearly twice the Vancouver
has only to look at those giant Japanese
banks to see the truth of that. Their lending
practices have not been exactly a shining
light for the Canadians, or anybody else for
that matter, to follow.
The Union Bank Corporation, the largest
bank in Switzerland and considerably larger
than any Canadian bank, and one involved in
the merger which I mentioned above,
recently got involved in Japanese convertible
preference shares, smelling a considerable
profit. Instead the bank ended up with the
loss of close to a billion dollars.
Are Canadian banks any smarter? I have
yet to see any proof of that.
If profits, and not losses, are the name of
the game, let's talk about profits. If we look
at a bank's assets, the most profitable bank in
the world is Lloyd's in Great Britain. It
decided to avoid, as one person put it,
"planting flags all over the world" and stayed
at home. It ranks, as far as sizes is concerned,
33rd in the world, below what the two
Canadian banks would be, and its profit,
before taxes, was about $9 billion.
With this in mind, some of the Royal's and
Bank of Montreal's statement sound almost
like sophistry.
I don't know what it is about banks, but
many of them suffer from arrogance, or
hubris, as the psychologists would call it. I
found it, for example, in the Czech banks and
it reminded me of the treatment I have
sometimes received from Canadian banks.
This arrogance is present when I read that
both presidents will be allowed td keep their
exalted positions and their multi-million
dollar salaries.
allotment.
What can you do to combat SAD — aside
from hiring a Hertz Rent-A-Rowboat and
sculling to Hawaii? The doctors are pretty
fuzzy on this aspect too. They think the
chemical serotonin plays an important part,
although they're not sure precisely how.
Tests indicate that patients suffering severe
cases of SAD invariably show abnormally
low levels of serotonin in their systems.
Another thing that seems to help some
patients is a 'light box'. It's basically an
electrical unit that emits ultraviolet-filtered,
full-spectrum light into the eyes of patients.
Doctors are guessing that this artificial light
source, when directed at the patient, imitates
the natural light that is missing from our
winter days.
As for other possible defenses against this
most Canadian of maladies, it turns out that,
when all is said and done, your doctor's
guess is about as good as your Aunt Sadie's
chicken soup. Get eight hours of sleep a
night, they say. Be sure to exercise lots, they
say. Cut back on all those starchy, sweet
treats, they say. Take up a hobby. Adopt a
pet. Enroll in night school.
Oh yeah — and think positively.
That may, in fact, turn out to be the best
medical advice a SAD sufferer can receive.
The truth is, what really knocks the stuffing
out of Seasonal Affective Disorder is a
simple, fail-safe phenomenon we call the end
of winter. Which, my calendar tells me, isn't
too far off at all.
Shakespeare didn't say this, but he should
have:
Spring is just around the corner.
This arrogance is also present in the
expensive public relations campaign that the
banks are conducting so that we, as
Canadians, will learn to appreciate them
more. Have they not been listening to
consumers in this country?
To say, for example, that the merger will
result in minimal job losses is yet an
extension of this hubris. If you believe that,
you will continue to believe in the tooth
fairy. Even the big Swiss banks, at the time
of their merger, recognized that there would
be considerable job losses since they are
frequently located near each other just as the
Royal and Montreal are.
Yet another indication of this arrogance is
when you try to change some foreign
currency at a branch where you are not
known. You will be told that such service is
only reserved for their customers. Yet I can
walk into any European bank and change
currency on the spot.
In short the Canadian banks, regardless of
their size, have a credibility problem and a
bad one at that. They may think that far fields
are greener, but what will they do if Canadian
customers start deserting them in droves?
When I first came to Canada, I used to
think that the sun rose and set on the Royal
Bank. Some indication of the change in my
thinking is that I now do most of my business
at one of the district credit unions. I would
not blame Canadians for doing the same.
The
Short
of it
• .•
By Bonnie Gropp,::...•
Can he get the work done?
Remember as a kid when it' was just so
easy to believe? From Santa Claus to a better
tomorrow, we accepted any reasonable
explanation offered because, quite frankly,
we just hadn't been around long enough to
know any better.
Sometimes stories just put a diplomatic
spin on the truth. "Why do I have freckles,
Mom?" can be answered honestly, but more
gently by, "That is where the sun kissed
you." Others, though with best intentions,
simply set us up for disappointment.
Promises of freedom as an adult, to spend
what you want, on what you want, to do
what you want, when you want, are typically
unfounded. Mom may have said that if we
got good jobs we could have our own money
to spend on anything we wanted. But what
Mom didn't know was that there aren't any
jobs and not much money.
It is difficult as years pass to not become
cynical at worse, skeptical at best. It seems
we can count on very little — not even a
groundhog. Both Wiarton Willie and his
counterpart in Pennsylvania predicted Feb. 2
that there would be six more weeks of
winter. Now with that to be up next
Wednesday, we can only hope, considering
that there was virtually no winter since the
prophesy, that it's not going to begin soon
and be retroactive.
When you can't even count on the
mediocre, is it any wonder that there is
suspicion? Take for example Premier Mike
Harris's recent comment that there would not
be an early election because he and his
MPPs still have work to do.
No kidding! Let's see — when your
government has effectively ticked off the
teachers, doctors, nurses, optometrists, union
members, law enforcement and municipal
politicians during the first half of the term,
you can bet there's work to do in the second
half. I believe it's called kissing up.
It seems more than co-incidence that
suddenly MPPs are becoming such high
profile PR folk. Locally, a constituency
office is suddenly being opened in Wingham
to accommodate the people of North Huron.
It was a promise made, they said, and now
the time has come.
From ribbon cuttings to the presence of
provincial ministers in lowly rural areas they
are focussing attention away from their
unsympathetic, close-minded cut and slash
tactics of old. What we see instead is a more
compassionate government, concerned with
the needs and interests of all its consitutents.
Yeah right. I apologize for and I do not
ask you to share my skepticism, but while
the characters have changed the story is 411
too familiar. These politicans took control at
the beginning of their 'reign' making
decisions they deemed for our own good,
much like a stern parent shuts a'locked door
on a child before listening, then masks
arrogance with a show of generosity to buy
back affection.
In a democracy the people speak and we
all supposedly get the government we want.
However, I am cycnical enough to suggest
that for some the democratic vote is less than
satisfying, that we want a politician
representing us, not the government. I am
also cynical enough to know that in the time
left before another election, Harris may
accomplish all the work he sets out to do.
Arthur Black