Ford Canada president recognized the value of a free-trade
auto pact
Described as a youthful financial whiz when he took over at
42, he also persuaded head office to build a engine plant in
Canada after twisting the arms of Pierre Trudeau and Bill
Davis
DOUGLAS MCARTHUR
Special to The Globe and Mail
June 26, 2007
TORONTO -- Roy Bennett helped his buddies set up the "Friday
Night Poker Club" while attending North Toronto Collegiate
Institute in 1945. He would continue to attend its monthly
sessions for more than 60 years.
During that time, he became a chartered accountant, rose
through the ranks of the Ford Motor Co. of Canada to become
its president at age 42 without having gone to university,
and held executive and board positions with many of the
country's leading businesses and institutions. But he never
abandoned the regular poker-and-beer nights with his old
friends, many of whom also became business leaders.
"Whatever he did, he was committed," said Jim Hunter, who
worked with him on a number of financial projects and is now
president of NexGen Financial. "Whether it was business,
tennis or poker, those commitments were life-long," he said.
He was also very bright, affable and "a counter-thinker, who
would look at a problem and come up with a different
conclusion than everyone else."
Ken Harrigan, who followed Mr. Bennett as president of Ford
Canada, said his predecessor's main contribution was
convincing government officials in Ottawa to negotiate a
free-trade auto pact with Washington. The Canada-United
States Automotive Agreement, signed in 1965, allowed free
movement across the border of vehicles from Big Three auto
plants in both countries. For Canada, this meant lower car
prices and an increase in Canadian production, which created
new jobs.
While heading Ford's Canadian subsidiary from 1970 to 1981,
Mr. Bennett worked to build a profitable operation
independent of the U.S. head office. He also made relations
with employees a priority and reached out to find common
ground with both government and organized labour. After
stepping down as president in 1981, he founded and ran
Bennecon, a firm that provides cash-flow advice to large
companies. At the same time, he served terms as chairman or
director with BP Canada, Midland Walwyn, Jannock,
Metropolitan Life Holdings Co., York University, the
Mississauga Hospital, Scouts Canada and a host of other
companies and organizations.
Ron Osborne, chairman of Sun Life Financial, called Mr.
Bennett a role model for accountants who want to make other
contributions - "to go straight," as he put it. "He was the
model director -- big picture, strategic, not prone to sweat
the details, rigorous in his questioning, but, after the
decisions were made, very supportive."
Mr. Bennett and his wife, Gail Cook-Bennett, were one of
corporate Canada's power couples. When they were married in
1978, he was president of Ford Canada and she was executive
vice-president of the C. D. Howe Institute of Research in
Montreal. They met at a Canadian-American Committee meeting
in Washington. At the end of one session, Dick Schmeelk, an
American who served as co-chair of the group, invited them
for a ride in a Cadillac to go and get a nightcap. The
irony, Mr. Schmeelk said, was that the president of Ford
Canada had that "first date" in a General Motors vehicle.
Over the years, they twice served on the boards of competing
corporations - once in the petroleum field, once in
insurance. No discussion of their respective companies was
allowed at home, said Ms. Cook-Bennett, who is now chair of
the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
While president of Ford Canada, Mr. Bennett persuaded the
U.S. head office to build a $535-million engine plant in
Windsor, Ont., instead of Ohio, which was offering state
subsidies. He alerted Queen's Park and Ottawa to the urgent
need for their involvement, and arranged a meeting between
prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Ontario premier William
Davis while both were attending the Calgary Stampede. On the
spot, the two agreed to a $68-million cash incentive plan
that helped seal the deal.
The youngest of two sons of English-born parents, William
Charles Bennett and Gladys Mabel (Matthews), Roy Frederick
Bennett spent his early years in Winnipeg. Roy was 10 when
his father, a manufacturing agent in the woollens industry,
moved the family to Toronto. In 1941, while attending
Maurice Cody Public School, Roy played on the team that won
the Toronto school soccer championship.
Athletics were to play an important role in his life. He
enjoyed hockey, golf and squash. As a young man, he once won
a tennis match against Don Fontana, who later became one of
Canada's top-seeded players.
After high school, Mr. Bennett chose a fast-track route to
become a chartered accountant. He apprenticed directly with
the accounting firm Lever and Hoskin, rather than attending
university. He worked with the firm until 1954, when he
joined Kelvinator.
Two years later, he moved to Ford Canada as supervisor of
financial planning. He was made marketing manager in 1964
and vice-president of finance in 1965. In the early years at
Ford, Mr. Bennett was offered a posting in South Africa and
was told it could help his chances of becoming president. He
declined, preferring not to uproot his family, according to
daughter Brenda Bennett-Learmonth. He had married Laurie
McDermott in 1955 and they had three children, Bruce, Brenda
and Lynne. The couple later separated and were divorced.
Laurie McDermott Bennett later died.
But opportunities knocked again at Ford Canada. Mr. Bennett
had won the admiration and backing of Ford Motor Co.
chairman Henry Ford II by making himself the company expert
on free trade, and on Nov. 16, 1970, he was given the job of
president.
Heading one of Canada's largest companies at 42 won Mr.
Bennett the reputation of being a wunderkind. In a profile,
The Globe and Mail described him as a "youthful financial
whiz who never graduated from university." Two years later,
he was given the additional title of CEO.
When he was made president, Mr. Bennett said he would take
the job for no less than five years and no more than 10,
says his son Bruce, now president of Bennecon. "He felt if
you couldn't do what you wanted in 10 years, it was time for
someone else to take charge."
So in 1981, he stepped down as president, although he served
a brief period after that as chairman. He turned down an
executive job offer at the U.S. head office because he
didn't want to leave Canada. He continued to serve on the
Ford Canada board until the subsidiary was privatized in
1995.
Claude Lamoureux was an executive at Metropolitan Life
Holdings when Mr. Bennett was named chair of the company's
board. He went to their first meeting together prepared to
answer questions about sales and finances. Instead, Mr.
Bennett wanted to know about the human resources department.
"He put real emphasis on people, on having the right HR
department ... on having the right team," said Mr.
Lamoureux, now president and CEO of the Ontario Teachers'
Pension Fund.
In 1986, Mr. Bennett served on the Royal Commission on
Unemployment Insurance and issued a minority report saying
that plans to remove seasonal benefits would be too
Draconian a measure for chronically depressed regions. He
argued that an income-supplement program should be put in
place before any move was made to base unemployment benefits
on a full year's income. That strong sense of fair play was
demonstrated again in February, 1995, when he wrote a
critical letter to Ford's U.S. head office. It charged that
the parent company's transfer pricing policy was suppressing
profits at the Canadian subsidiary.
He called the low earnings "an embarrassment for management,
employees and dealers as well as Canadian directors." The
letter suggested that Ford Motor Co. buy out the minority
shareholders if it was not prepared to let the Canadian
operations become more profitable. A buyout plan was
announced two months later.
A focal point for the Bennett family's time together was a
cottage on an island in Lake of Bays, in the Muskoka area,
north of Toronto. Mr. Bennett installed "the smallest car
ferry in the world" to transport his Ford Explorer to the
island, said Keith Hillyer, who had a cottage nearby. A
motorized cable system pulled the ferry across. "To get on
the ferry, the car had to go down a precipitous incline,"
Mr. Hillyer said. "He had to be careful it didn't slide off
the other side."
Mr. Bennett pursued his busy lifestyle of business,
charitable, athletic and social endeavours into his late
70s - it was just last year when a diagnosis of bladder
cancer forced him to slow down.
A year ago, he attended his last session of the Friday Night
Poker Club and lost $120. David Fleming, one of four
founding members still living, says the group plans to carry
on its six-decades-old tradition.
ROY FREDERICK BENNETT
Roy Frederick Bennett was born in Winnipeg on March 18,
1928. He died at his Toronto home of bladder cancer on June
4, 2007. He was 79. He leaves his wife, Gail Cook-Bennett;
children Bruce, Brenda, Lynne and Christopher; and seven
grandchildren. He was predeceased by his brother, Ken.