In this episode of Full Comment, host Anthony Fury sits down with Michael O'Dayne to discuss his life, his career, and his new memoir, One Man in His Time. Michael O Dayne is a Canadian author, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is also the author of the memoir One Man In His Time, which details his life story and how he became one of the richest men in Canada.
00:04:57.200I wasn't really interested in any hocus pocus.
00:05:00.500But what happened, I was called forward.
00:05:05.100And I guess he casted my horoscope using the Chinese way of looking things.
00:05:11.640And he looked at my hands and he looked behind my ear for some reason, this and that.
00:05:16.920Benny wrote a bunch of things in Thai, which I had translated later, because although I developed some familiarity with speaking Thai, I never developed any ability to read it.
00:05:35.920And so he forecast a few things for me and just so happened that when we visited him and over the space of a few years, pretty well, everything he told me has worked out and come true.
00:05:55.860So he's no longer around at the moment, but he's passed on to the next stage in life as Buddhists believe.
00:06:16.380I followed his decisions and and they haven't.
00:06:20.820I think it's been quite fortunate in that respect.
00:06:27.280The major anecdotes in your life take you to various parts of the world, including in Mississippi, where you were the guest of their jail system for several months for protesting segregation laws.
00:06:38.900Tell us, tell us what inspired you to do that and what happened.
00:06:43.000Oh, I should correct you and say it was several weeks that I was in the Mississippi State Penetraintry, not several months, but I did experience their hospitality and their cuisine and that sort of thing and saw some pretty rugged things happening there.
00:07:07.060But I was actually, again, I sort of fell into the situation because I was doing some research work for my sociology course in Memphis, Tennessee.
00:07:21.540I would suggest that I could go there and do some things because I was ill when the exam for the course was held.
00:07:33.660And so if I wanted to pass, I had to go do something.
00:07:36.960And so I took a bus to Memphis, Tennessee for about a week.
00:07:42.480I talked to people there and did some social research.
00:07:48.640And then I heard what was going on in the freedom riots at the time.
00:07:53.840And so I thought, well, I'll test the U.S. interstate bus system, which had been apparently under the aegis of Attorney General Robert Kennedy had been desegregated.
00:08:12.640But I tested it as far as Jackson, Mississippi, and I certainly found that Jackson, Mississippi had not been desegregated when I went to try to have my dinner at the rest stop in the bus station.
00:08:27.180And that's when I was arrested and charged with a breach of the peace.
00:08:34.480That's when I met a lot of the other so-called freedom writers and had quite an interesting experience.
00:08:42.640So hearing your stories about that decades ago brings to mind recent protests for racial justice, recent concerns, discussions that people have had over these issues.
00:08:52.940Looking back at what happened decades ago, looking at the conversations we have today, what do you think about the current debates and passions around these issues?
00:09:02.860Well, I'm not too close to it at the moment.
00:09:06.980But I did go back with my daughter to, I think it was the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Rides.
00:09:16.240I went back to Jackson and I was, you know, pleased to see that the mayor of the city and I think even the governor of the state,
00:09:29.420definitely the mayor of the city was black, and we were very much entertained by the Afro-American community down there.
00:09:38.520But, and that was, you know, a lot of people say they remembered me from jail.
00:09:46.680I must say I didn't remember a lot of them, but they came up and said they remembered me.
00:09:51.780But, because I guess someone was a bit of an oddball, and I wasn't the only Canadian.
00:09:56.320But I think that things have definitely changed at that time, at the time of, we were all inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
00:10:09.580And it was very much a movement at that time of both black and white people together, black and white together.
00:10:19.960That was, say, what Martin Luther King would often say.
00:10:26.040But today it's become more of a, the black lives matter.
00:10:32.800I think it's, the thrust of it is carried by the Afro-American community, and that's, so it's somewhat different.
00:10:44.640And, but I just, I don't have any comment on that other than I do notice the difference.
00:10:54.340And, it's quite interesting to read about your experiences participating in the founding of the NDP, showing up at their initial convention, and finding yourself on the more radical end of the spectrum.
00:11:08.100And, of course, there were times in the 60s and 70s where the NDP was much more radical than it is today in terms of having far more aggressive socialist and even communist leanings.
00:11:17.100But, apparently, you were almost a bit too much for Tommy Douglas' liking, I understand.
00:11:21.860I, I'm not sure about that, but we had a great deal of respect for the former premier of Saskatchewan, and he may have been still premier at that time, I can't recall.
00:11:38.620But, but, but I, I think it was only over one incident where I had, I guess the table I was sitting at of young, young activists had put up a, a picture of, I think it was, yeah, it was Fidel Castro.
00:11:55.360And, and, and we were asked to take it down, and then I, I, I, later I was personally asked by Tommy Douglas to, he said it wouldn't be a good idea to, to, to, he didn't want the NDP cast in that kind of light.
00:12:14.620It was, they were trying to, they were trying to move to the center, it was, they, they originally called themselves before the convention, the new party, and then it became the new democratic party convention.
00:12:26.300And, and, and, and so, and that was, and I, I'd never really been a, I wasn't far, I don't think I was far left, because I'd never, most cases, I'd never been a member of the CCF.
00:12:40.140That was the former name of the party that evolved into the NDP, but I, I met my, my first wife at that convention, and she, she was lodged in the same house that, that we were when we went to the convention, and I think that was 1961, if I recall.
00:12:59.520One of the things you talk about several times in your book, that led to your transition, I don't want to say away from the activism, but I guess towards what made you become a home builder, and, and working on various business projects, was what you say is the difference between being interested in ideas, and being interested in people.
00:13:22.880I'm not sure I've ever heard it described that way before. Tell me more what you mean by that.
00:13:27.500I'm not sure whether that applies to many people, but on reflection, I certainly would think it applies to me, because in many ways, I was converted to, to a socialist line of thinking, more intellectually, and through the books I read,
00:13:57.080and, and, and, and that sort of thing, and, and, and I, I think, at that stage, being young, I was not very tolerant of people.
00:14:08.760I, I, I didn't really know how to work with people, or, or, or, let alone manage, manage them very well, and, so, you know, we were very interested in heady ideas, you know, we were very much,
00:14:24.760in the, in the, the, the ban, the ban, the ban, the ban, the ban, the ban, the ban movement, I was very much involved in that, and very much in civil liberties, and social justice, and,
00:14:35.260all that, and we, we saw it a little bit as, I think, abstract ideas, based on our, our study of history, in my case, a pretty good study of the,
00:14:48.820of the, of the French Revolution, and, and, and, and, and to a lesser extent, I was very much interested in the Cuban Revolution, as the, you'll find out in the book, and, and,
00:15:00.820and, but, but, I, I, I think it was, I, I didn't really understand that, whatever you're engaged in, in life, you, you need to really be involved with people,
00:15:17.920and, and, and, and, and, and, and be sensitive about the, that you're dealing with, with human beings, and not just,
00:15:26.820metaphysical ideas, and, and, so, I, I think, over time, I've come more, more, I've given a lot more recognition to the role of people, and trying to understand
00:15:44.920where people are coming from, and when you're creating social change, to be sensitive about its impact on, on people, and, and, and that, that kind of thing, if that makes any sense, what I'm saying.
00:16:01.880It does, and it's interesting that it feeds into another dichotomy in your, in your career, in your life, which is moving from working in housing,
00:16:11.360in a public sector, not-for-profit capacity, with the CMHC federally, you did work in BC, you did work in Ontario, and then becoming a private developer,
00:16:21.200and you're changing views on, on the creation of social housing, how it can best be done, how it can be done in a way that, that serves people the best. Tell us about that.
00:16:32.820Well, I, I, I, when I was younger, I, I think I, I really concentrated on the, the, the idea that home ownership was a, a form of theft, and, and, and that we, we would be better to have our housing stock owned, either publicly, or by, by cooperatives, and, and, and,
00:17:02.800So, I, I, I, I felt that would be a, a fairer way to allocate the, the housing stock, but, over time, I, I started to recognize the, the, the role of home ownership, and how, how, how that is important in, in, in Canada,
00:17:25.060and, of course, during, during that time, when I was getting involved in housing, it's the, sort of, start of condominiums, we, we didn't really have any condominiums, to speak of in Canada, until the early 1970s, and then we, we saw that, we, we learned that,
00:17:44.120you could really split up apartment buildings into townhouse communities into small strata lots that people could, could invest in, and, and own individually, and so, so, that was a, that was a change, but I was pretty extreme on my view of,
00:18:10.020of, of home ownership, to the point that, the first two homes I owned, one was in Don Mills in Toronto, and another in Ottawa, I refused to, I did buy them, but, when I sold them, I refused to use a, a real estate agent, and also,
00:18:28.420I refused to, I refused to take any profit, so, wow, they sold, they sold, they sold pretty quickly to neighbors, and, and, and, but the third home I, I owned in, in, in Vancouver,
00:18:44.060I, I, I did take a profit from that, so I guess I was getting corrupted by the, by the late, late 1970s.
00:18:55.260And, and, and of course, now's the opposite case, and as you know, you can't open a Toronto newspaper, or Vancouver One, or other cities in Canada, without the laments about rising house prices, people being priced out of the market, there's a lot of calls for, for perhaps government to do something, for there to be more affordable housing, we hear that phrase, a lot of affordable housing being constructed, I, I mean, speaking for myself, as a person who lives in downtown Toronto, with a young family, and, and children, I mean, I certainly see those pressures,
00:19:24.960and my neighbors, and, and, and, you know, other people who are still looking to, to get a new home, what, what is the solution to this, what is, what is the next step, what should people be looking at, in terms of housing in Canada?
00:19:35.240Well, I, I, I don't know that there is a magic solution, but the, the, certainly the, the Vancouver area situation, which I'm more familiar with, we really have a lack of housing supply.
00:19:54.100We haven't been building, we haven't been building enough housing for all the people who want to come to live in the, in, in the Vancouver area, and I, I suspect it's the same in, in Toronto, where you've got massive, in, migration from other parts of Canada and abroad.
00:20:16.700So, that's, that's, we, we do need more, more, more supply.
00:20:22.920At the same time, I, I'm not entirely a, someone who believes the only solution is home ownership.
00:20:35.180I think, I think, I think we do need a, a good rental housing component, and also, I, I continue to favor housing owned by cooperatives and, and non-profit societies.
00:20:50.300And, in fact, our company Polygon, while most of what we build is for the home ownership sector, we, we also do, and I'm very happy to, to build housing for, for, for rent and also for non-profit societies for, and we work with those societies and also with First Nations,
00:21:20.300groups to, to create a wider spectrum of, of housing opportunities.
00:21:30.360When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners?
00:21:39.020Like that woman over there with the designer jeans, are those from Winners?
00:21:43.480Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings?
00:22:00.580We had a very interesting episode on this program a number of months ago with a journalist, Sam Cooper from Global News.
00:22:08.380He has a book out concerning money laundering and casinos in Vancouver, focusing predominantly on gangs from Asia and organized crime from there.
00:22:18.360And there was some stuff on real estate and there was some stuff on real estate and there was some stuff on real estate and there's been much discussion about foreign purchases in Canadian real estate, particularly focused on B.C.
00:22:27.960To what degree do you feel that is an issue?
00:22:29.480To what degree do you feel that government remedies, I understand there's taxes on foreign purchases being introduced and perhaps ratcheted up.
00:22:38.160What are your thoughts on that whole issue?
00:22:39.580Well, I think generally the foreign buying, which was blamed for, a lot of people blamed for high housing prices, that really, I don't think there was, particularly in, generally speaking, I don't think you can just blame
00:23:05.280it on foreign buyers. I mean, we are a very major, often we are the largest builder of multifamily housing in British Columbia, townhouses and apartments.
00:23:22.640And I would say, and we have to track, and I would say only about one or two percent of them are what register as foreign nationals.
00:23:39.920So it may have been more a couple of years ago, but even then it wasn't, it was certainly less than five percent.
00:23:49.820As I say, certain neighborhoods may have experienced higher rates of buying, but, and there is a 20 percent tax on foreign buyers in British Columbia at the present time.
00:24:05.260So, while this tax pertains, that has not slowed the growth of house prices and rents, unfortunately.
00:24:18.840Whether it's your travels around the world or your capacity as a home building, I know you've looked at macroeconomic issues.
00:24:26.120You've taken a keen eye on the economy, what's going on around the world.
00:24:28.720There's a lot of anxiety right now about the global economy for various reasons, not the least of which is, of course, the pandemic and all of the different supply chain fluctuations that have happened.
00:24:40.420What are your thoughts on the future of the economy?
00:24:42.900I can say as a father of young children, I know people of my generation are no longer saying that phrase that we believe our children will have a greater standard of life than we did, which is something that I know our parents and our grandchildren and our grandparents used to say.
00:24:58.500But now it's not clear, but now it's not clear, we're nervous.
00:25:06.760I think my grandchildren tend to be pretty optimistic about the future.
00:25:13.840It may be a different future, a future which is more oriented to the environment and preserving the natural environment and those sorts of things because those priorities are very high amongst young people.
00:25:33.060Well, the one thing I should say, I do very much believe in the virtue of economic growth.
00:25:42.600I talk to some young people and they say, oh, that's economic growth is what the problem is.
00:25:54.800When you measure economic growth, you're measuring not just goods, but you're also measuring services.
00:26:02.120And I think there are, even if you think we have enough goods, and I'm not sure that everyone in Canada would agree that we do, but because we certainly don't have enough housing in parts of the country where people want to live.
00:26:17.860But I think that there's a lot more service we need in terms of health services, care for children, daycare services, and care for the elderly.
00:26:34.020And I see the service economy still has a long way to grow.
00:26:41.460And so the other thing I favor economic growth is because I was taught by one of my professors, and I think he's probably right at the London School of Economics,
00:26:56.440is that in a democratic society, if you want to achieve more equitable distribution of wealth,
00:27:08.800that the way to do it is at the leading edge of the economy.
00:27:13.020In other words, distributing, redistributing, or just plain distributing the growth in the GDP, whether it's whatever it is, 4%, 5%,
00:27:25.020and biasing that growth towards people at the lower end of the scale.
00:27:32.020And because if you're going to take it away, if you're thinking of taking it away, then getting from the groups of people in society,
00:27:45.980particularly the middle class, feel they're already participating well, but then you're moving to more of a revolutionary situation,
00:27:56.840which I think obviously is very unstable, and usually ends in some form of violence.
00:28:07.840So I do favor economic growth, and I think that's the way to achieve more equality of opportunity in our country.
00:28:26.140At the same time, I do have views about the super-rich, and I do share the view that it's not necessarily a good idea to have an economy
00:28:43.480that allows people to build up dynasties that continue for several generations.
00:28:51.480When you do that, you end up with often a class of young people who don't feel that they need to work
00:29:00.080and just live off their grandparents' trusts and that sort of thing.
00:29:07.120I think that it's fine for people to be able to keep what they, through their ingenuity or through their hard work they earn in their lifetime.
00:29:20.300But I do have concerns about them pricing it down to generation after generation.
00:30:11.680It's become a great interest in my life.
00:30:14.960And, you know, often I don't like to put my name on donations like that.
00:30:22.960But they tell me that if you do use your name, it tends to more encourage other people to get involved and to think about their responsibility for their fellow citizens.
00:30:47.340And then when I say we, it's my family, both my wife and my children, grandchildren share the interest.
00:30:56.760I've got to end on a gossipy note because I teased in the introduction your dinner with both Charlie Chaplin, Andy and Fleming at the same time in Kingston, Jamaica.
00:31:06.180What was that like, hanging out with these two gentlemen and Charlie Chaplin?
00:31:09.920I understand he wasn't always, sometimes in personal life, he could be a little bit sullen.
00:31:13.200He didn't always act the role of the film guy.
00:31:16.800Yes, I didn't exactly know who was coming to dinner that night.
00:31:20.420I was staying at a resort in Ocherias on the north coast that my stepfather, what was involved in, I guess he represented the owners of the resort.
00:32:03.240And also he often went to my grandfather's restaurant.
00:32:09.180My grandfather had a restaurant in London in the 1920s or 30s when, particularly the 1920s, I think, Charlie Chaplin was becoming a very well-known film star.
00:33:25.400And your book, One Man in His Time, is full of such really amazing stories about your travels and other remarkable things that you have done.
00:33:33.760Michael O'Dayne, thank you very much for joining us today for the conversation.