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BCBUSINESS.CA JULY/AUGUST 2019 BCBUSINESS 79 private gives us the ability to look beyond the next quarter." Clark, who was B.C.'s New Democratic Party premier from 1996 to 1999, says Pattison is also an exemplary boss. "He's patient, disciplined. He gives everyone a chance to do well. That's why our average length of service is so high." This wasn't always the Pattison repu- tation. Paul Grescoe, the as-told-to writer behind the 1987 book Jimmy: An Autobiog- raphy, con†rmed then (and now) that, as a young entrepreneur, Pattison regularly sacked his poorest-performing salesman. (As Grescoe says, "They were all men in those days.") But both Grescoe and Clark defend the practice, saying you're not doing a failed commission salesper- son any favour by keeping them in a job that will never pay. They say that Jimmy wasn't punishing underachievers, he was doing them a kindness. This, then, gets to an interesting aspect of Canada's Œifth-richest man (Forbes says he's worth $7.7 billion): Jim Pattison has no critics. Actually, that's an overstatement. For example, there are many who resent the breadth of his in"u- ence in the B.C. †shery. But unlike most business moguls, Pattison has no horde of angry detractors waiting by the phone to say uncharitable things. David Baines, the retired Vancouver Sun columnist who for decades tracked bad behaviour in the B.C. business com- munity, says Pattison has escaped criti- cism on two counts. First, because the Pattison Group is privately held, "It's very difŒicult for outsiders to scrutinize his deals." Second, Baines says, Jimmy "always returns reporter phone calls. Reporters feel "attered when the top guy responds." Glen Clark (who's also excellent about returning calls), says that's true: "It's a rule in our o˜ce: no matter who it is, you phone back." But Clark offers another explanation for Pattison's resilient reputa- tion. "Jimmy's so ethical. It sounds like I'm biased—and actually, I am biased!—but he really is. Jimmy always says, 'Try not to do anything we wouldn't want to see on the front page of the paper.' He has a strong sense of values." THE POWER OF GIVING This certainly seems to be expressed in Pattison's philanthropy. The Jim Pattison Foundation gives away millions—or tens of millions—every year. For example, in 2018, the foundation committed $75 million to the new St. Paul's Hospital and $50 mil- lion to the now-state-of-the-art Jim Pattison Children's Hospital in Saskatoon, where he was born. In the late 1990s, he gave what was then a head-snapping gift of $20 mil- lion to prostate cancer research in Vancou- ver, and he used that donation to leverage so much additional health-care money out of the provincial government to accelerate construction that the main building of Van- couver General Hospital is now known as the Jim Pattison Pavilion. When I ask Pattison if these gifts gave him particular pleasure, he says, "Well, no. We've always—as most businesses do— given money to di£erent causes." But this may re"ect modesty more than disinterest. As Grescoe reported in the Pattison biogra- phy, from his earliest days as a door-to-door garden seed salesboy in East Vancouver, Pattison has tithed: he's given 10 percent of his income to charitable causes. But Clark says the boss doesn't go looking for credit, even if other people insist on putting the Pattison name on libraries and buildings he has supported. Really, it's di˜cult to get Jim Pattison to admit that anything gives him as much of a thrill as just turning up for another day at the o˜ce. ("I like what I do. I don't consider it work.") One of his most famous indul- gences is the 150-foot yacht Nova Spirit, which he bought in 1999 for US$25 million. If you stand close to the window, you can see it from the Pattison Group reception room, though Pattison himself is not one to gaze long- ingly at the view. "I don't go out on the boat very often. We use it for entertaining cus- tomers, suppliers and special guests. But I don't use it personally." And, to be clear: he doesn't †sh. He also doesn't spend much time at the Rancho Mirage estate near Palm Springs that he bought in 1995 from Frank Sinatra. As with the boat: "We have meet- ings there. We bring customers there." A cynic might wonder if Pattison is defend- ing the tax deductibility of a holiday asset, but Grescoe says it's a fair charac- terization of Jimmy's passions. "The only extracurricular activity I ever saw that gave him pleasure was the trumpet. He really loved playing, and he was good. If he was going to take over someone's company, he would take them out for a cruise and play the trumpet." As we are nearing the end of the inter- view, I ask Pattison about his plans for the future, to which he answers—without a hint of irony—"Oh, we're just getting started." Asked whether he'll ever retire, he fairly snaps: "I hope not." Then, as I am about to leave, Pattison says, "Wait, you haven't met Maureen," and he turns us toward the ofŒice of Maureen Chant, the woman who has been his executive assistant for 56 of his 58 years in business. Chant is famous as Jimmy's gatekeeper, a second and highly trusted set of eyes and ears. In a senior management group that is otherwise exclu- sively male, everyone acknowledges that she has always been the No. 2. Sitting in her o˜ce, which is tucked in behind the reception area, Chant exudes conŒidence and efŒiciency, somehow appearing both warm and brusque at the same time. As we step through her door, she already knows who I am and why I am here, and she asks immediately if I got everything I needed. I say yes and ask: Is she ever going to retire? Chant pauses and looks to Jimmy, as if to check for an update, and then she says: "I hope not." As mentioned, the Pattison Group is a private company: you can't buy shares. But if you could, I'd suggest that it would be on everybody's "buy" list—as a long- term hold. Really, it's dicult to get Jim Pattison to admit that anything gives him as much of a thrill as just turning up for another day at the oce. ("I like what I do. I don't consider it work.")

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