voice of experience 24 1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence The world according to John Billionaire seafood baron insists that business, not government, must lead Atlantic Canada out of its economic malaise Story by Stephen Kimber Photo by Mike Tompkins “ The problem with doing profiles…” John Risley begins, and I realize I’ve already lost control of this particular interview before I even ask my first question. “I mean, look,” he continues, kindly enough, “this is your editorial licence, not mine.” It had all seemed simple enough back in July Canada;” the driving force behind the evolution 2013 during an editorial meeting in St. John’s. In of Ocean Nutrition, the 16-year-old Nova Scotia- 2014, Atlantic Business Magazine would celebrate its based company that had become the world’s largest 25th anniversary – no mean feat in the publishing producer of Omega-3 fatty acids by the time Risley business anywhere these days – and editor Dawn sold it last year to Dutch-based Royal DSM for Chafe and I were trying to figure out an appropriate $540 million; and a major investor in Columbus editorial way to mark that milestone. I’m not sure Communications, a 10-year-old Barbados-based which of us came up with the idea to profile a series company providing cable TV‚ digital video, high of key Atlantic Canadian business makers and speed internet access‚ digital telephones and economy shakers, but we quickly agreed John Risley corporate data services in 42 countries in the had to be one of them. Caribbean, Central and South America. Risley, after all, is a member in good standing in These days, Risley lives with his wife Judy in Canadian Business magazine’s Top 100 Wealthiest a 32,000-square-foot Georgian-style mansion on Canadians, the billionaire co-founder of Clearwater a 300-acre sweet spot of ocean-fronted land near Seafoods Inc., “one of North America’s largest idyllic Chester, N.S., that once belonged to the vertically integrated seafood companies and the founder of Sunoco, the American petrochemical largest holder of shellfish licences and quotas in giant. When he needs to go somewhere, or just get Jan/Feb 2014 atlanticbusinessmagazine.com 25 away from it all, he can hop aboard OK, so what then? the reality that we’re growing our one of his small fleet of corporate We are sitting this morning in the economy at a lesser rate than we’re aircraft or sail away in a luxurious Clearwater boardroom above a much- growing our expenses. Our balance 240-foot super-yacht “equipped with renovated and expanded fish retail sheet is getting worse – debt up by a a helipad and a grand ‘country-house’- store on Halifax’s Bedford Highway billion dollars! style interior.” looking out on a spectacular view of “The idea that the business Even though he turned 65 last April, Bedford Basin. Risley, greying, tousled- community can sit back and say, ‘Oh, Risley shows no signs of slowing haired and dressed in an open-necked Premier A is gonna save us, or Premier down. There’s this other business buttoned-down shirt and casual pants, B is gonna save us… Ain’t gonna he tells me this morning he can’t still looks boyish, not to mention happen! When was the last time we talk about, a “small,” $35-40 million boyishly eager to stir things up. had that kind of leadership?” investment he’s making, the details of “I think, and it’s just a suggestion to I mention Frank McKenna, the which he hopes to be able to announce you and Dawn,” he says, “that, instead former New Brunswick premier who soon. of doing a profile, you should get the was a favourite of the business Not bad for a guy who got his start perspective of six business leaders community. “Frank was a great back in the 1970s peddling lobster on the future of Atlantic Canada. thinker,” Risley admits. “He had the from the back of a… I think that would be much more vision with the ability to sell it.” Oops. interesting…” But Risley is much less sanguine “I don’t want to read another article,” about the current crop of politicians Risley tells me, “that says my brother- “ This has tradition- he’s met. Darrell Dexter, the recently in-law and I started selling lobsters off defeated NDP premier of Nova the back of a pickup truck.” ally been a region Scotia? “Get him in a corner and Uh… he knew what needed to be done, In 1986, the first time I’d profiled which has waited but he couldn’t embrace it because a much younger Risley for Canadian for government to he couldn’t sell it.” Stephen McNeil, Business, I wrote about those first pick- Dexter’s Liberal successor? Risley up-truck days back in the late sixties. lead and business would rather not talk, on the record “Each morning that summer, [Risley] at least, about a man he could end drove his rented truck 250 km to Nova followed. We have to up having business dealings with. Scotia’s Northumberland shore fishing come to grips with But even if he turns out to be a communities, dickered with fishermen McKenna in the making, there is at the wharves over the price of their the fact government the longer-term question. “Who day’s catch and then hustled back to takes their place? Frankly, it doesn’t the store in Bedford to sell his lobsters just isn’t capable of matter because government generally for slightly more than he had paid for leading. I mean, look doesn’t have the skill set, doesn’t them. Risley’s brother-in-law, Colin have the horse sense to do what MacDonald, a medical student who had at the recent [Nova needs to be done.” once worked as a plumber’s apprentice, Scotia] election. Which brings us to… business. agreed to help him launch his store. When you ask John Risley what ‘Colin was lying under the tank business leaders should be doing, he fixing some pipes at three o’clock one The Cliffs Notes version of John points to 4Front, a recent series of morning,’ Risley recalls, ‘and he finally Risley’s personal take on the future private-sector-led annual conferences said, with more expletives than I’ll use, of Atlantic Canada is that it’s long on the Atlantic economy. ‘Why in hell am I doing this?’ And I past time for business leaders to step Co-sponsored by BMO Financial said, ‘Because you now have a 50 per up and do what governments can’t, Group and regional corporate law cent interest in the business. That’s won’t, or don’t want to do. firm McInnes Cooper, and featuring why.’ That was the foundation for our “This has traditionally been a blue-chip advisory committee partnership. It’s still no more formal a region which has waited for chaired by John Bragg and including than that.’” government to lead and business such regional/global corporate Between then and as recently as followed,” he explains. “We have heavyweights as John Irving, Rob last May, when the Globe and Mail’s to come to grips with the fact and Don Sobey, Gerry Pond and, of Gordon Pitts pronounced Risley “as government just isn’t capable of course, John Risley, the three annual lean and hungry as 40 years ago leading. I mean, look at the recent conferences put the spotlight on what when he and his brother-in-law Colin [Nova Scotia] election.” Nobody Risley sees as fundamental dilemmas MacDonald were selling lobsters out talked about the huge demographic Atlantic Canada must face. From too of the back of a rented pickup on problems this province faces. Nobody many ivy-on-the-walls universities Halifax’s Bedford Highway”, journalists talked about health care spending “in the face of the growing role of have traded shamelessly on that still that’s out of control. Nobody talked the internet and online education” compelling, still true, rags-to-riches about the fact we have the worst to the “irreversible” depopulation of tale. P-12 education system in the country. rural Atlantic Canada. “We still have “I don’t want to read that again,” That’s not subjective. We have the a hugely disproportionate number Risley says flatly. “And I don’t think worst goddamn math scores in of people in rural areas. How do anyone else does either.” the country! Nobody talked about we maintain infrastructure in rural 26 1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence Atlantic Canada while we develop new infrastructure in urban Atlantic Canada and do it with no new money because the population hasn’t changed?” The key, of course, is to find ways to grow the economy. But that doesn’t just require new capital, Risely argues. “There’s a huge amount of activity around tech- You’re in the based start-ups in urban areas. The community thinks all we need is capital, capital. All we have to construction business. do is throw money at these kids and everything will be OK. They’re wrong… It’s about mentorship, We’re in the business cultivation and support.” Business leaders, like those involved in 4Front, can help by mentoring new entrepreneurs so of helping you grow. they don’t make beginner mistakes, he says, and by providing the right resources at the right time so they can learn from senior business people who already know from experience, for example, how to set up a manufacturing operation in The construction industry in Atlantic China.