I received a sales call from a company that is owned by a man named Pierre Karl Peladeau (PKP). He may not mean anything to you unless you live in Quebec. However, his name means something to me. He was the rich son of a business genius. Sadly, he left that fortune in his son’s hands. It quickly dropped in value:

“At the beginning of his term as president in 1998, Quebecor’s activities were concentrated in the printing and the pulp and paper sectors (which accounted for $7.9 billion of the company’s $8.4 billion in annual revenue). In 2009, the picture was totally different. The company at that point was focusing on the telecommunications sector, which accounted for $2 billion of its $3.8 billion in revenue).“

It takes real skill to lose over half the profits from your company’s business in only ten years.

He sold off 90% of the assets in the company only to retain ownership of his legacy stock. It has 10 times the vote per share as regular stock. Doing the math, in very simple terms, he controls 100 votes to 90 votes for the other shares. He has a minority ownership but with majority votes. So he gets to control the company all the while no longer owning most of it.

He was elected leader of the political opposition, only to quit soon after in order to fight his soon to be ex-wife over custody of his children. Sadly, I do not see any noble motive in this, just that he is a control freak who won’t let his wife have them. His wife would soon be in court fighting a private security company over one of their detectives to learn who the client was having her followed. I wonder who it would be.

As a politician, he was an ardent nationalist! He demanded respect for Quebec and the people of Quebec against any outsiders. Except… Where is his company incorporated in? Delaware. Let me assure you, for the geographically challenged, Quebec is not in Delaware. But this sort of hypocrisy was all too common with him.

As a politician he went to rock concert. When the band was singing their English hit, he was heard yelling “En Francais.” As if he expected the group to only sing in one language and not as their fans would want to hear as they advertised their show.

Once he left office, his ownership of news media amounted to his reporters digging deep into the background of his political opposition. Now, of course, if the scandals uncovered were the stuff of front page, no one would think twice about where they came from. But this is not to be. The so called scandals where of a gossipy affair and more aimed to embarrass people then real journalism.

I could go on but, I would like to draw two conclusions from this.

The first is that PKP is the Quebec version of Donald Trump. From being a liar, hypocrite and poor businessman, to having a political enemies list and acting upon it, all is straight into the same play book as The Donald. The second is for those who think the stink will wash off over time. PKP left politics in 2014. He is still and always will remain on my list of people that I will never do business with, never say nice things and never, ever, will I forget. If PKP was on fire and I had a glass of water? I would still drink the water. Four years later. The people who are on Donald Trump’s team think they will one day walk away from his stench and live out their lives away from his legacy? I have news for you that you will not like! No, you will not like it at all…