Léo-Paul Lauzon (born November 27, 1946) is an author, researcher, accountant, professor, and social activist in
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
. He is best known for his work in seeking corporate social accountability.
Early life and education
Lauzon was raised in a low-income household in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
. His father abandoned the family in the late 1950s, when Lauzon was twelve, and he was forced to work as a delivery boy for a pharmaceutical company to support his mother and two sisters. Lauzon has said that the poverty of his early years helped him develop a strong social conscience, adding that he "didn't have the time or the luxury of being a political revolutionary" while attending school.
He is a
chartered accountant, having placed first among all students in Quebec's 1970 examination. He also finished first among 1,778 candidates in Canada's 1974
certified management accountancy examination. This has not prevented him from criticizing his profession; in 1991, he said that "accounting is closer to the occult sciences than to exact mathematics." He has called for accounting students to be given a more humanistic learning approach, with the intent of creating independent thinkers who are effective at creating social change.
Lauzon has a
Master of Business Administration
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...
degree from the
Hautes Études Commerciales of Montreal and a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in management sciences from the
University of Grenoble
The Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA, French: meaning "''Grenoble Alps University''") is a public research university in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 resea ...
in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
. He joined the accounting sciences department of the
Université du Québec à Montréal
The Université du Québec à Montréal (English: University of Quebec in Montreal), also known as UQAM, is a French-language public university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the Université du Qué ...
in 1973 and founded the university's chair of socio-economic sciences in 2006.
Social accounting
Lauzon published a book entitled ''Social Accounting'' in 1974, promoting a system of evaluating companies in terms of social responsibility. Since then, Lauzon examined several companies in areas such as environmental protection, human relations, equal opportunities and consumer interests, making extensive use of corporate annual reports.
In a 1989 interview, he said, "Being an accountant is an excellent training to criticize big business. I know how corporate executives think because I have the same mentality myself. The only difference is that I have a social conscience and most of them don't." He added that he was "blacklisted in many business circles" and said that some of his colleagues were afraid to work with him because of his reputation. Later in the same year, however, Lauzon said that his research was gaining mainstream acceptance and that ''
Le Journal de Montréal'' and the Quebec Management Accounting Association were funding some of his work.
Lauzon has said that he is not anti-capitalist and supports
private enterprise. He describes himself as a
social democrat
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...
.
Studies of corporate culture
;Francophones in Quebec business
Lauzon released a report in 1986 that showed strong disparities between Quebec businesses as regards the number of francophones in key decision-making positions: most "decision makers" in some companies were francophone, while in others they represented less than ten per cent of the total. The study has been interpreted as showing the rise of a new francophone business culture in Quebec, rather than francophone integration into traditionally dominant anglophone companies.
;Women in business
In 1987, Lauzon oversaw a study indicating that less than three per cent of top management jobs in Canadian companies were held by women, despite the fact that more women were entering the workforce. At the time of the report's release, he said, "If you listen to representatives of the private sector, then we're in the best possible world, and women hold important positions.
..This research is based on facts that show clearly that reality is very different." He added that there was no valid reason for the numbers to be so low and that private sector firms were afraid of change in this field.
Follow-up studies found that female representation in top management had increased to only 6.7% in 1990 and 7.2% in 1992. Lauzon noted that even these increases were misleading, in that some female executives held positions that were created solely to give a misleading impression of gender integration.
;Securities commissions
Lauzon criticized the
securities commissions of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
and Quebec in 1989, saying that they were well-intentioned but largely ineffective and overly dependent on "self-serving" regulations developed by the
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) was incorporated by an Act of the Parliament of Canada in 1902, which later became known as the ''Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Act''.
The CICA developed and supported accounti ...
.
;Corporate reporting
Lauzon led an academic study in 1990 that argued most Canadian companies did not supply enough information about their financial affairs and social performance in corporate annual reports. He said that only fifty of the approximately three hundred companies his team examined had "acceptable or better than acceptable" reports, covering items such as market and regional analyses, charitable donations, environmental records, and employment statistics. Most companies, he said, reported only "the strict minimum required by law."
;"Quebec Inc."
Lauzon has strongly criticized the
Quebec government
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...
's track record in building a provincial corporate sector. He argued in February 1992 that the province had given away $1.5 billion in tax incentives to create a brokerage industry, with meagre results. In the same year, he accused the
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec of propping up francophone entrepreneurs with little business experience, who in turn produced minimal financial returns. He has also accused the Caisse of being subject to political manipulation and of making decisions "without foresight or vision."
Lauzon has clarified that he is not against government support for socially beneficial business ventures. Rather, he opposes subsidies that "boost only the bank balance of government-favoured entrepreneurs." In 1993, he called on Quebec to follow Ontario's example and require public disclosure of the salaries and perks of the province's top five public sector executives.
;Pulp and paper sector
Lauzon issued a report for
Greenpeace in August 1992, arguing that Canada's
pulp and paper industry was more prosperous than Canadians had been led to believe. As such, he argued that the sector should not be allowed to escape its financial obligations to clean its environmental pollution. The
Canadian Pulp and Paper Association The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) is a trade association which represents Canada's wood, pulp and paper producers both nationally and internationally in government, trade, and environmental affairs. Canada's forest products industry i ...
strongly criticized the report, saying that its language was "offensive and unfounded." In 1995, Lauzon issued another report accusing Canadian pulp and paper firms of being much less efficient than their
American and
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...
n counterparts.
;Alcohol and tobacco
In 1994, Lauzon released a report arguing that privatizing provincial liquor boards would result in increased levels of alcoholism, higher prices, and more smuggling. He concluded that privatization would compromise government efforts to combat alcoholism. In another study issued the same year, he accused
cigarette makers of investing record windfall profits outside of Canada as their domestic clientele died. Saying there was "no worse corporate citizen" than the tobacco industry, he called for higher tobacco taxes in both Canada and the
United States of America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
.
Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Brands plc (formerly Imperial Tobacco Group plc), is a British multinational tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, England. It is the world's fourth-largest international cigarette company measured by market share after Philip Mo ...
responded to Lauzon's report with its own study; one of its conclusions was that the premature death of some smokers yielded savings to the Canadian health sector. Not surprisingly, this statement was widely criticized.
;Municipal services
Lauzon issued a critical report about Montreal's parking services in 1996, arguing that a recent decision to privatize the sector had been beneficial for some leading executives and harmful to everyone else. Lauzon wrote that municipal revenues from privatization were less than expected, while drivers were required to pay more in parking rates. The following year, he oversaw a study that argued installing water meters in Montreal houses would be costly and not necessarily provide an environmental benefit.
;Pharmaceutical drugs
In mid-1998, Lauzon and Gino Lambert issued a study indicating that brand name drug prices had increased significantly over the last decade, rising from 10.7% of Canadian health spending in 1985 to 14.4% in 1996 and resulting in windfall profits for multinational medical companies. The authors wrote that "while our governments work furiously to cut public expenses in the health sector, the brand-drug industry builds up billions in profits year after year," adding that "government must think seriously of saving money on brand drugs, allowing more for other activities of our collective health-care system that need it greatly." Lauzon and Lambert also criticized the Canadian and Quebec governments for giving extended patent protection and tax breaks to the industry. Lauzon later co-authored a follow-up study in 2002 confirming the same trends; the latter study was cited by
Roy Romanow
Roy John Romanow (born August 12, 1939) is a Canadian politician and the 12th premier of Saskatchewan from 1991 to 2001.
Early life
Romanow was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to Tekla and Michael Romanow, who were Ukrainian immigrants from Or ...
, who was then leading a national committee on the future of Canadian health care. A third study issued by Lauzon in 2006 showed that Canada's pharmaceutical companies had made an average 29% return on investments since 1995, largely due to increased prices.
;Banks
In 2004, Lauzon proposed that government agencies such as the
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...
should provide personal banking services. He argued that this practice would be beneficial to Canadians, both because it would provide increased revenues to the state and because commercial banks were making huge profits at the expense of their customers.
In the same year, he argued that Canada's five major banks had avoided $10 billion in taxes since 1991 via offshore
tax haven
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
s such as the
Cayman Islands. The ''
Montreal Gazette
The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...
'' endorsed Lauzon's findings, if not his specific recommendations, and called for the government to close Canada's tax haven loopholes.
;Oil and gas sector
In June 1998, Lauzon co-authored a study calling on governments to enforce competition laws in the retail gas sector in order to prevent
price gouging
Price gouging is a pejorative term used to describe the situation when a seller increases the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or ...
. Seven years later, he argued that the Canadian government should nationalize the oil industry; he charged that oil companies were making "immoral profits on the back of this society" and said that the resource had to be repatriated.
;Tax burdens
Lauzon released a report entitled "The Other
Fiscal Imbalance Fiscal imbalance is a mismatch in the revenue powers and expenditure responsibilities of a government.
In the literature on fiscal federalism, two types of fiscal imbalances are measured: Vertical Fiscal Imbalance and Horizontal Fiscal Imbalance. W ...
" in 2006, drawing attention to an ongoing shift in the national tax burden from corporations to the general population.
Criticism of specific corporations
Lauzon has issued several reports targeting the practices of specific corporations. In 1988, he wrote that the
Campeau Corporation had paid no income taxes on profits amounting to $243 million between 1980 and 1985. He criticized existing laws that he said favoured such companies, by allowing them to make write-offs against depreciation on office property and keep the unpaid taxes as part of their cash flow. Later in the same year, he criticized a $83.3 million Quebec government loan to
Noranda on the grounds that its terms provided $62.5 million in tax savings for the company without requiring that the actual loan ever be repaid.
Lauzon issued a study for Greenpeace in 1990, arguing that
Canadian Pacific Forest Products, the owner of Canada's most polluting mill, had made $550 million in profits over the last two years but was investing only $18 million to develop environmental technology.
In September 1990, Lauzon issued a seventy-two-page document on the
Repap corporation, accusing it of using questionable accounting practicies to understate its debt, overstate its profits, and minimize its taxes. The company's chairman rejected the charges and said that Lauzon had used "incomplete and inaccurate" information to prepare his report. Lauzon defended his work, although he acknowledged that some of statements in the final draft were unprofessional and should have been left out. (Repap's finances were later given extremely low ratings by the Canadian Bond Rating Service, although a representative for that group said that Lauzon's study was not a factor in its decision.)
In 1991, Lauzon accused
Videotron of a poor record of accomplishments in spite of extensive financial support from the provincial government. Two years later, he wrote that the
Canadian Marconi Company
CMC Electronics Inc. (french: CMC Électronique) is a Canadian avionics manufacturer. The company's main manufacturing facility is located in Montreal, Quebec with additional facilities located in Ottawa, Ontario and Sugar Grove, Illinois.
Hi ...
was shifting funds and operations out of Quebec despite receiving $195 million in government aid over the previous decade.
In 1992, Lauzon issued a report accusing Audrey Resources Inc. of systematically misrepresenting its finances. Some former company representatives responded by launching a $750,000 libel suit against Lauzon and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Lauzon refused to retract his charges, although he noted that he did not accuse Audrey of breaking any laws. Newspaper reports do not indicate how the matter was resolved.
Praise for specific corporations
Lauzon offered praise for
Hydro-Quebec in December 1991, saying that the company had provided extensive social information in its annual report. The
crown corporation won first place for four consecutive years in a financial and social disclosure competition started by Lauzon.
Other writings
In 1999, Lauzon and Martin Poirier issued a report arguing that the Quebec government and the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
made substantial profits by
falsely certifying thousands of Quebec orphans as mentally ill during the 1940s and 1950s. The authors made a conservative estimate that religious groups received $70 million in subsidies (measured in 1999 dollars) by claiming the children as "mentally deficient", while the government saved $37 million simply by having one of its orphanages redesignated from an educational institution to a psychiatric hospital. A representative of a religious order involved with the orphanages accused the authors of making "false assertions".
Critical assessment
Lauzon's work has been criticized by several business figures. In 1989, an executive of
Standard Life
Standard Life is a life assurance, pensions and long-terms savings company in the UK which is owned by Phoenix Group.
History 1825–2010
The Standard Life Assurance Company was established in 1825 and was reincorporated as a mutual assurance ...
in Montreal said that he was overly dependent on annual reports and that such documents do not always provide a full assessment of a company's social activities. As against this, a representative of the Professional Corporation of Certified Management Accountants in Quebec argued in the same period that Lauzon had played a prominent role in changing Quebec's corporate culture and forcing companies to seriously address social matters.
Political activities
Lauzon has supported the principle of
Quebec sovereignty but has also criticized prominent sovereigntist politicians of the
Parti Québécois
The Parti Québécois (; ; PQ) is a sovereignist and social democratic provincial political party in Quebec, Canada. The PQ advocates national sovereignty for Quebec involving independence of the province of Quebec from Canada and establishin ...
in very strong terms. In 2005, he said, "We are very lucky we did not become independent with
Lucien Bouchard
Lucien Bouchard (; born December 22, 1938) is a Canadian lawyer, diplomat and retired politician.
Minister for two years in the Mulroney cabinet, Bouchard then led the emerging Bloc Québécois and became Leader of the Opposition in the Ho ...
,
Bernard Landry
Bernard Landry (; March 9, 1937 – November 6, 2018) was a Canadian politician who served as the 28th premier of Quebec from 2001 to 2003. A member of the Parti Québécois (PQ), he led the party from 2001 to 2005, also serving as the leader o ...
,
Joseph Facal. They would have separated us from Canada and the day after we would have become a protectorate of the United States, like
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
."
He endorsed
Paul Cliche, a former Parti Québécois member running as an independent, in a 2001 provincial
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
in
Mercier
Mercier is French for ''notions dealer'' or ''haberdasher'', and may refer to:
People
* Agnès Mercier, French curler and coach
*Annick Mercier (born 1964), French curler
*Amanda H. Mercier (born 1975), American Judge
* Armand Mercier, (1933–20 ...
. Cliche won support from several left-wing activists and finished a strong third.
Lauzon himself ran for the
New Democratic Party in the
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
riding of
Outremont
Outremont is an affluent residential borough (''arrondissement'') of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It consists entirely of the former city on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec. The neighbourhood is inhabited largely by fran ...
in the
2006 Canadian federal election and was considered a
star candidate for the party. He argued in this campaign that he was tired of Quebec's traditional dichotomy between
federalism and sovereigntism, and was quoted as saying, "What I believe first is in a federalism of compassion, of equity, of sharing. Now it's time for the independence, the sovereignty of Canada."
[Les Perreaux, "NDP candidate wants government control of big companies, oil-and-gas industry," ''Canadian Press'', 6 December 2005.] He received 17.20% of the vote, finishing third against
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
cabinet minister Jean Lapierre
Jean-Charles Lapierre (May 7, 1956 – March 29, 2016) was a Canadian politician and television and radio broadcaster.
After retiring from the government in 2007, he served as a political analyst in a variety of venues.
He was Paul Martin's Qu ...
.
Selected bibliography
*''L'Homme d'affaires québécois des années 80'' (1983, with Michel G. Bédard and Gilbert Tarrab)
*''Information sur les effets des variations de prix'' (1984)
*''Privatisations : l'autre point de vue'' (with others) (1998?)
Electoral record
''Source
Official Results, Elections Canadaan
Financial Returns, Elections Canada''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lauzon, Leo-Paul
Living people
1946 births
Canadian accountants
New Democratic Party candidates for the Canadian House of Commons
Quebec candidates for Member of Parliament
Academic staff of the Université du Québec à Montréal
HEC Montréal alumni
Grenoble Alpes University alumni