Source : National Post

by Matthew Fraser

Robert Rabinovitch, the new president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is hardly a household name in Canada.  Yet Mr. Rabinovitch, 56, has been hovering discreetly in the upper reaches of Canada's political, bureaucratic and corporate elites for three decades.

A former Ottawa political aide, senior mandarin and corporate executive known for his sharp mind and political savvy, Mr. Rabinovitch arrives at the helm of the CBC at a moment of profound crisis for the public broadcaster.  The CBC is desperately searching for a sense of purpose in a cluttered television landscape that has an abundance of channels challenging the legitimacy of government-financed broadcasting.

Mr. Rabinovitch, who enjoys high-level political connections, likely would not have accepted the top CBC job without a clear mandate. He already has achieved sufficient professional success to be impervious to the psychic remunerations – to say nothing of exhaustion and stress – that come with the presidency of Canada's embattled public broadcaster.

It can be assumed, therefore, that Mr. Rabinovitch did not accept the job merely to manage the status quo at the CBC.  Changes can be expected.  And Mr. Rabinovitch is too shrewd to be co-opted or out-manoeuvred by senior CBC managers notoriously skilful at protecting their bureaucratic fiefdoms.

Mr. Rabinovitch, adverse to the spotlight, has avoided speaking publicly about his views on the future role of the CBC.  As a senior bureaucrat, he understands the imperatives of discretion. Still, some predictions can be made with a reasonable degree of certitude about Mr. Rabinovitch's general vision for the CBC.

He is a strong believer in public broadcasting; indeed, his name once appeared on the letterhead of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting as a member of its advisory committee.  The pro-CBC lobby group has often criticized the ruling Liberals for 'politicizing'  the public broadcaster, and so there might be an optical problem for Mr. Rabinovitch on that issue.  There had been some speculation, in fact, that Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, wanted to appoint his political lieutenant, Jean Pelletier, to the top CBC post to keep the public broadcaster in line during a possible Quebec referendum.

It is true that one of Mr. Rabinovitch's closest friends is Eddie Goldenberg, the prime minister's longtime aide and most trusted advisor.  Mr. Rabinovitch also counts among his close friends John Rae, the Power Corp. executive who runs Mr. Chrétien's  election campaigns.  There is little to suggest, however, that Mr. Rabinovitch supports a politically hands-on, dirigiste role for the CBC.  In fact, a pipeline into the Prime Minister's Office can be seen as an asset if Mr. Rabinovitch is seeking a clear mandate to make wholesale changes.

Mr. Rabinovitch's presidency can be expected to mark a rupture with the vision of his immediate predecessor, Perrin Beatty, who called for a commercially oriented CBC.  Mr. Beatty was criticized in the media for his view that the CBC should offer a 'constellation' of new specialty channels.

Mr. Rabinovitch will likely seek to refocus the CBC on core public broadcasting values, taking the taxpayer-supported broadcaster away from the commercial approach that has rendered it dependent on the twin obsessions of ratings and advertising.  Mr. Rabinovitch may well model CBC Television on the commercial-free CBC radio networks.  (Their high-quality programs have escaped the general opprobrium often reserved for the English-language television network.)

His immediate challenge, however, will be managerial. The CBC's corporate culture is notoriously ingrown and hostile to change and it won't be easy to galvanize a badly demoralized CBC staff, many of whom have defected to private networks.  Replacing senior CBC managers might be at the top of Mr. Rabinovitch's list of priorities.  He will then have to turn his mind to the difficult task of imposing his own vision on the public broadcaster and bringing in new faces and talent to help him implement his strategic plan.

Mr. Rabinovitch is no stranger to the corridors of power.  He made his name in Ottawa two decades ago as a brilliant policy wonk during the high-flying Trudeau era, when the country's best and brightest were still attracted to the federal civil service.  His bureaucratic career soared throughout the 1970s and, at only 39, he was appointed deputy minister of communications.

When Brian Mulroney came to power in 1984, however, he purged top bureaucrats suspected of harbouring pro-Liberal sentiments.  Mr. Rabinovitch, who was said to be near the top of Mulroney's hit list, began a long exile in Montreal as a top executive in billionaire Charles Bronfman's corporate empire.  Mr. Rabinovitch's friends say that while he enjoyed life at the summit of the corporate establishment, he remained a policy wonk at heart.

Mr. Rabinovitch had first arrived in Ottawa in 1968 – the year Pierre Trudeau became prime minister – when he landed a job as an official in the Department of Finance.  He had come well-prepared for the job.

After a bachelor of commerce from McGill – where he joined the largely Jewish Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity – Mr. Rabinovitch earned a master's and a Ph.D. in finance from the prestigious Wharton School in Philadelphia.

A lifelong political junky, Mr. Rabinovitch was part of a wave of bright, ambitious anglo-Montrealers who entered the federal government in the early Trudeau days.  Growing up in Montreal, Mr. Rabinovitch attended parochial school, where his nickname was "Painter" because he showed up one day wearing a painter's cap.  He subsequently attended Outremont High School, which was part of Montreal's Protestant School Board.

During the heady Trudeau years, Mr. Rabinovitch and his Montreal contemporaries, including Mr. Goldenberg, quickly became major backroom advisors to Trudeau's ministers.  Another Montreal friend was Joel Bell, a McGill-educated lawyer who left Harvard to become Mr. Trudeau's senior economic advisor.

From 1968 to 1971, Mr. Rabinovitch served as an advisor to Gérard Pelletier, the minister responsible for cultural policy and Mr. Trudeau's closest friend.  In 1974, Mr. Rabinovitch had returned to the bureaucracy and served as director general responsible for broadcasting in the Department of Communications.  He subsequently joined the Privy Council Office and rose rapidly up the ranks as a protege of top mandarin Michael Pitfield, who today is a senator and Power Corp. executive.  Mr. Rabinovitch became deputy secretary to the cabinet in 1979, and was appointed deputy minister of communications in 1982.

Mr. Rabinovitch at first thought he would survive the Mulroney purge of suspected Liberals in the Ottawa bureaucracy, if only because he wasn't an active Liberal.  But, in 1985, he was dumped along with his old friend Mr. Bell, who found a corporate home at Power Corp., while Mr. Rabinovitch joined Charles Bronfman's holding company, Claridge Inc., where he subsequently became senior executive vice-president and chief operating officer.

At Claridge, one of Mr. Rabinovitch's roles was to examine strategic investment opportunities for the Bronfmans, sometimes on behalf of Charles Bronfman's son, Stephen Bronfman.  While Mr. Rabinovitch was at Claridge, the Bronfmans controlled, among their vast corporate holdings, the Cineplex Odeon cinema chain and NetStar Communications, which owned Discovery Channel and The Sports Network.  Today, the Bronfman family controls MCA Universal Hollywood studio and global media conglomerate.

Mr. Rabinovitch sat on many corporate boards, including Cineplex Odeon and the Canadian Film Centre.  His sociable wife, Cecil, has been a force in her own right, notably as head of the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal, where she has long been active in the arts community.  Mr. Rabinovitch (known as 'Bob' to friends) and his wife are avid skiers, and have built a luxurious residence near the Mont Tremblant resort in Quebec.

While focused on his corporate career over the past 15 years, Mr. Rabinovitch has remained plugged into Ottawa's political circles and has an impressive network of influential friends in politics, business and the media.  He returned briefly to the Ottawa political battles in 1994-95, when he served as a member of the government's policy review panel on satellite broadcasting.  He and two other former deputy ministers – Gordon Ritchie and Roger Tassé – were dubbed the Three Wise Men by players in the broadcasting industry because of their eminent stature.

Today, Mr. Rabinovitch is returning to public service as head of the state-controlled broadcaster that reports to the ministry he once ran as deputy minister.  If he succeed in achieving his objectives, the CBC – paralyzed by soul-searching and looking for leadership during a period of profound change – won't be the same organization when Mr. Rabinovitch finishes his term. 

Matthew Fraser writes the Media & Markets column in the Financial Post.  He worked closely with Robert Rabinovitch in 1994-95 on the federal government's satellite policy review.

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