Canadian investment banker and philanthropist Donald K. Johnson at his home in Toronto. (Credit: Peter J Thompson/National Post)
The receptionist on the 18th floor of First Canadian Place in Toronto’s financial district said working for the Bank of Montreal is the best job she has ever had. Granted, her career is still in its early days, but she said the people around the place are extremely friendly, including the man occupying a small interior office around the corner three days a week.
He works from home the other two days a week and he also works Saturdays and Sundays, an arrangement that sure sounds like a lot of work, although the office’s occupant, Donald Johnson, does not see things that way, and if experience counts for anything, the 90-year-old investment banker knows a thing or two.
“You need to keep active, mentally, socially and physically,” he said.
Besides, Johnson does not play golf, or spend winters in Florida, although he supposes he could if he wanted to. Officially, he retired as vice-chair of BMO Nesbitt Burns in 2004, but folks around Bay Street still revere him as a rainmaking, good-natured bulldog of a finance guy who used to engineer $1-billion-plus deals involving the likes of Suncor Energy Inc.
Through Don’s leadership in reforming the tax treatment of donated securities, he helped unlock billions in donations each year for charities across Canada
Heather McDonald, chief executive of United Way Greater Toronto
Away from Bay Street, Johnson is known as a serial philanthropist and relentless champion of wringing money for good causes out of deep-pocketed individuals in part by pushing for tax reform. It is a fight he initially engaged with in the 1990s while fundraising for the National Ballet of Canada.
At the time, he spoke with acquaintances in the United States who recommended he encourage wealthy ballet lovers to donate shares in publicly traded companies that the ballet could then cash in while the donor could receive a tax receipt for the gift, as per the American system.
Brilliant, Johnson thought, until a Canadian tax expert informed him the donor would be on the hook for the capital gains tax under Canadian tax law; hence, nobody north of the border donated shares. He identified this as a huge missed opportunity for charities and launched a decade-plus-long offensive, blending common sense with charm, writing letters to elected officials, telling all his powerful friends as well as ordinary people about what he was up to and encouraging them to write letters, too.
He pointed out the facts to the powers that be in Ottawa — both Liberal and Conservative — until the government relented in 2006 and eliminated the capital gains tax on charitable donations of publicly listed securities.
This was no small thing.
“Through Don’s leadership in reforming the tax treatment of donated securities, he helped unlock billions in donations each year for charities across Canada,” Heather McDonald, chief executive of United Way Greater Toronto, said.
For example, her organization has reaped about $350 million in donations of public securities since the change was made, and she said Johnson’s legacy “will be felt in Canadian communities for generations to come.”
To help speed things along, Johnson can pluck many names from a lifetime of networking that runs to 7,000 names and counting, including Warren Buffett, whom he once enjoyed having a couple of ice-cold Cokes with at his office in Omaha, Neb. An email he crafted a few years back to Buffett got the ball rolling on Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s surprise investment/bailout of a Canadian company then known as Home Capital Group Inc.
In short, Johnson is not someone who lies around a whole lot, although he does try to be in bed by 9 p.m. Even banking icons need their shut-eye and the nonagenarian has earned his rest.
I used to meditate twice a day, but now I do it four times a day
Donald Johnson
On that note, at 10:58 on a Thursday morning before Christmas, he (politely) shooed a guest from his office since he had a luncheon to get to and he wanted to meditate beforehand. Johnson started meditating back in the 1960s, right around the same time the Beatles got into it.
He was no hippie, mind you, and he kept his daily ritual secret from his banking colleagues for about 30 years. He would simply close his office door, get comfy, turn down the lights and repeat a mantra that induces a deep state of relaxation.
“I have been meditating for almost 55 years now,” he said. “I used to meditate twice a day, but now I do it four times a day, and I think everybody should meditate.”
It is a headspace where some of his best ideas bubble up from. Johnson jots them down in what his assistant Laura Daubney refers to as “Don’s chicken scratch.” His recent jottings can be deciphered as a plan of attack/advocacy to convince Mark Carney’s Liberal government — as he once attempted to convince the Justin Trudeau Liberals — to further reform tax policy around capital gains on charitable donations.
Johnson said the next logical step is to exempt gifts of private-company shares and real estate from the capital gains tax, similar again to the U.S. That would generate an additional $200 million a year in charitable gifts, according to his math, which helps explain his meditative jottings on the subject, including a plan that is already underway to buy ad space in national and local newspapers on a quarterly basis to publish an open letter to Carney and company calling for further reform.
“My three favourite expressions are ‘Persistence prevails when all else fails,’ ‘The sale begins when the customer says no’ and ‘Never give up, never give up, never give up,’” he said.
His dogged determination is not the only thing he has going for him in his latest campaign. The current prime minister just so happened to write the blurb for the cover of Johnson’s 2021 book, Lessons Learned on Bay Street, describing it as a “must-read for the best of finance.”
Johnson and Carney used to grab coffee once a month when the latter was governor of the Bank of England and the former was an allegedly “retired” investment banker still doing deals overseas.
“Mark is a great communicator, very calm, and I was surprised, but very happy he put his hat in the ring after Justin Trudeau stepped down,” Johnson said.
He voted for Carney, and the one-time banker is banking that his arm-twisting campaign to further tweak the tax code in charities’ favour is not a case of “whether,” but a case of “when.”
At Donald Johnson’s Toronto home three parking spaces have been reserved for “Icelanders Only.” Johnson hails from Lundar, Man., which is in a part of the province settled by Icelandic immigrants, including his parents.
Part of what motivates Johnson to keep pushing is that he knows firsthand how difficult it can be for families to make ends meet. He grew up in tiny Lundar, Man., which is in a part of the province settled by Icelandic immigrants, including his parents, back when the family surname was spelled Jonsson.
Money was tight and Johnson shared a bedroom in a two-bedroom bungalow with his three siblings. There was no running water or electricity, but there was an outhouse and a wood stove that required constant feeding during winter to prevent the residents from freezing.
Being of humble means did not prevent the family from doing what it could to help their neighbours. Johnson’s mother knit socks for local fishermen, and she eventually sold the tiny bungalow and rented an even tinier apartment in Winnipeg so that her son could go to university.
It is really important to give back to the place where you were born.
Donald Johnson
“I learned a lot from my parents about the importance of hard work and the importance of helping people in your community; it really registered with me,” he said. “It is really important to give back to the place where you were born.”
For example, Johnson paid for half of a new library Lundar needed in the late 1990s and helped pay to furnish it after it was built, and he returns home to Manitoba every summer to catch up with relatives and host a community meal.
Back east, visitors to the widower’s home in midtown Toronto are directed to park around the side of the house and to pick a spot in the carport wisely, since one of the three spaces has signage reserving it for “Icelanders Only.”
Johnson relishes a good joke, is quick to laugh and unafraid of making wisecracks at his own expense. For example, if you are having trouble sleeping, he recommends reading the first page of his Carney-endorsed book and “you will be asleep in five minutes.”
Jokes aside, he is somewhat guarded when it comes to his philanthropic efforts. He prefers to give quietly instead of making a big fuss, and he operates on the principle that it is “better to give with a warm hand than a cold hand.”
Johnson’s warm hands recently handed over a $2-million cheque to the C.D. Howe Institute, a not-for-profit think tank whose mission is to raise Canadians’ living standards through smart public policy. One such policy, the donor suggested, would be for Carney to reform tax policy as soon as possible and for those who “have the financial capacity to make donations to organizations that are crucial to our living standards: hospitals, social services agencies and universities.”
Just beyond the door of Johnson’s office, a smattering of sharply dressed young keeners in an open concept space were doing whatever it is that gets done on the 18th floor, while their 90-year-old colleague prepared to meditate. But before he turned down the lights, he offered some advice.
“You need to choose a career that makes you happy and do what you love to do,” he said. “Because if you do not love it, you are not going to be happy and you are not going to be successful.”
