Vigorous provincial government relations are invaluable in influencing Tim Hortons Brazilian-based vulture capitalists.

Franchisees need to speak out to their local MPPs (member of provincial parliament).

Queen’s Park, Toronto, Canada

The independent franchisee association should make a legislative “wishlist” a priority.

Nothing, nothing makes a franchisor and his allies (Canadian Franchise Association, CFA et al) stand up and take notice.

Anyone who says talking to politicians is a waste of time, is working full-time for 3G, the CFA, its 1,199 other franchisors and their supporters: banks, legal service providers.

Start by suggesting the Ontario government reverse the onus on good faith in the Arthur Wishart Act.

Est. 1998

Mike Colle, MPP Eglinton Lawrence, Susan Kezios, President, American Franchisee Assocation, AFA and Les Stewart, Canadian Alliance of Franchise Operators, CAFO, Wishart Act hearings, 2000.

Les’s expert witness testimony.

John Sotos, Sotos LLP and Susan Kezios, AFA, Wishart Act hearings, 2000

John’s expert witness testimony. Susan’s expert witness testimony.

Tony Martin MPP Sault Ste. Marie and Dr. Gillian K. Hadfield, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, 2000.

Dr. Hadfield’s expert witness testimony.

Three MPPs get together to try to make franchise fraud a criminal offence, Second Reading, 2010.

Les Stewart, ON Premier Kathleen Wynne and Don Morgan, 2015.

Q: Why should any public official help your family when (it appears) you don’t give two hoots about the other +70,000 franchisee families?

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Sales to “mom-and-pop franchisees” grow well in the soil of the wounded.

The real work begins, whether personal financial net worth rises or falls.

Thanks to The Shining Earth FB Community

Tim Hortons franchisees should not let 50 years of prosperity blind them to new normal.

Black Swan event(s) can happen simultaneously, be compounded, and quickly result in a negative (less than $0 value) to your personal net worth.

Franchising is unique in that the rational small business person will continue to throw good money after bad (sunk costs).

The Risk profile has changed.

3G Capital takeover x threatened/actual CCAA x gross margin erosion x organized labour x Fightfor15.org x equity appropriation x personal guaranteed = degradation to a negative gross margin business?

Nassim Taleb‘s Thanksgiving Day Turkey analogy:

Consider a turkey that is fed every day,” Taleb writes. “Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say.

“On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.”

Business Insider

Consider that the turkey’s experience may have, rather than no value, a negative value. It learned from observation, as we are all advised to do (hey, after all, this is what is believed to be the scientific method). Its confidence increased as the number of friendly feedings grew, and it felt increasingly safe even though the slaughter was more and more imminent. Consider that the feeling of safety reached its maximum when the risk was at the highest!

Every franchise system has someone playing the role of Nurse Ratched.

I have suggested here that franchise systems are an example of a total institution as defined by Erving Goffman.

Mental hospitals are a traditional example of a total institution.

The CDN Nurse Ratcheds in Oakville are simply being replaced by USA franchise executives.

Look to those that create and control the levers of control, not only to those acting-out and -in.

 

Ray Borradale: Australia’s favourite and honoured franchisee

Advocates are made by predators.

I owe my franchisor, Nutri-Lawn, a lot.

Maybe Midas taught Ray something.

He continues to contribute by writing on Blue MauMau.org where his comments ring true.

The arrival of chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939 – 1987) was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.

Recognized both by Tibetan Buddhists and by other spiritual practitioners and scholars as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, he was a major, albeit controversial, figure in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method.

A Warrior: If you are a warrior, decency means that you are not cheating anybody at all. You are not even about to cheat  anybody. There is a sense of straightforwardness and simplicity. With setting-sun vision, or vision based on cowardice, straightforwardness is always a problem. If people have some story or news to tell somebody else, first of all they are either excited or disappointed. Then they begin to figure out how to tell their news. They develop a plan, which leads them completely away from simply telling it. By the time a person hears the news, it is not news at all, but opinion. It becomes a message of some kind, rather than fresh, straightforward news. Decency is the absence of strategy. It is of utmost importance to realize that the warrior’s approach should be simple-minded sometimes, very simple and straightforward. That makes it very beautiful: you having nothing up your sleeve; therefore a sense of genuineness comes through. That is decency.

Clear explanation of Occupy Toronto

This retrieval of conservatism is significant.

Corporatism and organizations that are based on monopolies of information are quickly becoming unacceptable.

Franchising is not exempt from these transnational trends.