John Tory was one of those rare lawyers who moved beyond the strict confines of his profession to become an adviser and confidant to two of Canada’s biggest media dynasties. Until now it has not been widely appreciated that his influence may have affected the fate of The Times and The Sunday Times.
For more than 50 years the Thomsons — Roy, his son Ken and grandson David — have grown their business empire into one of the biggest in North America through a succession of aggressive, far-sighted acquisitions that brought them North Sea oil interests, The Times and The Sunday Times, the Reuters news agency and much else. At their side throughout that time was John Tory.
Another Canadian media entrepreneur, Ted Rogers, explicitly hired Tory to help him with his own plan to create a major corporation.
He was the archetypal low-key, unflamboyant lawyer, always in the background, never in the limelight. But he played a key role in shaping many of the Thomsons’ deals and gave the family’s business strategies a thread of continuity and cohesion across the generations.
John Arnold Tory and his twin James were the sons of John Stewart Donald Tory, who founded the Torys law firm in 1941. John attended the University of Toronto Schools and Toronto University, graduating in law in 1952.
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One of the firm’s early clients was Roy Thomson, the Ontario media magnate who bought a string of Canadian newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s. Tory advised on the purchase of the Sudbury Star for C$1.5 million (£600,000) in 1955, beginning a relationship that would last for the rest of his life. After their father retired, John and James founded their own firm in 1963. John spent an increasing amount of time on Thomson business — and Roy Thomson was increasingly attracted to Britain.
He had bought The Scotsman newspaper in 1952, and five years later won the franchise for Scottish Television, which he famously described as “a licence to print money”.
In 1959 he bought the Kemsley group of newspapers, which included The Sunday Times. That was the springboard to buy The Times from the Astor family in 1966, uniting the two titles for the first time as Times Newspapers.
While the media acquisitions gave Thomson a high profile in Britain, they were financially dwarfed by his move into North Sea oil. Tory was closely involved in the complex negotiations for Thomson to join the consortium that acquired the Piper and Claymore oil fields. The cash flow from that investment largely financed the Thomson empire for many years.
In 1973 Tory left his law firm to become president of Woodbridge, the Thomson master company, helping to separate the Thomsons’ ownership from the operational management. He quickly encountered the difficulties of working in Britain in those days, wearing pyjamas under his suit to go to the office during the three-day weeks to combat the coal shortage in 1974.
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Tory contributed to the decision by Ken Thomson to withdraw from British national newspapers by selling the Times titles in 1981. He was also closely involved in the earlier suspension of publication of its titles by the management of Times Newspapers in 1978, two years after Roy Thomson (who had been made a life peer as Lord Thomson of Fleet in 1964) died. The suspension was a response to the printing unions’ refusal to admit computers into the production process under commercially acceptable terms.
The suspension led to a heated debate over what terms to offer the journalists, who were not part of the dispute. Tory wanted them made redundant, to be re-employed later, while William Rees-Mogg, The Times Editor, argued that they should be retained on full pay to keep together what he regarded as a unique collection of gifted individuals.
Rees-Mogg prevailed, and the journalists were paid throughout the 11-month shutdown despite being free to undertake outside work.
However, the local chapel of the National Union of Journalists later went on strike in pursuit of a pay claim (that had been recommended to both sides by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) without appreciating what a close decision it had been to pay them during the suspension of the titles. This tipped the balance of the argument in Tory’s favour. Ken Thomson lost patience and Times Newspapers was sold to News Corporation less than two years later.
Tory was an elder statesman when he advised on the purchase of Reuters four years ago, giving Thomson a key presence in electronic publishing. Only last Friday Woodbridge sealed a deal to sell the CTV television network for C$3.3 billion (£2.2 billion).
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Tory also forged a close relationship with Ted Rogers, who began his career at the Torys law firm. When Rogers moved into the Canadian radio market, he appointed Tory to the board with a brief to replicate the Torporate governance.
Rogers Communications has become one of Canada’s biggest businesses, covering radio, cable television, mobile phones and the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. Tory helped to steer the company through the many regulatory challenges that Rogers has faced.
Tory also applied his understated, methodical approach to his family. For 40 years he sent them a year-end letter summing up their achievements and his hopes for the next 12 months.
His main outside interests were golf, skiing and philanthropy. He and his wife, Liz, supported the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
In 2006 Sunnybrook Hospital named the Tory Regional Trauma Centre in recognition of the family’s contributions.
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Two years later it opened the John and Liz Tory Eye Centre, financed by a C$7.5 million (£3.7 million) donation from Ted Rogers.
Tory is survived by his wife Liz, three sons and a daughter.
John Tory, lawyer, business adviser and philanthropist, was born on March 7, 1930. He died on April 3, 2011, aged 81