House call

Scott Tannas never seems to be satisfied when he only has one job.

That being the case, the last few months have likely suited the 51-year-old president and CEO of Western Financial Group just fine. Tannas, now Senator Tannas, was appointed to the upper house in March, but plans to continue to run the High River, Alberta firm he founded in 1996 until the end of the year.

In the 10 years before starting his insurance career in 1993, he worked in travel and tourism. “I always had part-time jobs and little business schemes and that sort of thing,” Tannas says. “That included being a radio disc jockey, I was hired at dances and I was a lifeguard. I always liked to have two jobs,” he says.

“I’m a college dropout and barely got through high school,” Tannas says, but adds he always loved to work.

Just three scant years after insurance became his focus, Tannas founded his firm, then known as Hi-Alta Capital Inc. in 1996. Today, Western Financial’s holdings include more than 100 property and casualty insurance brokerage offices between British Columbia and Manitoba. In the past year alone, the company has made six acquisitions – as of press time, the most recent of these was Melfort Agencies in Saskatchewan.

“We have a very, very busy acquisitions pipeline at the moment and a few months from now, we will have a number of additional names to add to that list,” Tannas reports. “The acquisition side of things is where I’m most active today and will continue to be in the future.”

When Western Financial officials approach independent brokerages to discuss potential acquisitions, Tannas says the owners not only want to ensure that selling is their best move, but they also want to have pivotal conversations only with the most senior individual. “It has to involve the top guy… and that’s me at the moment. And that’s what I would do if I was in their position,” Tannas says, adding that some acquisition talks have gone on for decades. “In many cases, it’s not just their business; it was their parents’ business, too. And so if the time comes to sell, you really want to know it’s the right fit.”

PIONEER SPIRIT

Western Financial is not a typical independent Canadian brokerage. Its holdings include a chartered bank (Bank West), a pet insurance carrier, Western Life (originally the Canadian arm of Federated Mutual) and Marlin Travel. Owned by Desjardins Financial Group, which itself owns Levis, Quebec-based direct writer Desjardins General Insurance Inc., Western Financial, too, owns a direct writer, Western Direct Insurance. The target markets for Western Direct are in Edmonton, Calgary and Fort McMurray, while Western Financial’s retail brokerages focus on smaller communities, Tannas says.

“At various times over the last 17 years, we have raised the eyebrows and the uncomfortableness of our business partners and folks in the industry, regulators and so on,” he says.

“That’s part of our pioneering nature going back to when we started. Overall, regulators and our business partners have accepted that that’s what we do, and we have always had good, frank strong relations with insurers” that compete with Desjardins General, he continues.

Managing Western Financial’s growth has certainly kept Tannas busy, but he points out that politics was always in the back of his mind. Little wonder, since his father, Don Tannas, served as a Conservative member of the Alberta legislative assembly from 1989 until 1994. “I watched my father go through the process and he enjoyed public service and I thought, some day, if everything lines up… maybe I’ll give it a shot.”

Tannas was also inspired by another High River native, Joe Clark, who as Prime Minister led a minority federal Progressive Conservative government from the summer of 1979 until February 1980.

“If you were a little bit politically aware and living in High River, you couldn’t help being interested just because we knew the family and felt a connection, so that stoked my interest,” Tannas says.

Tannas opted to finally “give it a shot” in October 2012, when he ran in Alberta’s Senate nominee elections, held at the same time as the provincial election. Although Senate nominee elections are not binding on the federal government, provincial law requires that the three Senate nominee candidates with the greatest number of votes are submitted to the Privy Council as persons who may be appointed to the Senate. Of 13 candidates, Tannas had the second highest number of votes.

With Tannas now in the Senate, officials at Western Financial Group are working to find his successor as president and CEO no later than Labour Day. After that, Tannas plans to continue as CEO until the end of 2013 and remain as part-time vice-chairman for another 10 years. “We’ve got a succession project under way right now,” he says.

“In the last few years, as I’ve come to enjoy Western’s success… and have come to see the fabulous people that we’ve got and the size and breadth of the organization, I started thinking, ‘It’s soon going to be time for somebody with different skills and a different perspective to lead Western,” Tannas says.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Now in the upper house, Senate reform is among Tannas’s priorities. By law, senators are allowed to stay on until the age of 75. But Tannas supports the Senate Reform Act, which has yet to be passed into law, and proposes, among other things, limiting Senate terms to nine years.

“The idea of an elected Senate was intriguing,” Tannas says. “From an outsider’s perspective, (the Senate) really needs to be… reformed and become more useful both in reality and in the perception of Canadians,” he suggests.

Another priority, one that straddles his new life in politics and his old one in insurance, is to address the risk of an earthquake in B.C. or Quebec, something that Tannas suggests could threaten the entire insurance industry. “Some of the studies and extrapolations I’ve seen where a colossal event could essentially wipe out the entire industry is something that’s hard to get your head wrapped around,” he says. “It’s something we need to be moving on,” Tannas adds.

Attracting the most notice from constituents, though, seems to be Bill C-279, which, if passed into law, would, among other things, amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity as a prohibited ground of discrimination. After passing third reading in the House of Commons in March, the bill reached second reading in the Senate in mid-April and debate in the upper chamber has since been adjourned.

“My office is being swamped with people phoning and e-mailing, urging me to vote against this bill,” Tannas says, but adds that he has not yet made his decision.

Tannas is “used to doing all the talking,” he quips, and putting ideas into action.

In his new role as senator, though, Tannas will keep listening, putting what he characterizes as his “underdeveloped listening muscles” to the test in the Senate and working towards meeting his new priorities.