The latest edition of the regular Saturday Globe and Mail Business feature The Lunch focuses on Maureen Sabia, chairman of Canadian Tire and a trailblazing 1960s graduate of U of T’s law school.
Sabia was named to the Order of Canada earlier this summer in honour of her work to advance women in the business world. She calls herself a “traditionalist” and abhors quotas, which she says are “insulting to women,” as well as gender-neutral titles (she’s chairman, not chairperson or chair).
Sabia graduated from law school in 1965 — one of just three women among the 300 law students at U of T at the time. In fact, she was refused admission to Harvard’s law school because admissions did not want to give her a place that should be reserved for a man because, Sabia says, “I didn’t look like I’d ever have to earn my own living.”
Her career began at the Ontario Securities Commission, and included tenures as assistant counsel for the Ontario Law Reform Commission, solicitor to the board of OMERS, where she also served as director of research and policy and, in the private sector, general counsel at Redpath Industries. She’s also served on many boards, and was one of two directors on Canadian Tire’s board from her appointment in 1985 until she was named chairman in 2007. (The other female director, Martha Billes, is the daughter of one of the company’s founders and is the controlling shareholder. She and Sabia are good friends.)
Much of Marina Strauss’s report on her lunchtime conversation with Sabia focuses on the chairman’s tireless work ethic and determination to succeed professionally. Sabia is a self-described “work freak” who, Strauss reports, was engaged once but never married, never wanted children and “doesn’t take holidays.” It’s an attitude fostered by her parents (feminist and 1974 Order of Canada recipient Laura Sabia and surgeon Michael Sabia), and shared by her siblings. Strauss describes Sabia as “a modern woman with an all-consuming work life” who “has no concept of work-life balance.” It appears Sabia would agree. “I’m not sure what else I’d do with my life if I didn’t work,” she says.
Read the full article here.