TORONTO - When Maple Leaf Foods president Michael McCain appeared before the media to accept responsibility for a listeriosis outbreak that has killed 11 Canadians, the 49-year-old father of five appeared, by all accounts, heartbroken.
"His pain is etched on his face," said Frank McKenna, former premier of New Brunswick and a friend of McCain's for the past 30 years.
"But he has not flinched from his responsibility to consumers and the public at large - often, I am sure, in the face of advice from those who would counsel greater circumspection," McKenna said.
Though McCain has been a major player within the world of Canadian business for years - he is the former president McCain Foods' U.S. operations and has been the president of Maple Leaf since 1995 - his personal response to the outbreak has launched him into the national spotlight.
"Certainly knowing that there is a desire to assign blame, I want to reiterate that the buck stops right here," McCain told a Toronto news conference after public health officials confirmed a link between the outbreak and Maple Leaf products.
"This week, it's our best efforts that failed, not the regulators or the Canadian food safety system," he said.
"I emphasize: this is our accountability and it's ours to fix, which we are taking on fully. We have and we continue to improve on our action plans."
Journalist Paul Waldie, who wrote a book about the McCain family, described McCain as a straight-talking, savvy businessman.
"He has a way of articulating problems and challenges very clearly and very concisely," Waldie said. "It doesn't take him long to zero in on what the problem is and to make it understandable."
McCain's direct response to the tragedy, McKenna says, can be credited to his Atlantic Canadian roots.
Born in Florenceville, N.B. - a town of approximately 1,500 people on the banks of the St. John River - McCain was one of four children.
"That part of New Brunswick is still very much McCain country," Waldie said. "They all went to the local public school, they all went to the public university, no one of them were sent off to private schools or boarding schools. They're very much part of the community. They kind of have that deeply rooted in their DNA."
His mother, Margaret, was the first woman lieutenant governor of New Brunswick, and his father, Wallace, is the billionaire co-founder of McCain Foods Limited, the largest producer of frozen french fries in the world.
"The way in which he has responded to this crisis very much reflects his Maritime roots," McKenna wrote in an e-mail from a vacation in the Mediterranean. "Because we know our neighbours and our communities we feel their pain. The suffering of others is real, personal and acutely felt."
"We also tend to be transparent and open accepting responsibility for our actions because we are brought up that way."
McCain began his education at Mount Allison University - his parents' alma mater - and received a degree in business administration from the University of Western Ontario's prestigious Ivey school before moving south to head McCain's U.S. operations.
In the mid-1990s, McCain was part of a bitter dispute between his father, Wallace, and his uncle, Harrison, the co-founders of McCain Foods Limited.
Waldie's book, A House Divided, documented the brothers' disagreement. One of the main causes of the dispute, Waldie said, was who should succeed as leader of the multi-million dollar company; Wallace McCain felt his son was the best choice, while Harrison felt his nephew Allison was better suited for the position.
"I think (Harrison) felt like Michael was pretty much a rival," Waldie said. "And that ultimately led to a parting of the ways between the two families."
The disagreement culminated in October 1994, when Harrison succeeded in removing Wallace from his position as co-chief executive, a title that they formerly shared.
In 1995, Wallace took over Maple Leaf Foods and left it in his son's hands.
Some reports have criticized McCain for being the product of his father's nepotism - though Waldie says that's untrue.
"Michael was put in charge of some of the most difficult operations. He was not exactly handed jobs that were plumb assignments or things where he didn't have to do much or where he could just coast - he was really put in charge of the most difficult parts of that operation," Waldie said. "I think he kind of earned his way up the ranks."
This crisis, McKenna said, has proven McCain's mettle.
"I am very impressed with Michael's leadership in this crisis," he said.
"Like most Canadians I grieve for the victims but note with considerable admiration the personal leadership, under the most gut-wrenching of conditions, of Michael McCain."
