The Ukrainian Canadian Business World

Commencing this edition, The New Pathway will be printing a regular feature focusing on Ukrainian business people. We would like to do a snapshot of both their personal background as well as their business background.

The New Pathway’s John Pidkowich interviewed Leslie Salnick, choosing to start with him because he is a long-time member of the Ukrainian National Federation and a successful businessman, being equal partner with Norm Bain in Metrospot Marketing Ltd. and Metrospot Television Ltd. He is also President of the Board of Directors of The New Pathway Ukrainian Weekly Newspaper.

JP: How and when does your involvement in the Ukrainian community begin?

L.S.: My involvement with the Ukrainian community goes back to when I was born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. My parents were both born in Canada; however my great grandparents came from Ukraine, with my grandparents in tow in 1894. Baba was 6 years old and dido was 11 years old. My dad and mother were born and brought up in Saskatchewan. In 1936, my father traveled from Saskatchewan to Kirkland Lake looking for employment during the Great Depression. As a farm kid of Ukrainian heritage he searched for other people of Ukrainian descent and eventually joined the Ukrainian National Federation. Dad got a job in the gold mines and after a period of about 8 months, my father sent for his Saskatchewan sweetheart, my mom and as a matter of fact the ladies of the Ukrainian Women’s Organization (OUK) took my mom in hand and looked after her as family does. Their wedding reception was held at the UNO Hall and was completely organized by members of the UNF. During the Depression, when people did not have a lot of money, the organization got together and made my parents a wonderful wedding.

During those days, everyone in the family attended all functions, the majority of which were held at the Hall. When I was a young lad, the whole family attended most functions. People such as Bud Leschuk, the Maksymowich Boys, the Nesterowsky Girls, the Zawally Family, the Fedaks, Fedoraks, Feniuks, Kozaks, etc. used to do so much together. I think most of us thought we were related families. It was a wonderful time and people seemed to be very happy and thoughtful of everyone else. Pan Kostetski would load up the back of his truck with the ladies of OUK and go blueberry picking. They always had a wonderful day except the time when they found themselves competing with a black bear for the blueberries. The truck was loaded and they evacuated the site in just a few minutes.

JP: Can you give us a timeframe showing the progression of your community involvement?

L.S.: We lived in Kirkland Lake until 1946, when our family moved to Toronto. People gradually started moving out of Kirkland Lake because of lack of work at the mines, resulting in lay-offs. The Turys and Maksymowich families moved to Windsor. The Fedoraks, Feniuks, Leschuks, Zawallys, Kozaks, all moved to Toronto. In fact, when the Nesterowskys came to Toronto, something went wrong with their house deal and they stayed with our family for a short period of time, until pan Nesterowsky found suitable accommodation for his family.

My UNF experience in Toronto began with the hall on Shaw St., having been taught by Sestra Evhenia, whom many may remember going there to Ridna Shkola - Ukrainian School. Then we went to UNO on College St. At about that time, our family moved to Mississauga. This made it very difficult to attend the UNF School and I became inactive in the organization.

JP: Eventually, you became involved in MUNO - in the 1950s and 60s?

L.S.: When I was 17, Bud Leschuk phoned me and asked why I don’t join MUN, saying that we’ve got good members and I think you will enjoy it. I went to West Toronto MUN and lo-and-behold I found a lot of other very nice people. We learned a lot and had a lot of fun. We used to have fundraisers, dances. My navit’ pysaly pysanky – both the guys and the girls. I was elected Branch President of West Toronto MUNO for three years, and was also on the MUNO National Executive. After a few years, I met a non-Ukrainian girl and got married. I was offered and accepted a job in Montreal and didn’t return to Toronto for about 4 years.

JP: Aside from time for your personal life and business career, you picked-up on your community involvement. Where you have been since your MUN days?

L.S.: Out-of-the-blue one day, I got a phone call from Natalie Bundza-Iwanytzka and she said “Les, you have not been around for a long time – why don’t you come to the organization, we need some help.” And so, that’s what brought me back for the second time. I went back, felt comfortable with people I knew and I enjoyed the camaraderie. Subsequently, I was elected to the UNF of Canada Board of Directors, served two terms as Secretary. I started working with Walter Maceluch, Walter Kish together with other people on The New Pathway newspaper, where I’m board president now for six years and enjoying it very much.  I’m still a director of the UNF of Canada Board of Directors.   

JP: What is your current involvement in the community in addition to being President of the New Pathway Board of Directors?

L.S.: I’m a director of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce, which is a great organization with very good members. We’re trying to help trade between Canada and Ukraine. Our goal is encourage people to deal with both countries. Right now, the biggest Ukrainian trading partner in Canada is the Province of Quebec. Earlier this past spring, the Governor General helped us open an office in Kyiv.

JP: Can you tell us about the business that you are in?

L.S.: I’m in the advertising and marketing business. I started working for a company called McKim, Benton and Bowles in the early 1960s where I first met my present business partner of 20 years, then as his customer. At McKim, I worked on a variety of accounts such as American Motors, CIBC, Vick Chemical Co. As well, McKim was the agency of record for General Foods. It was a demanding position, but well worth it. After McKim I went to work for a company called Paul Mulvihill Ltd. for five years selling radio [advertising time].

Eventually, I formed my own company. One day, I was having lunch with my present partner, Norm Bain, who was in the same business. We started complaining to each other; neither could take any time off because who then is going to “look after the store”. So we decided to put all our customers down on a piece of paper. We decided to amalgamate our companies and took his name Metrospot Marketing.

When Norm and I were already business partners, I got a call from a Montreal agency, Young and Rubicam. Michael Claudius called to say that he has a client for us. Norm said we’re not going to fly you to Montreal not knowing who the client is! The client was Steinberg’s Stores... We pursued the business in Montreal and we ended up with Metro. We’ve been in this business now for 18 years, coast to coast and Sobey’s is our biggest client. We also have Jean Coutu, Montreal’s largest pharmacy chain.

JP: Can you describe the kind of marketing you do for grocery chain store clients?

L.S.: I’ll give you a good example. One of our salesmen put a promotion together for the company that makes Tabasco Sauce. We called it “The Big Football Game”.  The client was very happy and asked us if we would allow other grocery chains to use our promotion. We let them use it in grocery stores across the country. It was a very successful promotion.

Metrospot has offices in Toronto and Montreal. Our 100 employees, spread across the country are responsible for in-store signage, coupons, promotions as well as data retrieval. Metrospot has 15 employees at Head Office in Toronto and 5 in Montreal.

JP: How do you see future business for your company?

L.S.: Metrospot is looking at and expanding into another business. We think we found a type of business that needs a competitor in the worst way. We’ve been doing research, calling up people and seeing if we have a niche in that business … and hope to make a lot of money, having worked hard to the bone for peanuts… In a manner of speaking, the business is in sales and when developed, I’ll tell you all about it!