By: Nicole Garton, author of Harnessing Conflict: How Family Businesses Can Survive and Thrive

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

"Deciding whether or not to trust ... is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter." Lemony Snicket, The Penultimate Peril

Martha Rogers, John Tory, Edward Rogers & Loretta Rogers in 2014. Photo credit: Getty Images

Leaving a legacy means to extend one's identity, life work and values into the future, to outlive the physical self. Leaving a legacy in an estate planning context means designing an effective mechanism to promote your wishes for how your property will be administered after you die.

Unfortunately, many well-intentioned, technically precise estate plans reap unintended, negative consequences. The current Rogers family saga is hardly unique. The Griffiths family, the Doman family, the Bentall family and the Stronach family are all high profile Canadian business families where the inter-generational transmission of family business assets and control did not proceed as planned.

<aside> 📢 It seems that all the technical planning in the world still cannot control the future, particularly because beneath the documents lie emotions, relationships and families.

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https://twitter.com/MarthaLRogers/status/1458557904945131522?s=20

Family feuds over power, money and control have been the subject matter of great dramas, from King Lear to Succession. But really who needs fiction, when the actual facts are this interesting?

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