The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
There is, each spring, a wonderful piece of theatre on Bay Street in Toronto, in the beautiful old Design Exchange, several hundred people, dressed to the nines, all waiting for the show. The show is the annual general meeting of Hollinger Inc. and the star, of course, is Conrad Black, magnificent in his arrogance, brilliant in his wit, remarkable in his use of every single word in the dictionary. He majestically moves to reappoint the same well-dressed string of directors who populate the head table. He reappoints the same firm of accountants as before. He slaps down questioners with air of the head master spanking the pupils. He dazzles, he tap-dances, juggles and does everything but drop his pants. It's a wonderful performance. It could play Broadway. Well, that was then and this is now. It is the 2004 Special Meeting of the Holders of Retractable Common Shares and Series II Preference Shares. Not on Bay Street, but on King Street West in a room in the Toronto Stock Exchange that appears to have been designed by a student of the Soviet New Brutalism school of architecture. It has a vast ceiling, the size of Conrad's ego. Instead of the bevy of well-appointed directors in their Savile Row suits, there are just four chairs by the microphone. Floor level. There are 101 folding metal chairs for the audience. There are 17 bodies sprinkled among the 101 metal chairs. In fact, there appear to be more bodyguards in the wings than there are in the chairs. The media, in other springs with TV cameras everywhere Ñ kneeling down to record for history the handsome gang at the head table. This day, the media hacks are barred. In other springs, this scribbler's wife, who knows Conrad well, was always allowed to attend. This unhappy spring, she is barred. The scribbler is the only hack allowed in because he owns shares. (I own 10 million Hollinger shares.) See 'Avoiding' P.# Con't from P.# Avoiding the media mob stewing outside the main door, the star turn is smuggled in through a side door lined with bodyguards. The large bulk of the Lord Black of Crossharbour always enters a room with the easy grace of the Queen Mary liner, seeming to glide across the floor rather than walk it. Of the 17 bodies extant, one is an older chap in a sweater and a crew-cut, looking as if he walked in from Loblaws by mistake. There is another grey-haired chap in shorts and carrying a bicycle helmet. There is one elderly woman (obviously with the other 50 million shares that are at stake at this gathering.) "I see we have a quorum," says Conrad, gazing down at the 84 empty metal chairs. He always did have a sense of humour. The bodyguards, one of them easily tipping the scales at 300 pounds, stand in the wings, drinking Orange Crush. Lord Black, who boasts that he has never owned a pair of shorts, allows the meeting is about a certain "liquidity" problem at Hollinger and has three motions that supposedly will rectify this minor inconvenience. At the front there some 10 types Ñ dark suits and one young woman Ñ who do not vote. One surmises, easily, that they are lawyers or representatives of all those nasty people who have tied Conrad in the courts and will be doing so for several years hence, thereby enriching lawyers on both sides of the disputes who will be buying estates in Palm Beach Ñ perhaps just down the drag from the Black mansion. Such is the struggle among the rag-tag of us over the motions, the Special Meeting is over in 16 minutes. Conrad says the scrutineers have told him his initiative has been accepted by 86.2 percent. Such is high finance. The Lord says he will accept any questions, including one on who is going to win the June 28 election. The only two questions come from the only people in the room not wearing ties Ñ the crew-cut and the bicyclist in shorts. The Lord allows that he cannot get into discussion over "litigation" because he does not think that would be wise. It is all over in 25 minutes. I tell him who is going to win the election and he agrees. It sure ain't Broadway anymore.
