Dead Men Give No Depositions

This late-night special was prompted by Paul Waldie noting, in an earlier version of his report on Darren Sukonick's testimony, that the prosecution "appear[ed] to have accepted the argument by Lord Black's lawyers that Izzy Asper, CanWest's founder, wanted Lord Black to sign a non-compete agreement as part of the newspaper transaction." (This quote is now gone from it.)

What made this clipping interesting is the fact that Izzy Asper bought some assets from Conrad Black a long time ago. As part of his maneuvering for the Argus Corp. takeover back in 1978, Conrad Black had bought a 24.8% interest in Crown Trust from the heirs of John McMartin (one of the co-founders of Hollinger Mines) from April 20 to May 4, 1978. (The Establishment Man, p. 126. Yes, it did take that long to find them back then.) Mr. Black later realized that he had little use for the trust company once he had won control of Argus, so he put out the word that he wanted to get rid of his shares. He had originally planned to unload his Crown Trust block to the holder of the largest Crown block (32% as of the beginning of 1979,) Reuben Cohen. It was David Radler, though, who had gotten hold of a competing bidder for that block of shares, a Manitoba businessman and former head of the Liberal party of that province by the name of Israel Harold Asper. Izzy Asper had bid $44 a share; Mr. Cohen had bid $41.50, which he later refused to increase. So, in the summer of 1979, Izzy Asper got the Mr. Black's 24.8% holdings. (Ibid, p. 233.) Peter Newman, the author of The Establishment Man, discloses on the same page that Mr. Radler had contacted Mr. Asper in order to get a higher bid for the shares.

So, Mr. Asper first bought assets from Mr. Black a little more than a year after the latter's swift takeover of Argus. He thus had indirect experience of how rapidly Conrad Black could shuffle an asset. Whatever the real answer is to the "who asked whom" question surrounding the CanWest non-competes, the reason for the lack of an obvious one dates from the wild days of 1978-9. Izzy Asper is now dead, and dead men give no testimony.


The Argus takeover has been brought up in more recent biographies of Conrad Black because it has been claimed that he took advantage of the three widows, one being the widow of former Argus head Bud McDougald. Their written consent, signing over the right to buy out any shareholder of the holding company that controlled Argus (Ravelston,) was crucial in Mr. Black's takeover of it. Those inclined to the comeuppance side take this criticism at face value, while those on the vindication side tend to chalk it up to the three widows falling under the spell of a mysterious, heel-clicking foreigner by the name of John Prusac, then a real-estate developer with ambition. There is, however, a simpler explanation for those three turning on the young man they had earlier agreed to help: it can be found in the way that Conrad, and Monte, Black got their agreement in the first place.

It was done through the good offices of Dixon Chant, the executor of Mr. McDougald's estate. He himself was not impressed with the successor to Bud McDougald, Max Meighen. It was his support of the Black brothers, as well as the support of Massey-Ferguson's then-CEO, Al Thornbrough, that got the three widows signing the transfer agreement, on May 15th, 1978. (Ibid, pp. 129-30.)

It was at a tea party at the Black house, held twelve days later with then-Black-ally Nelson Davis "in attendance," at which the three widows were guests. All three of them - Doris Phillips, Cecil Hedstrom, and Maude ("Jim") McDougald - decided that the by-then-ousted president of Argus, Max Meighen, was a bad man. The evidence proffered by the three was his lack of gentility, as expressed in his taste in clothes and his choice of a gold Mercedes for his car. Conrad Black himself added that Mr. Meighen became "'boisterous after a couple of drinks,'" which brought forth the decision from Ms. Phillips: "'Well, then...we can dispense with him.'"(Ibid, p. 132.)

That's what served as their retrospective consent for Mr. Meighen's ouster. (It was a simpler time in Toronto back then.)

More close to the real reason was that Max Meighen had taken the widows, and Mr. McDougald's memorialization, for granted while gaining the chairmanship of Argus. I offer the guess that the reason why the widows began complaining later about Conrad Black's supposed opportunism was that, after he had gotten their authorization and approval, he took them for granted too, which was what Mr. Prusac rubbed into their ears behind closed doors. I note that Mr. Chant, the executor, stuck with both Conrad and Monte Black during the later controversy.