Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?
Finally, the long legal ordeal of Conrad M. Black, at least as it concerns the U.S. criminal courts, has come to an end. There has been a trial, a jury verdict, a sentence imposed, an appeal, an appeal of an appeal, prison time served, a further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, another appeal hearing and a re-sentencing which will lead to more prison time to be served. There was merit in some of his contentions regarding innocence, according to the American legal system, and there have been affirmations by that same system of his guilt as a man in a position of trust who stole from shareholders, committed fraud and obstructed justice. Many of these and other points about Mr. Black have been covered here over the years. The disintegration of Mr. Black’s business assets and the demise of two once profitable and mighty empires (Argus and Hollinger) under his leadership have also been widely canvassed on these pages.
It is the human, and not legal, side of Mr. Black that is of continuing interest at this point. What his appearance in federal court for his re-sentencing on June 24th, and his statements before U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, revealed is a picture of two Conrad Blacks. One once mocked shareholders as a cheap form of capital and disparaged employees of his various companies, from Dominion Stores to Hollinger, while deriding modern practices of corporate governance. Then there was that weird self-comparison he made with the nobility of revolutionary France. The other quotes from Kipling and speaks of compassion and a deep love for his family. He even backtracks on his approach toward corporate governance and the effect of that hostility upon Hollinger. As the poem If teaches (and Mr. Black would not be the first to have had those verses committed to memory upon the instructions of a dutiful father) triumph and defeat are indeed imposters. But so, too, are those who clothe themselves as virtuous leaders by day, only to betray that trust in the long nights of greed and conceit.
What is more genuine and enduring is the character of an individual and how the often unexpected arrivals of success and failure are greeted. There were clearly important aspects of Mr. Black’s character that were lacking in the past, as it is generally agreed that criminal convictions, especially those sustained through such a lengthy appeal process, are not viewed as character assets. The one exception to that rule appears to rest with many Canadian elites, who often praise the U.S. system of justice — except when it involves one of their own. And in Mr. Black’s case, the common view among certain quarters of Canada’s most powerful and privileged is that American justice has inflicted unspeakable cruelty upon the former media baron. Few, including Mr. Black, have had little to say over the years about the troublingly frequent incidents of wrongful conviction in Canada that have seen innocent souls spend years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Others in Canada have been stripped of their national medals in the face of criminal convictions. Mr. Black, however, seems still to be exempt from this precedent in the eyes of the lofty custodians of the Order of Canada, who appear to accord no legitimacy whatever to the outcome of the U.S. legal process — except for the decision of its highest court which led to some of Mr. Black’s convictions being overturned. There cannot be one standard for Conrad Black and another for the rest. Mr. Black made a major miscalculation when he thought along those lines. So, too, do Canada’s elites in continuing to allow a convicted felon to hold one of the highest honors in the land.
As to how real Mr. Black’s change is and whether he sees humanity with a deeper and more kindhearted perspective than he did before, only time will reveal. We have always acknowledged that there is an admirable side to Mr. Black. We were struck by the Conrad Black standing before Judge St. Eve, who was,by all accounts, along with others in the court, moved by his more humble bearing. Nothing illustrates the sea change in Mr. Black more than the fact that in the effort to have the judge reduce his sentence, he chose to rely upon the character references of other felons, including drug dealers and those convicted of violent crimes — a checkered cast that a few years ago Mr. Black would have been the first to condemn. Has Mr. Black truly changed? Will his transformation from a status-seeking baron of excess and vainglory to one of a more fully formed human being be permanent? As Cole Porter so aptly wondered in situations like this: “Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?”
The criminal justice system will soon be finished with Mr. Black. Whether he will be finished with it is another story. And new travails in the civil courts and perhaps with his own health apparently await still. His words and actions in the future will define if and how Mr. Black has really changed and whether the stained mantle of convicted felon recedes, to be succeeded by the persona of heroic champion of noble causes.
That is an outcome that will in large part be determined by the extent to which Mr. Black heeds these sound words from Kipling:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
The crashing fall of Research In Motion’s stock from its euphoric highs where management could do no wrong (even when it did) to the current depths of shareholder odium has one explanation — and only one explanation. It is a failure of corporate governance, pure and simple. What brought RIM to this point was adumbrated on these pages some time ago. A few changes in boardroom players followed our reports, but a change in culture did not. The current crisis confirms that the board remains overly deferential to its co-founders. This, along with the fact that directors continue to permit them to head the board as co-chairs, as well as head the management team as co-CEOs, is exhibit one in the case for RIM’s governance shortcomings. Any board that would have allowed the two men who were at the center of RIM’s options backdating scandal and who displayed such sophomoric excuses as to their knowledge of corporate governance practices and basic accounting rules (Mr. Balsillie retains a professional accounting designation) is not a board that entirely understands its role in protecting shareholder interests. We were the first to call for the appointment of a non-executive chair at RIM some years ago and for the dismantling of the peculiar positions of board co-chairman and management co-CEO. Those reforms are needed now more than ever, yet the board seems both deaf and blind to their urgency.
As RIM’s shareholders have watched billions wiped out in stock value over the past several weeks, little has been heard from the board or its lead director, John E. Richardson, however. Nor has there been any indication that directors are foregoing their fees during a time when investors are losing so much. Each director is paid a minimum of $150,000 annually. That’s a reasonable fee for directors who are adding value; it is far too much for bystanders to a company’s calamity. Exactly one year ago , RIM’s stock on the NASDAQ Exchange closed at $58.84. As of this posting, the stock has fallen to $26.74. Investors are bailing in droves.
It is time for a shakeup at RIM. It starts with a board that ceases to be mesmerized by management actors who have too long dominated the corporate governance stage and brings in serious accountability reforms that raise investor confidence and restore corporate performance.
June 8, 2011 | 13:24
Jessica Murphy, Parliamentary Bureau | QMI Agency
Canada’s patchwork securities regulation system gives the mob plenty of places to hide, a new report indicates.
The draft government report probing mob meddling in Canada’s financial sector, obtained by QMI Agency, suggests a patchwork of securities regulators across the country make it hard to pin down the amplitude of financial crime.
“Anyone wishing to understand the scope and seriousness of securities offences in Canada appears to be stuck with manually parsing the overlapping databases of regulators, and self-regulatory organizations,” according to the report, one of three commissioned by Public Safety Canada to shed light on how organized crime operates in Canada.
The final draft, likely be tabled late fall, will focus on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Montreal’s derivatives market.
The news doesn’t come as a surprise for J. Richard Finlay, who heads up the Centre for Corporate and Public Governance in the U.S.
He warns that due to our “weak system of balkanized securities regulators and lack of any federal focus on the matter, Canada makes an easy target for ill-intentioned players.”
Finlay recommends Canada adopt a national securities regulator, a proposal the Conservative government is currently trying to push forward.
The Supreme Court is set to rule in the coming months on the whether the proposal for a new Canadian Securities Regulatory Authority is constitutional.
Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec oppose a national regulator.
A half-century later, the message that came to define the Kennedy era still stands: We are all ennobled when we follow a purpose greater than ourselves.
Exactly fifty years ago today, the word went forth that the torch had been passed to a new generation. On this cold January day in 1961, a newly sworn in 35th president of the United States called upon his fellow Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country.”
But what remains truly remarkable about John F. Kennedy’s words is that they speak not of a climate of government welfare or expansion, as so many still accuse Democrats of encouraging. These lines foreshadowed the period of personal responsibility that Republicans attribute to the era of Ronald Reagan. They also were harbinger to the spirit of volunteerism and giving that have come to be seen as the best elements of a civilized society. And do they also not speak, in a lightly chastising way, to those so self-centered in their pursuits, as many in the world of finance are who continue to demand and receive astronomical bonuses even in the post-great recession period of record unemployment in America? Do they not serve as a reminder to Wall Street, and also Main Street, that there is something much larger in the scheme of things, something more enduring, like the fabric of national values and ideals, that needs to motivate and energize private lives?
Half a century ago, President Kennedy’s words were a call to a generation — what has been dubbed the greatest generation — who inherited the governance of a world it fought to keep free. Through groups like the Peace Corps, and in their entry to other forms of public service, Americans answered that call. The fire from this torch spread to other countries, too, like Canada, where a political phenomenon known as “Trudeaumania” swept a new kind of energetic politician into office in 1968. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was known as Canada’s JFK, and another astute Kennedy admirer in Keith Davey, a Canadian senator, helped to keep Prime Minister Trudeau in power. Mr. Davey passed away this week, just short of the half-century mark of the great speech that so inspired him, as he often reminded in the course of a friendship with this commentator that lasted several decades.
But the most remarkable aspect of these great words is that they remain a trumpet that rallies every succeeding generation, each of whom discovers on its own what the Kennedy generation and others have learned and taught again: that we are all ennobled when we follow a purpose greater than ourselves, when we seek to give rather than to take, and when we see the efforts and success of the institution of government in the great experiment called democracy tied inexorably to our contributions.
America’s brief romance with what has been the closest thing to political Camelot since the Jeffersonian era began this night exactly 50 years ago, with the narrow election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency. It would not be until early the next day before it was certain that Mr. Kennedy had actually defeated Richard M. Nixon. President Kennedy’s margin of victory was small, a mere 112,000 votes. But fate on that night had a monumental-scale drama in store for both men and the nation they eventually led.
Little on these pages can add to what has already been written about the sense of optimism that came with the Kennedy presidency, its commitment to excellence in bringing in gifted men and women to public service and a unique style of words, dress and culture that transformed the White House into a glittering showcase that inspired much of the world.
The achievements in that short 1000 days of America’s 35th president ranged from setting a goal to place a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, (done); signing a comprehensive test ban for above ground nuclear weapons (still in force) and causing the Soviet Union to remove nuclear weapons from Cuba (which it never placed there again). It is hard not to see how the world is better off. It also brought to public service a whole range of personalities and individuals who continued to contribute for decades. The last of them, Ted Sorensen, passed away a week ago.
What was created on this night, November 8, back in 1960 seems far in the past now. But its faint echoes still ignite the hearts of millions who believe that there can and should be something ennobling in the leadership of a great land, that politics is a high calling, that doing things well and with precision is an achievable goal even in government and that the dream of a better life is something that awaits to be summoned up in all of us.
