JR'S Free Thought Pages
No Gods ~ No Masters
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Canada’s Notorious Corporate Criminal Conrad Black By JR, August 2025 Conrad Black the Pompous Ass Canadian Conservative Corporate Crook Preface Canada is known throughout the world as one of the most corrupt countries on the planet and an easy mark for financial cheats, scammers and hucksters of every stripe. Ordinary Canadian working stiffs (the ones who actually pay taxes) are bilked of billions every year and continue to be swindled as I write. For me personally over the past three decades it’s been six (yes that’s 6) class action suits with the two mafia banks RBC and TD, none of which were revealed to the public. The first of these endless fees, thefts and other bank swindles was orchestrated by the brokerage arm of TD Bank. When I revealed the first of a series of scams to the Vancouver Sun business editor he flatly told me he would be fired if he wrote the story on what was stolen from my family and I personally; so much for the corporate media and the ugly truth of our chartered banks which earn billions in profits every quarter and are bailed out by taxpayers periodically for their crimes as they were in the global collapse of 2007-09. “Too big to fail” were told. Money talks and Bullshit walks! For some enlightenment on the systemic corruption in the constitutional monarchy of Canada that has been rampant since the founding BNA Act in 1867 and the nauseating racist and alcoholic crook PM John A Macdonald , read Bruce Livesey’s revelations in The Thieves of Bay Street. The swindles continue unabated as we await the next BBBB (Boom, Bubble, Bust and Bailout) iteration. It’s called capitalism suckers – heads we win, tails you lose. The book On the Take ought to be required reading for every Canadian. Until you read this in depth expose' of Mulroney’s crimes by an excellent journalist and author Stevie Cameron, you will discover the magnitude of the deceit, crimes and the corruption of Mulroney's government. For more on this voluminous vomit thread visit: https://skeptic.ca/On_the_Take.htm Quickie Bio on Conrad the Canuck Con Man: “Sir” Conrad Black, founder of Canada’s neo-fascist rag The National Post, likes to be called “Lord Black” the peerage from the snobbish British monarchy that simply requires that you have boatloads of money, preferably stolen and are a certified asshole. Without the pardon of one of his rich pals Donald Trump Black would be continuing the life sentence handed out by the US government. Naturally he was in a lavish prison designed for wealthy crooks such as him. Canada was too squeamish about prosecuting Black for the crimes against his business partners, but the US government had no problem with a trial and conviction since he had also screwed his American partners. In November and December of 2005, American Federal prosecutors with no trepidations about his oligarchic distinction in Canada, charged Black with several counts of fraud, racketeering, and obstruction of justice; his long time business associate corporate crook F David Radler had pleaded guilty to mail fraud in September 2005. Black was found guilty of mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007. He was sentenced to six and a half years in a posh federal prison and fined $125,000. While his boot licking defenders portrayed him as a brilliant newspaper manager who had been wrongly charged, Black’s critics said he structured slimy deals and defrauded shareholders solely for his own benefit. In 2010 he was granted bail while he appealed and later that year two of his fraud convictions were overturned. In 2011 his sentence was reduced to three and a half years, and Black returned to prison in September. He was released in May 2012. In 2019 he was pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump who referred to Black a “friend.” The previous year Black had written the book Donald J. Trump: A President like No Other. The Canadian government (Liberal or Conservative) would not prosecute the bastard Black for his crimes but he served more than three years in a US country club prison for fraud – until Herr Trump pardoned the fellow pampered platinum spoon vulture capitalist. Isn’t our Canadian meritocracy wonderful?
Mug Shot of Conrad Black: con man, capitalist crook, swindler, huckster, bad ass businessman, silver spoon pompous ass and certified asshole Black’s Platinum Spoon Bad Ass Business Career While he was still a law student, Conrad Black started buying rural newspapers with business partners Peter White and David Radler. They bought the Eastern Townships Advertiser and Sherbrooke Daily Record in 1969. When his parents died, Black inherited a stake in a holding company, Ravelston Corporation Limited. He used this inheritance to take over Argus Corporation and its subsidiary, Hollinger International. Black gradually sold off traditional Argus investments until Hollinger was its only company. In 1985, he began buying quality newspapers, including the London Daily Telegraph, Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times and Sydney Morning Herald. In 1996, he arranged a takeover of the Southam chain of Canadian newspapers,). Black launched the far right wing reactionary National Post in 1998 to compete with the “Liberal” Globe and Mail. Based in Toronto, the National Post was the largest and most important paper in the Southam chain. Several years later, Black sold his Canadian newspaper chain to Canwest Global Communications Corporation for $3.2 billion (see also Black Puts Up Newspapers for Sale; Black Sees Empire Diminished). As part of the deal, he was paid $74 million not to compete with Canwest Global. Soon after, directors at Hollinger claimed that Black and Radler were paying themselves unauthorized salaries. There were further claims that Black had paid himself millions of dollars in company money through a series of deals he had made in his own interest. Black resigned as chairman and chief executive of Hollinger International in 2003 and soon after lost control of his press empire. Criminal Charges and Imprisonment In 2005, Conrad Black’s long-time business partner David Radler agreed to cooperate with US investigators in exchange for a lighter sentence (see article Former Associate to Testify against Conrad Black). Black was charged with mail fraud and obstruction of justice (see article Conrad Black Charged with Fraud; Black Indicted over Non-Compete Clause). He was convicted in 2007 largely due to Radler’s testimony against him. He received a 78-month jail sentence from a Chicago district court judge. The judge found him guilty of defrauding shareholders and obstructing justice. (See also the article Black Undone by Small Transaction Conrad Black’s New Life Behind Bars.) Black appealed his conviction to the US Supreme Court. He claimed that the trial judge incorrectly instructed the jury on the interpretation of some aspects of the fraud charges. A US Supreme Court decision in June 2010 set aside three of his fraud convictions. The next month, Black was granted bail. In October, a US appeals court overturned two of his three criminal fraud convictions. However, it upheld his guilty verdict for obstruction of justice. In June 2011, the US district court in Chicago resentenced Black on the obstruction conviction and remaining fraud conviction. It replaced his 2007 sentence of 78 months with a 42 month sentence which left Black with 13 additional months to serve. Black served his jail time at a US federal prison in Florida from September 2011 to May 2012. Black could not return to Canada because he gave up his citizenship to join the British House of Lords in 2001. However, he was granted a temporary resident permit, which allowed him to return to his home in Toronto. Black has maintained his innocence since he was first charged. From Charlie Angus’ recent book Dangerous Memory: Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed
Chapter 19 In 1987, our crew at Angelus House decided to attend the annual charity banquet of Cardinal Emmett G. Carter. Not as paying guests but as polite gatecrashers. The cardinal knew everyone in Canada’s corporate and political establishment, and he wasn’t shy about tapping them for a good cause—the various Catholic charities in the city. The banquet was a tuxedo and evening gown affair, attended by the political and business leaders of the country. We naively thought we could engage the most powerful man in Canada’s Catholic Church in a discussion about increasing economic disparity. After all, Jesus had been pretty clear about who should get invited to banquets: “When you host a banquet do not invite the rich who can pay you back … invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.”1 But Carter didn’t get Jesus’ message. When he held his first banquet in the darkest days of the 1981 recession, it was chaired by the corporate elite of Canada. And since then, the event has only grown in stature. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was a featured guest at Carter’s head table. Mulroney was elected in 1984 on the promise of using his skills as a corporate executive to get Canada’s stagnant economy moving again. At the time there were more than a million Canadians out of work,2 but that number stayed constant throughout Mulroney’s nine years in office. However, it was a boom time for those on the make. Reporter Carol Goar describes the Mulroney years as a time of “condos and jaguars.” That so many remained unemployed in Canada while the economy roared back to life was an indication that the Canadian economy was undergoing a radical restructuring. Like in Reagan’s America and Thatcher’s Britain, Canada was no longer focused on the rates of employment but on the wealth generated by the emerging 1 percent. Goar writes, “The 80s were years of heady growth, fueled in large measure by real estate speculation, leveraged buy outs and frantic consumer spending. Mulroney and his wife Mila set the tone flaunting their wealth and status in the way they dressed, travelled, and lived.”3 Author Stevie Cameron notes that the Mulroney government was obsessed with wealth, insider access, and deal-making: “Until the Mulroney government came to office, lobbying was a discreet profession in the city [of Ottawa], practiced by a few well-connected Ottawa hands … When Mulroney came to Ottawa, he was followed by a flock of cronies who were brazen in their determination to cash in on the friendship.”4 The Mulroney’s hosted black-tie dinners for those willing to make maximum donations to the party. In return, those donors were given access to the top cabinet ministers and government officials. Access was all about who could pay, as was made clear in an internal party report identifying the targets to hit up: “chartered and other banks, insurance companies, trust companies, CA firms, lobbyist firms, major oil companies, automobile manufacturers, most wealthy Canadians (individuals), breweries, pulp and paper and major American corporations.”5 The Mulroney government was riding the wave of a new ideology—greed is good. This celebration of greed was enunciated in 1986 by New York financier Ivan Boesky.6 And it was transformed into the culturally defining “greed is good” speech by the character Gordon Gecko in the 1987 hit movie Wall Street. By then, Boesky was in jail for his larcenous tastes. But it didn’t matter. There was a long lineup of corporate sociopaths ready to take his place in what was increasingly becoming a “casino” economy of high finance and reckless speculation. For much of the twentieth century, the moneyed classes relied on the loyalty of dour and dutiful corporate lickspittle well-paid managers who prided themselves on building the brand of established corporations with a view to long-term success and growth. But that world was shaken up in the 1980s by the emergence of a new predatory force in business, the flamboyant corporate raider. Graham Stewart describes how in the mercenary environment of ’80s capitalism, a “business empire carefully built up over generations could be decapitated and sold on by financiers who had never worked in the business sectors they intruded into … corporate raiders were indifferent to custodianship and were merely asset-strippers, pocketing for themselves and their shareholders whatever sums could be extracted from companies they were content to reduce to a carcass without regard for the workforce.”7 Nobody in Canada personified predatory capitalism like Conrad Black. In 1978, Black took control of Dominion Stores, Canada’s largest and most successful grocery chain. Dominion was a flagship Canadian institution worth $2.4 billion, with twice the sales of its nearest rival, Loblaws. Dominion workers not only enjoyed good wages but had a strong pension plan, and it was common at the time for employees to work their entire career for the company. Once Black got hold of Dominion, the sell-off of assets began. Black wanted control of the $37.9 million surplus that had been built up by Dominion workers for their retirement years. The playbook was being written in Reagan’s America. In 1980, more than 60 percent of American workers had defined company pension plans, but by 2006 this number had dropped to 10 percent, which meant that people were often working well past retirement because they lacked the means.8 Dominion’s corporate stability became so undermined that shareholders complained that “the buccaneers have climbed aboard the Dominion Stores ship and, slowly but surely, they are sinking it.”9 Black’s raiding of the Dominion pension fund was a watershed moment in postwar Canadian labour relations. It is highly significant that Canada’s most notorious corporate raider was not only a guest of honour at the banquet but also a religious soulmate to the cardinal. Carter baptized Conrad Black at the cardinal’s estate in 1986 and served as his personal spiritual adviser. The two men shared a common goal in shutting down the progressive wing of the Canadian Catholic Church that had been trying to hold capitalists like Black to a higher moral standard. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (cccb) had an international reputation for speaking up on social justice, Indigenous rights, and economic reform. On New Year’s Eve 1982, the bishops had released a statement on the economic crisis facing the nation. It was a bold attack on the economic ideology that promoted mass layoffs as a necessity for fighting inflation, and the bishops denounced the austerity measures as a “moral disorder.” They accused the federal government of a “continuation of the catastrophic influence” of Milton Friedman’s Chicago School, writing: “By placing greater importance on the accumulation of profits and machines than on the people who work in a given economy, the value, meaning and dignity of human labour is violated.”10 This Church condemnation of the austerity economy sent shockwaves through Canada’s political and business elite. Over the coming weeks, the bishops’ statement dominated national discussion about the economic crisis. Bishops Remi De Roo and Alphonse Proulx met with representatives from the labour movement, anti-poverty coalitions, and feminist groups, in an unprecedented outreach between Church leaders and civil society. Tony Clarke, who helped write the document, remembers feeling “struck by the prospect however remote that the bishops’ manifesto could actually serve as a catalyst for the building of a people’s movement for democratic social change in this country.”11 Cardinal Carter was outraged when he read the bishops’ statement, and held an impromptu press conference where he publicly denounced the findings of his fellow clerics. This public fight between clerics was unprecedented in the Catholic Church. Bishop Faber MacDonald of Newfoundland warned brother bishops that Carter was acting as a “fifth columnist,” undermining the work of the Canadian Church’s justice efforts.12 Carter’s attack on the progressive Catholic Church was two-pronged. Behind the scenes, he was lining up clerical allies to shut down the progressive bishops. The public assault was led by Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, who had cut her teeth in Canada’s trashy right-wing press. True to form, she accused the bishops of being dupes of Marxist revolutionaries “who were flirting with the deadly forces” behind the “global communist agenda.”13 The couple openly mocked both the progressive efforts of Church reform and the concern for the growing underclass. At one event, Black came dressed in the opulent robes of the French kingmaker Cardinal Richelieu and Barbara Amiel came decked out as Marie Antoinette. Black subjected Bishop De Roo, spokesperson for Canada’s bishops, to constant ridicule, and demanded that the much-loved Church leader be “sacked.”14 In another spat he called Bishop Frederick Henry a “twerp,” a “useful idiot,” and a “pinko commie.”15 Publicly insulting a bishop was also something that had not been done before, but Black was unconcerned. As he was trashing Bishop De Roo’s reputation, he was vacationing with Carter at his mansion in Palm Springs. On May Day 1985, the Canadian bishops further angered Black and Carter when they came out in solidarity with women walking the picket line at the Eaton’s department store chain. The women had been on strike for six hard months when the bishops issued their statement against the “job ghetto” to which lower-paid women were relegated. They warned of a disturbing trend toward “part time, low wage and insecure unemployment.”16 Carter accused the bishops’ conference of failing to get “both sides of the story.”17 He was a close friend of CEO John Craig Eaton, and his friend Conrad Black sat on the board of the Eaton’s corporation. Against the backdrop of these struggles in the Canadian Catholic Church, the idea of crashing the cardinal’s banquet was conjured up at our big planning table at Angelus House. I wrote up a manifesto that asked why the cardinal was choosing to celebrate with the country’s elite at a time “when the disparity between rich and poor is becoming so glaring … it is the primary responsibility of the Church to seek out these victims of the profit economy, to affirm their worth by inviting them to sit at table with us. Will we ignore this opportunity to meet Christ in the poor because it is more respectable to dine with the wealthy?”18 The plan was simple: we were going to walk into the Toronto Convention Centre as if we belonged and begin giving out pamphlets. I borrowed my brother’s black suit. Kelly came downstairs in what she thought was her most stylish outfit. It was a homespun affair from a local second-hand store. I told her she would likely get nabbed before she got through the door. “Look at me,” she said, blushing. “I look like a fucking angel. Who will stop me?” I doubt Cardinal Carter even noticed our protest. His plan to shut down the progressive Church was well underway. It began with the move to slash funding for various social justice outreach programs at the parish level. More than $600,000 in funding was cut from the international solidarity work undertaken by the Catholic Development and Peace organization. The next target was the social justice research department at the bishops’ council. At the time, the Canadian bishops were putting out 10 percent of the global Catholic Church research on social justice issues. The attack on their work was sold in the language of the 1980s—the need to find “efficiencies” in the organization. A consulting firm was hired that had worked for the Thatcher government on privatizing public services. The consultants advised firing the social justice research team and outsourcing the work.19 With the social justice wing shut down, Carter and his right-wing allies managed to push out Bishop De Roo. Black’s taunts to have the troublesome bishop sacked had been fulfilled. In 1988, Cardinal Carter retired. He was immediately appointed to the board of Conrad Black’s Argus Corporation.20 In 2007, Black was convicted and jailed in the United States for corporate fraud. Carter’s replacement, Aloysius Ambrozic, was a hard right-winger in the mould of Pope John Paul II. One of his first acts was to shut down Youth Corps, the diocese’s youth outreach program. Then he terminated six of the eleven regional social justice ministries. A massive retrenchment was taking place across the Catholic world. The bubble of progressive action that had been made possible by Vatican II had burst. Canadian civic politician Joe Mihevc explains, “Vatican II had created an opening for lay people and women. John Paul II put an end to this with the rise of clericalism. Women were shut out. Lay people were shut out. They established power in the clerics.”21 Like Khomeini, like Reagan, like Thatcher, John Paul II led a religious counter-revolution in the 1980s. His focus was shutting down the progressive developments that had taken root since the 1960s. The message of where the Church was headed was delivered clearly during the pope’s first visit to North America, in 1980. His tour manager Archbishop Paul Marcinkus shocked local Church officials when he announced that no women were allowed on the altar with the pope. “No broads,” he declared. “That’s out.”22 But the Catholic Church was about to be rocked by an even bigger storm: widespread allegations of systemic sexual abuse. The scandals of the late 1980s would shake this two-thousand-year-old institution to its core. Notes: 1 Luke, 12–14. 2 Statistics Canada, “Then and Now: The Changing Face of Unemployment,” Perspectives on Labour and Income 3, no. 1 (Spring 1991), article 4. 3 Carol Goar, “It’s Goodbye to the Front Row for the Best Show in Town,” Toronto Star, January 14, 1996. 4 Stevie Cameron, On the Take, 22. 5 Stevie Cameron, On the Take, 76. 6 “A $100 Million Idea: Use Greed for Good,” Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1986, chicagotribune.com/1986/12/15/a-100-million-idea-use-greed-for-good/. 7 Stewart, Bang!, 397–98. 8 Catherine Rampell, “Pensions, 1980 v Today,” New York Times, September 3, 2009, archive.nytimes.com/economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/pensions-1980-vs-today/. 9 Peter C. Newman, “The Fall of Black’s Dominion,” Maclean’s, February 25, 1985. 10 Episcopal Commission for Social Affairs and Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis,” International Journal of Health Services 13, no. 4 (1983), 661–69. 11 Clarke, Behind the Mitre, 78. 12 Clarke, Behind the Mitre, 90. 13 Barbara Amiel, “The Dangers of Blind Flirtation,” Maclean’s, March 14, 1983. 14 Clarke, Behind the Mitre, 117. 15 “Media: Conrad Black Assails Strikers Allies Too,” New York Times, April 17, 2000, nytimes.com/2000/04/17/business/media-conrad-black-assails-strikers-allies-too.html. 16 Clarke, Behind the Mitre, 90. 17 Clarke, Behind the Mitre, 88. 18 Angelus House pamphlet on Cardinal’s Banquet, author’s banker’s box of archives. 19 Clarke, Behind the Mitre, 129. 20 Jacquie McNish and Sinclair Stewart, Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2004), 21. 21 Joe Mihevc, interview with author, May 8, 2022. 22 Yallop, The Power and the Glory, 63.
More Sordid Facts about this Bastard Black… Conduct a search on this arrogant prick and you find a lot more slime...
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