• OPEN LETTER TO CONRAD BLACK

Mr. Black,
Your March 4,’08, National Post editorial details the minutia in the fabric of your battle against “a travesty of justice” and your passage into incarceration, all skillfully presented… all, except the most determinative to the root cause of your present situation. Not a word on the non-compete payments, sizable by any measure, extracted from the treasury you controlled absolutely and not your acquisitor’s.

Such audacious moves on shareholder capital were astonishing when they occurred and no less so in the sobriety of hindsight all these years later. Track obscuring paper trails and memory impaired directors, not withstanding, it is extremely unlikely that a single senior corporate executive could possibly view such action as either ethical, lawful or in the best interest of minority shareholders, in my opinion. At least not in the glare of public view and scrutiny. If an acquiring competitor wishes to prevent the imposition of your talents on his market, such acquisitor will pay for the pleasure. Such is the legitimate and sanctioned practice of exercising rights in a free capitalist system.

Your crowning achievement, the National Post, is in my opinion, Canada’s foremost newspaper and stands out as one of the resplendent elements in North America’s too often tenebrous and indistinct media firmament.

Perhaps we can anticipate a day when you subscribe to a sincere and candid perspective on the life changing decisions you and your partner made. It is not likely that rationalizations, excuses or deflections will provide you such insight. Neither will listening to sycophants. 
 Evidently you have a versatile vocabulary and an ample dictionary. A breakthrough in sense of self might lead your writing to acquire an unaffected dimension of truth elevating future contributions to the Post I would look forward to reading.

Sincerely,
James Raider
PacificGatePost