Hall of Fame PEOPLE

Most Powerful

> Sir Herbert Holt (1856-1941): A founding engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, financier of dozens of utilities and president of the Royal Bank. In 1928, Holt was said to control companies with assets worth more than $3 billion-an amount 10 times greater than the currency then in circulation in Canada. He also sat on the boards of nearly 300 firms. One Montrealer in the late '20s reportedly complained, "We get up in the morning and switch on one of Holt's lights, cook breakfast on Holt's gas, smoke one of Holt's cigarettes, read the morning news printed on Holt's paper, ride to work on one of Holt's streetcars, sit in an office heated by Holt's coal, then, at night, go to a film in one of Holt's theatres."

Most Powerful Internationally

Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook (1879-

1964): Aitken began his career in the Maritimes and Montreal in the early 20th century as a stock promoter and financier, and soon earned millions through a series of speculative deals. He left Canada for England in 1910 with considerable riches and a questionable reputation, the result of widespread suspicion that he'd misappropriated $13 million after breaking the terms of an agreement. Aitken established himself in London and began buying newspapers, including the Daily Express. He was also elected to Parliament, and after helping David Lloyd George become the British Prime Minister in 1916, Aitken was granted a peerage and appointed Minister of Information. Over time, Aitken had immense influence on British politics and helped engineer the rise and fall of several prime ministers. During the Second World War, he served as Winston Churchill's Minister of Aircraft Production. Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee called Aitken "the only evil man I ever met."

Best Dealmaker

> Willard Garfield Weston (1893-1978): Between 1944 and 1975, the bakery, manufacturing and food magnate went on an astonishing building spree. After taking control of George Weston Ltd. from his father, he acquired an estimated 2,000 firms over five continents, creating one of the world's largest food conglomerates. In Canada, he expanded Weston Bakeries and the Loblaws supermarket chain into companies with national reach. In 2002, George Weston Ltd. ranked No. 1 among Canadian firms in revenue. Garfield's son, Galen Weston, has continued to build the family firm, most recently with the July purchase of British luxury retailer Selfridges for $1 billion (U.S.). Galen is Canada's second-richest man, behind Thomson Corp.'s Ken Thomson.

Best Takeover Artist

> Gerald Schwartz (1941- ):

The CEO of Onex Corp. has made his name and fortune by taking over more than 70 firms, among them Celestica, IBM's former manufacturing arm. His holding company, whose firms include parts manufacturer Dura Automotive and the Loews Cineplex theatre chain, had revenues of $23 billion in 2002. Schwartz prospers even when he fails. His aborted takeovers of John Labatt Ltd. in 1995 and Air Canada in 1999 earned Onex $22 million and $40 million, respectively, when he sold stock he'd bought in the companies. Not content to limit his expansionary dreams to the realm of business, Schwartz and his wife, Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books & Music Inc., have done the same in their personal lives. In 2000, the Toronto power duo purchased two houses adjoining their Rosedale home at a combined cost of $5.9 million. They demolished both houses to create a megamansion, complete with a theatre, guesthouse and gym.

Best Impression of a Tycoon

> Conrad Black, Lord Black of Crossharbour (1944- ): Fascinated by the trappings of power, Black has filled Hollinger International Inc.'s advisory board with the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger. The Carleton U. history and political science grad followed in the footsteps of Max Aitken by leaving Canada and openly wishing for a peerage, which he finally received in 2001. But it's doubtful he'll ever match Lord Beaverbrook for power or business success. "With a touch of cynicism," asked Toronto stock analyst Michael Graham in 2000, "has Conrad Black added a dollar of value to anything that he has touched in Canada-a dollar of permanent wealth?"

Best Self-made Man

> Paul Desmarais (1927- ): The son of the owner of a small Sudbury bus company, Desmarais built two empires-one in Canada and a second in Europe. He began in 1951 by rescuing the family firm, with 16 buses, $384,000 in debt and a contract to carry Inco miners to job sites near Sudbury. Now, through Power Corp. and Power Financial, Desmarais controls the largest non-bank financial conglomerate in Canada, including Great-West Lifeco and Investors Group. Overseas, his holdings include part of the Suez Canal and key minority stakes in German media giant Bertelsmann AG and TotalFinaElf, the world's fourth-largest oil company.

Most Entrepreneurial

Elizabeth Arden (1882-1965): Born north of Toronto, Arden moved to New York and opened a beauty salon in 1910. She then established her own line of cosmetics. By the end of the Second World War, Arden's company produced about 1,000 different products. Fortune magazine said that during her lifetime she was the highest-earning American businesswoman ever.

Most Eccentric

Sir William Macdonald (1831-1917): The founder of Macdonald Tobacco was actually an ardent non-smoker who wouldn't let people light up near him. Macdonald furnished his office with a "deal table" and a kitchen chair that cost just a few dollars. He refused to install a telephone, thereby ensuring the public couldn't reach him. A notable philanthropist, he built Macdonald College for McGill University, insisting that the stalls in the men's washrooms be partitioned with marble. "More young men have been corrupted by what they have seen written on lavatory walls than many of us imagine," he said. "Writing on marble is easily effaced."

Most Powerful Woman

> Mary Pickford (1892-1979): Born Gladys Smith in Toronto, Pickford toured with road companies in Canada before making her Broadway debut in New York City at age 14. She was the first great star of film and remains the only woman to co-own a major studio: In 1919, she formed United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, director D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin. She once told Adolph Zukor of Famous Players, "No, I really cannot afford to work for only $10,000 a week."

Greatest Behind-the-Scenes Power Broker

< Clarence Decatur (C.D.) Howe (1886-1960):

With Howe as Minister of Munitions and Supplies during the Second World War, Canada's GNP more than doubled, to $12 billion in 1945 from $5 billion in 1939. Howe allowed companies to write off capital investments immediately, rather than over several years. The Aluminum Co. of Canada alone wrote off $155 million of a $237-million investment to expand its Quebec mining and hydro operations. As Minister of Trade and Commerce during the 1950s, Howe encouraged trade with the U.S., built the Trans-Canada Highway and helped sponsor a cross-country natural gas pipeline.

Most dogged Promoter

Murray (The Pez) Pezim (1920-1998): Probably the most tireless pitchman this country has ever seen. Pezim's promotions were rarely successful, and often bizarre. They included, but certainly weren't limited to: Vita Pez rejuvenation pills; monogrammed fruit; a hotel called Chateau Pez; Pez chocolate bars; "Greetings from the Stars" greeting cards; the 1972 Muhammad Ali-George Chuvalo fight in Vancouver; and the three-wheeled Pezmobile. Finally, in the early '80s, his involvement in developing the Hemlo gold mine in Northern Ontario produced genuine riches: an estimated $40 million by 1983.

Most renowned International Man of Mystery

> Joseph Whiteside (Klondike Joe) Boyle (1867-1923): Boyle

helped open the Klondike for exploration and mining by dredging a navigable channel on the Klondike River, as well as establishing a profitable sawmill, docks and hydroelectric plant. Aiming to help the Allied cause during the First World War, he went to England in 1916. Later, he helped reorganize Russia's railways. Following the Bolshevik coup in 1917, he was responsible for the collection and distribution of food in Russia. He also recovered Romania's national archives from Russia, worked to restore Romania's oil industry and was reputedly the lover of that nation's queen, Marie. Boyle was festooned with medals by several countries, including the Order of St. Anne and Order of St. Vladimir by Russia; the Croix de Guerre by France; the Distinguished Service Order by Britain; and the Crown of Romania, the Star of Romania and the Grand Cross. His other ventures included bankrolling the Dawson City Nuggets to challenge the Ottawa Silver Seven for the 1905 Stanley Cup. They were soundly defeated.

Most Dedicated

Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (1820-

1914): Donald Smith started as a clerk with the Hudson's Bay Co. in 1838 and rose to become its principal shareholder and governor in 1889. In total, he worked for the company for 75 years. He also served as president of the Bank of Montreal and was a major shareholder and financial backer of the CPR.

Most Versatile

< Sir William Van Horne (1843-1915): General manager and president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Van Horne was an engineer, businessman, outstanding botanist, violinist, architect, geologist, cartoonist, inventor (avalanche and submarine detectors), paleontologist and leading expert on porcelain.

When he died, the CPR suspended operations for a day.

Swallowed the party line

> George Cohon (1937- ): The relentless promoter who built McDonald's Restaurants of Canada began his career as a corporate lawyer in Chicago. In 1968, Cohon bought the exclusive franchise rights to Eastern Canada from McDonald's and opened the first outlet in London, Ont. Never without his company baubles, he's even sported a Big Mac medallion in white gold. In The Acquisitors, Peter C. Newman recounts how Cohon had Big Mac balloons tied to his gurney before undergoing surgery to remove a tumour in his neck in 1975. Just before the operation, Cohon flashed a Ronald McDonald puppet he had hidden under his pillow to the surgeon. It was, he explained, his good-luck totem.

Greatest Opportunist

Henry Fuller (12-foot) Davis (1820-1900): Davis received his moniker after realizing there was an unclaimed 12-foot patch of land between two of the most productive claims in the Cariboo gold fields in south-central British Columbia. Before he died at age 80, Davis asked to be buried on a hilltop near Peace River Crossing, directly overlooking the local HBC trading post. "Bury me with my feet pointing downhill," he said, "so I can piss on the Hudson's Bay Co."

Honourable Mention

> James Jerome Hill

(1838-1916): As a young man, Hill was a dockworker. In later life, he became a railway tycoon and one of the original directors of the CPR. Known for his cheapness, one Christmas Eve he suggested tipping a regular waitress. His companions readily agreed to match whatever amount he kicked in. Hill threw $20 on the table; his companions, though shocked, paid up. Twelve days later, he married the waitress.

Greatest Philanthropist

> Sir William Macdonald (1831-1917): Sir William was uninterested in the showy displays of wealth favoured by some of the Montreal Establishment and instead gave away most of his money. By the time he died in 1917, he'd been a long-time benefactor of schools and educational programs, and had handed out a veritable fortune, including more than $13 million to McGill University.

Best Repositioning

Kenneth Thomson (1923- ): The heir of the Roy Thomson newspaper fortune has skillfully recast himself from parsimonious tycoon to mega-philanthropist by donating $70 million in cash and hundreds of millions worth of art to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Peter C. Newman has chronicled Thomson's frugality, reporting that the billionaire buys his hamburger buns on sale. On the day Thomson bought control of the Hudson's Bay Co. for $641 million, he ran into McDonald's Canada head George Cohon. He admired Cohon's Ronald McDonald watch, so the burger CEO had one sent to him. The next day, someone from Thomson's office called to say the watch had gained four minutes in the past 24 hours, and asked how to get it fixed. He was sent another watch. During Thomson's 25-year tenure at the head of Thomson Corp. (he retired last year), the company's assets grew from $500 million to more than $20 billion. He went from being a newspaper baron with holdings in oil, gas and travel to the overseer of an electronic publishing monolith.

Most obsessive

< Thomas Shaughnessy, 1st Baron Shaughnessy

(1853-1923): As president of CPR from 1899 to 1918, Shaughnessy was an obsessively detail-oriented man who helped transform the railway into a solid company. He took only a two-hour break from work to be knighted.

Best Entrance

Conrad (1944- ) and Montegu Black (1940-2002): The Toronto brothers gained control of Argus Corp. in 1978 with $19 million of borrowed money. In return, they received $4 billion in assets and control of some of the great names in Canadian business-Massey-Ferguson Ltd., Domtar Inc., Standard Broadcasting Corp. Ltd., Dominion Stores Ltd. and Norcen Energy Resources Ltd. Eight years later, the Blacks gave the Massey shares to the company pension fund, and Argus's major stakes in Domtar, Standard, Dominion and Norcen were sold.

Honourable Mention

> Joseph Hirshhorn (1900-1981): In 1933, the Latvian-born Hirshhorn arrived from the United States and placed a full-page ad in The Northern Miner with the headline, "My name is opportunity and I am paging Canada." Hirshhorn later financed and developed the Blind River uranium field.

Most Beloved

> John David Eaton (1909-1973): After assuming control of the family firm in 1942, Eaton annually visited every Eaton's outlet in Canada to wish staff a merry Christmas. As well as introducing a medical plan for employees, he personally contributed $50 million to set up a retirement plan.

Hardest worker

> Kenneth Colin (K.C.) Irving (1899-1992):

The billionaire financier wasn't above rolling up his sleeves to help speed product delivery while conducting surprise inspections of his holdings. Lord Beaverbrook, a fellow New Brunswicker, once asked Irving, "Kenneth, you don't wench, you don't smoke, you don't drink. What do you do for your excitement?" "I work," he replied. Irving built a multibillion-dollar corporation with holdings in oil, pulp and paper, newspapers and broadcasting.

Greatest Attention to Detail

Sir James Dunn

(1874-1956): Dunn, an industrialist and financier who owned Algoma Steel, insisted that his shoelaces be ironed.

Greatest Accumulator

> Roy Thomson, Baron Thomson of Fleet (1894-1976): When Thomson met Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier reportedly chided him for being relentlessly acquisitive. "You can't take it with you," Khrushchev said. "Then I'm not going," Thomson replied. According to historian Michael Bliss, when Thomson went looking for a coat of arms, the Duke of Edinburgh suggested a "cash register rampant on a field of £50 notes."

Greatest Gambler

John Angus (Bud) McDougald (1908-1978): When negotiations stalled on the amount Argus Corp. would pay for Massey-Harris-Ferguson, Argus point man McDougald and MHF owner Harry Ferguson flipped a coin to decide whether Ferguson would receive $16 million or $17 million. McDougald won the toss and, as he later told Peter C. Newman, sent the coin to his adversary inside a silver cigar box inscribed with the lines:

"To our friend and partner Harry Ferguson,

A gallant sportsman,

Tails he called, but heads

it was,

The $1,000,000 coin."

Greatest Display of Leverage

> William R. (One-Share) Sweeney: "One-Share" was a Toronto investor in the '20s and '30s who became famous for asking directors uncomfortable questions at shareholder meetings. He was also willing to accept compensation from firms in lieu of bringing up sensitive information. The former cab driver ended his investment days driving a Rolls-Royce and owning the Concourse Building on Adelaide Street in Toronto. Appearing in court on one occasion, he said, "I hold five shares in that company, which is four more than I make a habit

of holding."

Best Salesman

Philip Kives (1929- ): Kives turned the hard-sell TV commercial into an art form. To wit: His Winnipeg-based K-tel International has sold 28 million Miracle Brushes. Other products have included the Fishin' Magician (a combination tackle box and scale), the Salad Queen vegetable slicer and the Miracle Pet Glove. K-tel's record albums, with titles like Goofy Greats and Mindbender (22 Original Hits, 22 Original Stars), have sold millions of copies.

Best Titles

> Lord (William) Martin Alleyne Cecil (1909-

1988): A rancher and cattle baron, Cecil arrived in Canada from Britain in 1930 to operate his family's huge landholdings in south-central British Columbia. The founder of 100 Mile House, he could claim to be the 7th Marquess of Exeter, Hereditary Grand Almoner and Lord Paramount of the Soke of Peterborough. An adherent of a religious sect called the Emissaries of the Divine Light, Cecil was also known among the faithful as Bishop Cecil.

Most Predestined

< Ron Joyce (1931- ):

A former Hamilton cop, Joyce turned in his badge and helped NHL star Tim Horton open his first coffee and doughnut outlet in 1965; 10 years later, Joyce owned the company. In 1995, Wendy's International Inc. bought Tim Hortons for $300 million (U.S.).

Most Private

> Frederick C. (1913- ), Frederick P. (1942- ) and Ronald Mannix (1948- ): Ron and Fred P. Mannix, like their father, Fred C., never give interviews to the media, and details of the business activities of Alberta's richest family are sketchy. What is known is that they sold their energy holdings for $2.1 billion, which still left them with considerable holdings in manufacturing, real estate and banking. The family's PR man had his pay docked whenever a story about them surfaced in the media and didn't issue a single press release during his 13-year tenure.

Best Impression of a Canadian

Michael Budman (1953- ) and Don Green (1950- ): Founders, in 1973, and owners of Roots clothing, the Detroit natives became infatuated with Canada while attending summer camps in Algonquin Park. In 1983, the dedicated paddlers turned their entrepreneurial skills to a separate, short-lived scheme selling canoes and outdoor wear in a retail chain called Beaver Canoe. More recently, Roots has clothed the Canadian Olympic team. Budman, a hockey enthusiast, has built an outdoor rink at his home and is reputed to be an intense player.

Oddest Man Out

> Robert Blair (1929- ): An oil patch anomaly in many respects, Blair is both a patriot and a Liberal. He believes corporate Canada has a duty to serve national interests, and he championed competition with foreign multinationals throughout his career. Named president of Calgary's Nova Corp. in 1970, Blair turned the tiny gas transportation company into a leading diversified energy firm. Between 1972 and 1982, Nova's operating revenue jumped from $65 million to a hefty $3.3 billion. In Calgary, he stood out by driving a tiny AMC Eagle, appointing socialist Tommy Douglas to one of his boards and running unsuccessfully as a Liberal in the 1993 federal election. A year later, he floated the idea of wartime-style victory bonds for the wealthy to pay off Canada's national debt, and offered $1 million of his own money. He's now retired.

Most Influential Canadian Inventor

Graham Bell (1847-1922): Scotsman Bell invented the telephone in Brantford, Ont., in 1876. The American National Bell Telephone Co. quickly developed the product, but sold the rights to license it to Canadian statesman (and founder of The Globe) George Brown for a monthly fee of $25. The inactivity of Brown and subsequent licensees, plus a federal tariff policy that penalized businessmen who imported the new technology, led the Bell company to retain the rights and create its Canadian subsidiary.

Most Canadian Inventor

> Steve Pasjac: In 1957, Pasjac invented the retractable cardboard beer-case handle. The handy addition to the standard beer case helps Canadians carry a small child with one hand and their beverages in the other.

Most Prescient

< John Roth (1942- ): In the summer of 2000 , Nortel CEO John Roth cashed in $54 million worth of stock options just before Nortel's shares topped out at $124.50. A year later, the stock was worth one-10th of its market high.

HALL OF SHAME

Worst Businessman

Joey Smallwood (1900-1991): In an effort to industrialize Newfoundland, Premier Smallwood initiated a series of public investments under the supervision of German-Latvian economist and conman Alfred Valdmanis. Among the many failed ventures were Newfoundland Hardwoods, Hanning Electric Co., the Canadian Machinery and Industry Construction Ltd., a tannery, cotton mills, glove company, rubber firm, and chocolate and leather enterprises. Valdmanis was subsequently convicted of fraud and jailed for four years. Smallwood's schemes lost an estimated $400 million during his political career. His final venture was to produce a five-volume Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, which he called "a Newfoundland miracle." Creditors called it a disaster, and when the dust settled, the former premier owed $176,161 on the

unpaid printing costs of the still-unfinished encyclopedia.

Most Ruthless

> Donald Alexander Smith, First Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (1820-1914): During his tenure as chief trader in Labrador for the Hudson's Bay Co., Smith boosted profits by continually reducing the amount of provisions he gave natives for their furs. His policies limited the supply of gunpowder for hunting and were blamed for reducing the Nascopie tribe by half, not to mention eliminating the Innu from the south shore of Labrador due to starvation, murder and cannibalism.

Most Crooked

Harold Ballard (1903-1990): To gain control of Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. and the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ballard persuaded a drunken Stafford Smythe to sign a new will in 1971 that would give Pal Hal control of the team. Smythe died later that year, but owning the "cash box on Carlton Street" still wasn't enough for Ballard. In 1972, he was convicted of fraud and theft and spent a year in Millhaven penitentiary. After his death, audits revealed that he'd been wrongfully selling game sticks and tickets for 17 years for pocket cash. His estate was asked to reimburse the Gardens for $275,000.

Most Hated

> Sir Herbert Holt (1856-1941): The subject of numerous death threats, Holt on occasion travelled to work surrounded by four guards with cocked rifles. When his death was announced during the fifth inning of a professional baseball game in Montreal in 1941, the crowd cheered.

Family Story Most Likely to Become a Miniseries

> Harrison (right, 1927- ) and Wallace (1930- ) McCain: The brothers from Florenceville, N.B., created the world's largest French fry producer-with revenues of $6 billion-from a $100,000 inheritance they received in 1956. The siblings shared a room as kids, were co-CEOs and once lived beside one another near their head office. That all changed in 1994 following a disastrous dispute over succession at the firm. Wallace was ousted as CEO, and the following year engineered a $1.2-billion leveraged buyout of Maple Leaf Foods, Canada's second-largest food processing company after McCain Foods. Wallace's daughter Eleanor, a musician, immortalized the feud in a song called Green Hills of Home, which included the lyric, "Gone like a lover, those green hills of home."

Worst Judgment

> Frank Mersch (1954- ): The star mutual fund manager at Altamira Management realized a profit of $45 million in 1997, the year the firm was sold. But he lost his job and the respect of Bay Street in 1998 after he admitted that he lied to the Ontario Securities Commission about a $3,750 stock purchase in 1993 that generated a $2-million profit.

Most Shameless Panderer

> Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-1891): At one point when he was Prime Minister, Macdonald attempted to heighten Baron Rothschild's interest in making a Canadian investment by promising land in northwest Canada for the establishment of a "Zionist colony."

Worst Merger

Matthew Barrett (1944- ) and Anne-Marie Sten (1955- ): In 1997, BMO CEO Barrett stunned Canada's staid world of finance by marrying Sten-a former jet-setting model and onetime girlfriend of Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi-five weeks after they'd met. Barrett was 52 and Sten a decade younger. Barrett, who reportedly wears a gold chain beneath his banker's suit, called her "a fabulous woman who has a heart the size of a 747." Less than two years after their marriage, they legally separated. In 1999, after breaking up with Sten, he was named CEO of Britain's banking giant Barclays PLC.

Most Likely to Offend

> John Bassett (1915-1998): Bassett, owner of CFTO-TV and The Toronto Telegram, and chairman of the Toronto Argonauts football team, once said, "I am not a modest man." He was famously tough on his employees, and when the Telegram went under in 1971, he was accused of closing the paper to pocket $10 million. Bassett's son Douglas, who was in charge of the family media holdings, didn't inherit his father's irritability but does share his no-bullshit style-he once told Roman Catholic Cardinal Emmett Carter, "I just can't believe Mary was a virgin."

Crustiest Back Room Operator

> Jack Cockwell (1941- ): Following Cockwell's appearance before a House of Commons finance committee in 1986, chairman Don Blenkarn said of the belligerent style of Edper Enterprises Ltd.'s COO, "They should keep that guy in the back, back room." Cockwell, a secretive and aggressive dealmaker, strategist and workaholic, became a financial adviser to Peter and Edward Bronfman in 1968, and helped them build a multibillion-dollar business empire. In 2001, Cockwell married the widow of Peter Bronfman.

Least Appreciative

> Alberta's oil barons, who, in 1985, failed to fete the new Conservative Energy Minister, Pat Carney, with a traditional lunch in the private dining room of Calgary's Petroleum Club-an honour even Trudeau's despised Energy Minister, Marc Lalonde, had enjoyed. That year, Carney was named "Oilman of the Year" by Oilweek magazine for killing the hated National Energy Program, but club rules banned her from the dining room because she was a woman. The Vancouver MP suggested that she'd force western oilmen to meet instead at her club in Calgary-the Young Women's Christian Association.

Most Eager to Leave Canada

Kenneth Colin (K.C.) Irving (1899-1992): Irving not only left Canada for the Bahamas in 1971 to shield his fortune from taxes, but included a provision in his will that his three sons could inherit his riches only if they became non-Canadians.

Worst Choice of Business Partners

> Gerald Bull (1928-1990): In 1971, businessman, scientist and inventor Bull formed the Space Research Corp. to develop and market "super guns"-artillery capable of hitting distant targets. In 1980, he was convicted of illegally selling arms to the South African government. At the time of his death-allegedly at the hands of Israeli assassins-he was working with Saddam Hussein to develop guns capable of firing into Israel.

Most in Need of a Make-over

> James Pattison (1928- ): Loud suits, a Cadillac upholstered in crushed velvet and two gold watches (set to the Toronto and Vancouver stock exchanges). Pattison is a man who marches to his own drum. Since purchasing a car dealership in 1961, he's built his personal company into a diversified firm with assets of $3.5 billion.

Worst Philanthropist

> Sir Harry Oakes (1874-1943): Despite Oakes's enormous wealth and profligate personal spending, the developer of the Lake Shore gold deposit in Kirkland Lake, Ont., was notoriously stingy. His legacy to the town where he made his riches was a church site, a skating rink and free skates, toboggans and books for local schoolchildren. After Oakes was murdered in the Bahamas, his obituary in a Kirkland Lake paper stated, "What Harry Oakes might have done, and what he did for Kirkland Lake...are as far apart as the poles."

Greatest Nod to Knowing One's Place

> Donald Alexander Smith (1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal) (1820-1914): When Lord Strathcona died in 1914, he included in his will a provision to set up a leper colony-but only for British gentlemen of a certain standing.

Flakiest

> Peter Pocklington (1941- ): Pocklington believes in reincarnation and out-of-body experiences, and claims to have psychic powers. An adherent of Ayn Rand's philosophy, he told Peter C. Newman in The Acquisitors that "by doing what's best for me, I, in turn, look after and do what's best for everybody else around me. All this altruism has got to stop. I hate altruism. Hate it. It's destroying us." He wanted to return all currencies to the gold standard and ran for the leadership of the federal Conservatives in 1983, hoping to become prime minister.

Most Egotistical

> Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor (1863-1945):

In The Canadian Establishment, Peter C. Newman recounted how Williams-Taylor, former general manager of the Bank of Montreal, spent the summers of his retirement years in the Quebec resort town of La Malbaie. Dining at the same restaurant nightly, the former banker would arrive, allow his evening cape to slide off his shoulders onto the floor and ask the maitre d', "Anyone notable or distinguished here tonight, Chris?" The scripted response: "Well, you are here, Sir Frederick."

Most Efficient Allocation of Resources

> Harold Ballard (1903-1990): Upon becoming president of the Maple Leafs in 1972, Ballard removed a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to add seating

capacity. "I just booted her out," he said at the time. "She never gave me anything."

Most Parsimonious

> George Weston (1864-1924):

Legend has it that the founder of the Weston food empire died after contracting pneumonia because he would rather tromp miles through a blizzard than incur the cost of transport or accommodation.

Most Bankerly

> Albert Brown (1861-1938): While courting his wife, Brown wrote daily letters, but mailed them together once a week to save on postage.

He later became a director of the Royal Bank.

Most Egregious Conflict of Interest

> Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (1820-1914): Elected to the House of Commons as the member for Selkirk in 1871, Smith was referred to as "the honourable member for the Hudson's Bay Company."

Most Likely to Be Talked About Behind Her Back

Marlen Cowpland: The wife of former Corel Corp. CEO Michael Cowpland and the Marie Antoinette of the Canadian rich, she appeared at the computer software company's 1999 Ottawa gala draped in a million-dollar dress following a quarter when Corel stock had lost more than half its value and the firm had bled almost $15 million. She later hosted Talk TV's Celebrity Pets. A release for Cowpland's show gives no year of birth, but did say she was born in "Quebec, Canada." The release added, "Cowpland believes that to fully experience life, you must create your own party."

Nicknames

> Media tycoon Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook was known as The Gnome from Halifax.

> Timber man Peter (King of the Shiners) Aylen reportedly relied on physical intimidation by tough Irishmen during the 1830s to boost his business.

> John Wheeler Bennett, the British agent for businessman Joseph Flavelle's William Davies Co. (later Canada Packers), was known in the 1890s as the Bismarck of the Bacon Trade.

> Joseph E. Seagram & Sons chairman Samuel (Mr. Sam) Bronfman.

> Jimmy (The Piranha) Connacher, the hard-driving head of Gordon Capital in the 1980s.

> Vernon (Dry Hole) Hunter, who discovered oil at Leduc, Alta., in 1946.

< Toronto businessman Maxwell (Dr. Business) Goldhar, a financier whose interests included real estate, mining, manufacturing and technology. He received his nickname for his expertise in turning around troubled firms during a career that spanned six decades, beginning in the '40s in Toronto.

> K.C. Irving's sons John, James and Arthur received the popular sobriquets Gassy, Oily and Greasy, purportedly for the respective business interests they were to receive upon their father's death.

> E.H. King, The Napoleon of Canadian Finance, was general manager of the Bank of Montreal in the 1860s.

> Four Seasons Hotels Inc. founder Isadore (Razzle Dazzle Issy) Sharp.

> George (The Little Emperor) Simpson was Hudson's Bay Co. governor-in-chief from 1825 to 1860.

< Post-Second World War magnate E.P. (Excess Profits) Taylor.