CONRAD BLACK I first met Conrad Black at the wedding of a mutual friend in Toronto. In fact, Black, Mike Duffy and I were three people rolled into one to give a little spine to the man about to end his years of bachelorhood-- quite a combination. And who, pray tell, was the lucky groom who had entrusted these three musketeers with such an important role on such a critical day? The internationally respected globe-trotting correspondent Brian Stewart, whom Black had gone to school with when the two were growing up in Toronto, and whom Duffy and I had worked with in the Ottawa bureau of the cbc during the 1970s and early 1980s. Brian''s two lives, personal and professional, came together on a beautiful summer day in September 1989, and the three of us were determined to do our part. Black had the chore of managing the ring; Duffy and I were to ensure that the guests were directed to the appropriate seats. And we would all, of course, be up front when the ceremony took place. Everything was going perfectly: arrivals were on time, Brian was in an acceptable state of nervousness, and the minister was ready, willing and clearly able. With everyone seated, we were standing at the front and could hear the arrival of the bridal party, with the beautiful, incredibly charming and seriously funny Tina Srebotnjak at centre stage.

The next moment was supposed to involve a musically accompanied procession down the stately centre aisle of St. Andrew''s Presbyterian Church. But there was a problem, and for what seemed like an eternity we had no idea what it was. Feet shuffled. Throats cleared. The crowd began to murmur. And then word was relayed from aisle to aisle that no one had escorted Tina''s mother to her seat. She was stranded at the King Street entrance.

At the very moment that I was realizing this had been my blunder, my eyes met Black''s. He had a look on his face that I suspect he normally reserved for his butler. His head was slightly lowered, and then he sharply tilted it back with his nose pointed directly down the centre aisle to where Vida Srebotnjak was waiting. He didn''t say anything. He didn''t need to. It was clear what the message was: Get her. Now . The rest of the wedding went off without a hitch, a wonderful start to what has been a wonderful marriage.

And then it was back to our respective lives, Black to managing his millions and building his newspaper empire, and the rest of us to the more basic grunt work of journalism. Our paths crossed a few times over the years, but it wasn''t until 1999 and the very first One on One that I actually had a chance to sit down and talk with the man, who at that time was a London-based major international tycoon. He was also involved in what had become a bitter fight with the then prime minister, Jean Chrétien, over his citizenship. Black had been offered a British peerage-- a seat in the House of Lords-- but Chrétien countered that if Black took the offer he would have to renounce his Canadian citizenship. To back his position, the Prime Minister relied on an eighty-year-old parliamentary document, the Nickle Resolution, in which Ottawa called on London not to bestow any titles of honour on Canadians. Chrétien''s critics argued that his position had nothing to do with Nickle and everything to do with one of Black''s newspapers, the National Post , which had been attacking Chrétien on a variety of issues with a great deal of vigour. When we had our conversation, Black was still a Canadian, the peerage was on hold, and the fight with Chrétien was very much at play. 1999 - 09 - 12 Peter Mansbridge: I was thinking on the way into this interview, what would I have been calling you if the Prime Minister hadn''t blocked this appointment? Conrad Black: Same as you are now.

PM: Would it have been Lord Black? CB: In the first place, that wouldn''t apply to you. And in the second place, part of the understanding, and indeed what we were told by the Canadian government a week before the Canadian Prime Minister''s intervention, was that as long as I didn''t use the title in Canada there''d be no problem. PM: Let''s assume I was in Britain. CB: But in any case, incidentally, I wouldn''t expect anyone to call me that. PM: Even in Britain? CB: No. I mean, they can if they want. If I were the bearer of the title, they could if they wanted. But I''m not a very formal person.

PM: I was wondering about it though, because, as Max Aitken decided on Lord Beaverbrook, he came up with a name to go with the "Lord." Did this never cross your mind? As close as it got--It did get awfully close, and you may still get it? CB: The British have signed off on it. I can pick it up as soon as the Canadian objection is removed. PM: You must have thought of a name. CB: No, I haven''t. And in any case, this is a life peerage. Beaverbrook was a hereditary peer. I haven''t really thought of it, no.

Normally life peers take their surnames and just use that title, but it is premature to talk about these things. The British Prime Minister''s note to me said that I could work that out with the King of Arms, and he will be calling eventually, he assures me. PM: Before we get into actual details of this suit [Black would be facing Chrétien in court over his alleged abuse of power], I want to try to understand the relationship that you have with Jean Chrétien, because you''ve known each other for several years. CB: Certainly he was very cordial for twenty years, up until a couple of months ago. PM: But what was the extent of it? Were you friends, acquaintances? How would you-- CB: I would say friendly acquaintances. He used to come to our annual dinner sometimes, and he spoke at it once very amusingly, and I used to call upon him in Ottawa sometimes. I would see him when he came to London. So it was very cordial.

PM: You even had a lunch for him, did you not, when he was running for the leadership? CB: That''s right. PM: How often was the contact while he was prime minister, before this event? Did you talk on the phone? CB: Sometimes, yeah. Oh, things would come up where he would quite rightly-- there''s nothing wrong with this-- want to mention something of national interest that he expressed a perfectly reasonable hope that we''d editorially be supportive of. It was usually not on partisan matters; there was never anything wrong with it. Usually it was things to do with constitutional questions and that sort of thing. And he phoned me sometimes. I almost never phoned him, because I don''t believe in bothering holders of great offices. Their lines are busy enough and I assume if they want to talk to me they''ll call me, but that happened sometimes.

PM: In any of these conversations over the years, up until this happened earlier this year, did you ever raise this possibility with him, that you may be approached? Because, I assume, most people were expecting this. The owner of the Daily Telegraph has always been in the British House of Lords. So you must have been expecting this was going to happen at some point. Did you ever raise it with him? CB: No, because I never thought that it really was any of his business. You see, years ago, when it first became a deemed possibility, I commissioned some legal research, and there was no legislation in this country and there was no policy, and I''m a British resident. And since it wasn''t an area where there was any legal obligation for the Government of Canada to express an opinion, I didn''t feel, in the first place, that he had any particular standing in it, and in the second place, it was hypothetical until it happened. PM: We''ll get to that in a moment, because I guess that one is the debatable point: whether the Nickel Resolution has some impact. CB: Look, Peter, that really isn''t the core of this whole matter.

The core of the matter is that on the recommendation of the Government of Canada, as communicated to me by the British Prime Minister, I applied for and was granted British citizenship while retaining my Canadian citizenship. That was the Canadian government''s recommendation. I followed the recommendation. Then the Prime Minister of Canada purported to intervene and claim that the Queen of the United Kingdom, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, could not confer an honour on me as a citizen of the United Kingdom for services rendered in the United Kingdom. That is the core of this. The Prime Minister has no standing whatsoever. The Nickel Resolution is a sideshow, and no, it isn''t binding, and that didn''t pass the Senate. There is no policy in Canada, but I accept there is some prerogative for the Canadian government in matters of Canadian citizens.

But there''s no prerogative for them to try to create a category of citizen in a foreign country that is inferior in rights to other citizens of that country, particularly when they''ve recommended the individual in question become a citizen of that country. PM: All right, I don''t want to lose everybody on this, but the Nickel Resolution we both referred to is-- what, eighty years old? It was 1919. It was a statement passed through the House of Commons asking Buckingham Palace not to appoint Canadians to titles. CB: Not quite. What it actually did was ask the Canadian government not to request the British monarch to appoint Canadian citize.