Ongoing drama between members of Toronto's Rogers family — yes, the people behind the Rogers Communications empire — has been unfurling for all to see in recent days, including on social media, where certain players have been particularly vocal about their displeasure with happenings at the public company.
Among the latest events, Edward Rogers was messily booted from his position as chaiman last week over his plans to cut most of the business's independent directors, replacing them instead with his own appointees without properly consulting or informing shareholders.
Ed's sister, Martha Rogers, has been stirring things up on Twitter ever since, making claims against her brother and condemning how he ran the company, using hashtags including #EdRogersSaga and #OldGuardDown.
Alternate headline: Ed’s perpetual tantrums when he doesn’t get his way − abetted by the Old Guard − is turning into Toronto’s own real-life soap opera & threatening 24,000 jobs. #governance https://t.co/7fmVP8TgRP
— Martha Rogers (@MarthaLRogers) October 25, 2021
"Enjoy your pretend 'board meeting,' Ed. Here's your problem: it's not legal, so I'm going to fight like hell for the 24,000 employees, 10M+ customers & fans," reads one of Martha's tweets from the weekend.
"Like in a bad movie, Ed & his Old Guard literally meet in dark boardrooms. All men. All white. All old. They think they are masters of the universe instead of thinking about the impact their instability is causing tens of thousands of people. Not this time," reads another.
More recently, others have been publicly brought into the mix and called out — including Toronto Mayor John Tory, who serves as a paid advisory member to the Rogers family trust, having been asked by late patriarch Ted Rogers to help look after the Rogers family and their business.
As such, Tory has been involved in recent mediations between Ed, his sisters Martha and Melinda, his mother Loretta, and a number of Rogers executives — though Tory has claimed this was all taking place in his spare time.
"In my spare time I have been to a couple of meetings and I try to settle something down that I think would be in the best interest of thousands of people who work for the company, not to mention their customers," Tory told CP24 this week.
"If I was doing anything, in any meeting on any subject, in my spare time and something came up that required my attention for the city, the city always comes first," he added.
But Martha Rogers has claimed on Twitter that this is not the case.
Tory says work to mediate Rogers dispute occurs in his 'spare time' −
— Martha Rogers (@MarthaLRogers) October 27, 2021
Actually no, that’s not the truth, John. We were there 9-10 hours, outside of you leaving for 45 mins to do a press conference. Unless the Mayor has Thursdays off…? #EdRogersSaga https://t.co/dkoQ9qWxhQ
"Tory says work to mediate Rogers dispute occurs in his 'spare time' − Actually no, that’s not the truth, John. We were there 9-10 hours, outside of you leaving for 45 mins to do a press conference. Unless the Mayor has Thursdays off...?" Martha tweeted to her 13.7k followers late Tuesday night in response to the mayor's comments on the topic.
Others are already chiming in, saying that if Rogers' claims are true, this work is certainly not only being done on spare time, and that Tory may have a conflict of interest on his hands, though his long association with the family began far before his time as mayor.
Experts have weighed in to say that there is nothing preventing Tory from serving both roles at once, though any time spent on the Rogers issue while on the public dime is obviously a point of concern.
Tory has yet to respond to Martha's accusations, though Bloomberg reports that he was siding with her in working to pass a measure to restrict Ed's power over the company.
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