Questions continue to swirl over the future of Canwest Global Communications Corp., the Winnipeggiest of all Winnipeg-
based companies, months after it hit a financial wall over its crippling $4-billion debt load.

But one thing is certain: it’s likely to be ugly for the city, no matter how it turns out.

Canwest, the biggest owner of television and newspaper properties in the country, has been getting regular extensions to finalize a recapitalization plan since it went offside its debt covenants in February. Canwest has also defaulted on two corporate bond offerings after failing to make scheduled interest payments, effectively putting the bondholders at the helm of the company.

In an attempt to improve its financial position, the company has been forced to sell a number of assets from what could hardly be called a position of strength.

It hasn’t helped that while all this was going on, Canwest’s stock price fell though the floor, hitting an all-time low of just a few pennies. The shares have since recovered by a couple of nickels, but the stock price is a far cry from the turn of the new millennium, when the stock was a TSX darling worth $28 a share.

The turmoil means the chances of the Aspers retaining control of the company launched in the 1970s by the family patriarch and Winnipeg icon, the late Izzy Asper, are small.

One company insider has predicted the recapitalization money will come from Toronto or south of the border, undoubtedly from a group that wouldn’t have anywhere near the affinity for Winnipeg that the Aspers have. The insider said the board would then be asked to resign and predicted various pieces of the company would be sold off and whatever is left over would be moved to Toronto with new executives at the helm.

Others believe the Aspers may step forward with their own money to assume control over some parts of the company — perhaps the television division — a situation not dissimilar from how the Shaw family runs Shaw Communications Inc. in Calgary.

In a city with just a handful of large firms, the prospect of losing such a prominent player has some Winnipeggers in a panic about the long-term future. After all, if a company run by one of the city’s two royal families — the Richardsons are the other — can fall into the abyss, then who can possibly be safe?

The blow to the collective consciousness could be significant. After all, no other company in Winnipeg is as synonymous with its home base as Canwest. The Aspers have made a career out of promoting the Manitoba capital, even moving various operations to Winnipeg when they didn’t need to be based elsewhere. The head office at the corner of Portage and Main boasts almost 200 jobs.

The Aspers’ non-Canwest projects are all Winnipeg, all the time, too. Gail Asper, Canwest’s corporate secretary, has been a tireless fundraiser for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which will be the first national museum based outside of Ottawa when it opens in 2011 at The Forks, a stone’s throw from downtown Winnipeg. And David Asper, Canwest’s executive vice president, is in final negotiations to buy the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers and build a new stadium.

But not everybody thinks the pending changes at Canwest spell the end of Winnipeg as we know it. Lawrie Pollard, chairman of Pollard Banknote Ltd., a local lottery ticket manufacturer, said the sky won’t be falling: “What are we going to lose, except for the prestige [of having the head office in Winnipeg]? It won’t be catastrophic because our economy is so broadly based. The strength of this place is hard-working business people, and they survive.

“Little companies are surviving and thriving,” he adds. “ Winnipeg isn’t a booming metropolis, but it’s solid. And we’re still going to have the Aspers, and they still have a lot of money.” IE