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Accord Agreement, which set out terms and mandated a committee to resolve the gravity of losses. Crawford was selected as its chairman. He says he was keen to find an expeditious resolution. "I had great disappointment that we didn't achieve a deal in December of 2007 or even March of '08, but the reality is with Lehman Brothers going under and all that had happened after that, the deal we would have made and the new paper we would have issued would have been under water, it would have blown up," he says. "Could we have done a better deal? As I said in my affidavit filed with the court and which the court accepted, doing these deals is the art of the possible." Following the Montreal meeting, the committee embarked on about 80 meet- ings with investors across the country. "I had not realized at the beginning that we had so many small investors," says Crawford. "Some had taken their niece's money and invested it, there were school teachers who'd retired. They were upset and angry, and justifiably so." He acknowledges that tension was thick during the first few meetings although he finally found a conciliatory voice dur- ing an event in British Columbia. "In Vancouver, I think we did a pretty good job of convincing [investors] that we were there to help them, that we were not the perpetrators of the problem. I started to respond to their e-mails and sometimes called them," he says. Most of the investors invited to the meetings hosted by the committee were those who had lost under $1 million; for a group of retailers who had invested more than that in ABCP through their businesses, no resolution had yet been considered. "Basically, the retail public was not informed prior to the filing for bank- ruptcy protection, so we had 1,800 fami- lies who read in the paper that this paper they were told was a short-term problem was seeking bankruptcy protection in court," says Diane Urquhart, an inde- pendent investment adviser who repre- sented retail investors at the hearings. She says many of her clients were rocked Bankruptcy in Canada Fourth Edition John D. Honsberger, Q.C. and Vern W. DaRe The authoritative statement of the law since 1922 Substantially revised and rewritten, this fourth edition offers a concise, comprehensive description of bankruptcy in general and the distinctive features of the Canadian system. 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"We had a number of individuals who were on suicide watch. We communicated this to Mr. Crawford and asked him to com- municate with the people on suicide watch and eventually he wrote an e-mail that there was going to be significant impaired value." The resolution determined by Crawford's committee and approved by investors enabled parties affected to exchange short-term notes for securi- ties that will appreciate over about nine years. In return, investors forfeited their right to sue. Investors were asked to approve the resolution although many retail investors had either given up or had found private settlements; those who were left represented only a minority. So while they were unsatisfied with the resolution, they were unable to influence the vote. One of the investors affected by the problems did follow through and end his life. "They say the linchpin of the success of the deal was to get the foreign banks to co-operate, but they gave them just about everything that they wanted including immunity," says Urquhart. "So there were 36 families who owned more than $1 million who become col- lateral damage." Urquhart points out that Canada is one of the few countries that has allowed investors to shoulder most of the losses related to ABCP. She says of Crawford, "He didn't finish the job. Here we are almost two years later and there's no settlement." The retail investors, with Urquhart's assistance, are continuing to seek an alter- native resolution at the federal level along with accountability from institutions that sold the notes in the first place. Crawford says he has no regrets. "With so many groups, corporations, pension funds, and banks having different inter- ests, and with the paper being so complex and integrated into all kinds of institu- tions, when I look back, to me it was a wonder we got it done, never mind could we have done it better. I'm rather proud of it to be frank." Yet along with the retail investors' continuing efforts, the fallout continues; the City of Hamilton filed a statement Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, Bankruptcy and Insolvency Orderly Payment of Debts Regulations. General Rules