Ottawa businessman Kenneth Loeb has been arrested and charged with one count of uttering “a threat to cause death” and two counts of assault against an individual known to him.
The events in question, according to the Ottawa Police Service, allegedly took place July 24. Criminal charges were laid Aug. 20. Loeb’s first scheduled court appearance is Sept. 10.
Loeb, 71, has been a director of Calian Group since 2001 and has served as chairman since 2006. Although the charges against Loeb are unrelated to Calian’s business, Loeb stepped down as chairman Tuesday following a series of board meetings.
George Weber, part of the seven-member board since 2012, will take on the role of chairman, while Loeb remains as a director.
“The charges don’t involve the company,” said Calian’s chief financial officer, Patrick Houston, “so the board didn’t believe they would affect his job as director.”
Calian, founded in the early 1980s as a consulting firm by Larry O’Brien, occupies a special place in the relatively small universe of Ottawa’s publicly traded tech companies. Calian is the sole survivor of nearly a dozen tech firms that listed shares on the TSX for the first time in 1993 and is now one of the city’s largest private-sector employers.
“Mr. Loeb will not be commenting directly, but he understands criminal charges have a process,” said his defence lawyer, Joshua Clarke, “He is optimistic that the matter will resolve shortly on amicable terms.”
Clarke, a lawyer with the criminal defence firm Armoured Suits, added that any resolution would be unlikely before Sept. 10. As of noon Tuesday, he had yet to receive the Crown’s case against his client.
Shareholders, who vote on the selection of directors, will be able to weigh in later. Calian’s fiscal year ends this month, and the company usually holds its annual shareholders’ meeting early in the calendar year.
During Loeb’s 14-year long tenure as chairman — he took on the job when O’Brien stepped down to become Ottawa mayor — the professional services company has more than doubled its annual revenues to $400 million.
Calian’s workforce over the same period has expanded nearly 60 per cent to more than 3,400 across the country and in Europe. In the past decade, Calian’s share value has soared 260 per cent compared to 45 per cent for the TSX as a whole.
The firm’s revenues, paced by its health services unit, kept rising following the economic lockdown inspired by COVID-19.
A substantial majority of Calian’s workers supply engineering and technology services to government, most notably to the Department of National Defence, the City of Ottawa and Ontario police agencies. The company also administers more than 150 medical clinics on behalf of Loblaw’s various grocery chains.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
