David and Gail Asper resign from Canwest board

David and Gail Asper, the son and daughter of Canwest Global Communications founder Israel (Izzy) Asper, have resigned from the media conglomerate's board of directors.

The Winnipeg-based company made the announcement Wednesday, saying both David and Gail have decided to pursue other interests and help shrink the board's size as the company restructures.

Their brother, Leonard Asper, will remain as chief executive and adirector of Canwest, the owner of the Global TV network and a number of newspapers, including the National Post, Montreal Gazette and Ottawa Citizen.

Canwest is restructuring under court protection from creditors after it was unable to meet debt repayment obligations for about $4 billion in debt.

Lisa Pankratz,the president of Mackenzie Cundill Investment Management Ltd., will also resign her position on the board.

Positions won't be filled

The empty positions on Canwest's board will not be filled, the company stated.

Chris Waddell, professor of business and financial journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa, told CBC News the announcement is no surprise.

"When you go into bankruptcy protection it almost certainly means that there's going to besome sort of change of control because, in order to emerge from bankruptcy protection, someone else is going to come in and rescue you and they're going to want some kind of control over the company in return for rescuing them," he said.

"So really the Aspers' control of Canwest ended when the first part of the operations the television operations had to go into bankruptcy protection last fall," he said.

Gail Asper, a lawyer, has been with the board since February 1992. She is president of the Asper Foundation and is also national campaign chair for Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which is spearheading the development of the national museum in Winnipeg.

David Asper, also a lawyer, has been with the board since January 1997. He is an assistant professor of law at the University of Manitoba and executive chair of Creswin Properties Inc., which is working towards the construction of a new CFL football stadium and retail development in Winnipeg.

Izzy Asper died in 2003 of a heart attack at age 71.