On the lusciously gilded evening that is September 13, 2009, Edward and Suzanne Rogers (yes, the ones who bill you each month for cable) are hosting a fundraiser for OneXOne, a charity that helps needy kids, and they greet guests at the door of their Forest Hill home with a handshake and a smile. He has the perpetually dazzled look of the chubby high school nerd who married the football team’s foxiest cheerleader and still can’t believe his luck. Suzanne is blonde and perfectly packaged in a convoluted gown that appears to be held in place by Velcro and duct tape. The house has too many rooms, too much fabric decorously swagged. The bathroom features a toilet with a gold scallop shell seat. There are huge vases of flowers everywhere, most of them real—at least in the rooms where guests are expected to roam. The real party is happening outside, in the spacious back garden, where the wine is excellent, the scotch is 15-year-old Dalwhinnie and the food is exquisite. John Tory, looking grateful to have found a party that welcomes him, swims by to chat. The R&B singer Mary J. Blige is in the room, as is Robert Herjavec (star of Dragons’ Den, the creepy CBC reality show about entrepreneurs) and, more prosaically, Ivan Fecan, CTV’s CEO and a man admirably loyal to big, white hair. Jim Balsillie, the buff BlackBerry billionaire, is in attendance (you can smell the testosterone from across the garden). The philanthropist, businessman and art collector Salah Bachir is ostentatiously fretting about hosting a significant wedding, at his home in Paris, Ontario, the following weekend: Lorraine Segato, from the Parachute Club, will marry Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, daughter of Stephen Lewis and Michele Landsberg, and it’s already being described as the lesbian wedding of the century.

When Bill Clinton makes his appearance, he’s accompanied by grim-faced men who neither blink nor smile and who are wearing earpieces. If people suddenly go from being utterly absorbed in your conversation to seeming mysteriously distracted, it’s because Matt Damon is standing nearby and you’re now merely in the way. Midway through the evening, Elvis Costello takes the stage, tosses his hat on the piano and announces that a guest (Crocs founder George Boedecker) has just told him he’d donate $300,000 to the charity if Costello sings “Peace, Love and Understanding,” and he does. Everybody cheers. Suzanne Rogers sways self-consciously to the music. Matt Damon, his arm around his wife’s waist, silently mouths the words. Bill Clinton looks ever so slightly bored.

Off to Clinton’s right I can just see the top of Frank McKenna’s head. If I didn’t already know who he was, I probably wouldn’t have noticed him. He is short and has the looks of a baby-faced heavy in a movie, a stocky, pugnacious, kindergarten take on Edward G. Robinson, but he’s the reason Clinton and Damon are here tonight. Damon’s presence, and Clinton’s, will help this party raise more than a million dollars for OneXOne. McKenna is the organization’s chair. Tonight, he is the least visible, yet the most important, man in the room.