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And there he is, the amiable Texan, president #43, standing on the stage in Montreal's Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel ballroom, his baggage (WMDs, American isolationism, debt, Karl Rove) all safely out of sight. The room is filled with fans, people who have paid $400 to see him. What they get with their lunch and wine is 37 minutes of folksy, self-deprecating chat: a few jokes ("I believe in free speech...but not today" ), a bit of history ("After 9/11, my feeling was to get on offence, stay on offence, and spread freedom" ) and a little bonding ("United States has an appetite for hydrocarbons. Fortunately, we have a friend in Canada" ). During the entire hour and a quarter that constitutes George W. Bush's appearance, there isn't anything revelatory, nor much spontaneity. The product here is physical proximity to history and celebrity, if not necessarily greatness.

The Oct. 22 event was put on by tinePublic Inc. (pronounced tiny public), a communications company owned by two Calgarians, Andy McCreath and Christian Darbyshire, both 34 (Tine was Darbyshire's grandfather's name). They were the first to stage a speech by Bush after he left office, and have now done five events with him, including this three-day run in Edmonton, Saskatoon and Montreal. But there's nothing partisan about their precocious capture of the high ground in Canada's public-speaking business: They've hosted nine talks with Bill Clinton, and one event with both Clinton and Bush. They booked Tony Blair for his first Canadian appearance, Alan Greenspan in one of his first appearances after serving as head of the Federal Reserve, and they got Gene Simmons, the iguana-tongued singer for Kiss, to talk about marketing to a group of young entrepreneurs in Saskatoon.

Their company has no employees, no office, no business plan, no overhead: TinePublic is a 21st-century construct, essentially two guys wandering around with their BlackBerrys. They know only the present tense, returning e-mails with alarming speed. They tend to talk in tandem. Their model is lean, flexible and mobile, and feels like a glimpse of the future.

On the day of the Bush event in Montreal, Darbyshire is up before 6 a.m. He checks his e-mails and texts, then introduces Bush to moderator John Parisella, a former chief of staff to Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa (and now Quebec's delegate general in New York). By 9 a.m., Darbyshire's in the lobby of the Queen Elizabeth, constantly scanning his BlackBerry and checking details: making sure the Chamber of Commerce has their tables set up, doing a test walk-through of the metal detectors, which beep even after Darbyshire takes out his change and cellphone. "It's set too high," he says. The RCMP wants it that way for security; Darbyshire argues it has to be set lower for efficiency. In the end, a compromise is arranged to accommodate a quick processing of the one thousand guests.

The lobby is crawling with bullet-headed, southern-accented secret service men with extendible cords that snake down their backs, visible through their tight suits as a second spine. A bomb-sniffing German shepherd makes the rounds, along with RCMP, local police, hotel security and a sizable slice of private security. Outside, a few hundred demonstrators burn Bush in effigy, unfurling a "Bush Is a War Criminal" banner and-with a nod to Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi-throwing shoes at the hotel.

"You just hope there aren't any kooks in the room," Darbyshire says, looking outside. In Edmonton, a man stood up and yelled, "What about your lies!" during Bush's speech, before being hustled out by security.

For the next hour, Darbyshire deals with people who have lost their tickets, placates executive divas, makes sure the event's sponsors are happy, and checks e-mails and texts. At 11, he goes to the VIP room, where a hundred sponsors are waiting to get close to history. Bush arrives and tells a few jokes, warming up the crowd as if he were Leno. "My only regret is that Laura idn't with me," he says in that Texas accent. "But she's got her own deal. What she did, she bought a house that was way too damn expensive and now she has to give speeches to pay for it." Every punchline gets a laugh; this is his crowd. Each VIP gets a photo with George, shaking hands, the ex-president's arm around their shoulder, that Alfred E. Neuman smile. Bush kibitzes, talking to VIP wives on cellphones: "This is George Bush. You probably think your husband's in a bar. Well, he ain't."

After the lunch speech, moderator John Parisella asks questions. The softballs that were lobbed in Saskatoon and Edmonton on the previous two dates are nowhere in evidence. Parisella harps on Iraq. Bush's ire is up, and he defends his Iraqi policy with a combination of Old Testament brimstone and West Texas whup-ass analogies.

In the end, five shoe-throwing protesters are arrested outside, and Bush gets a standing ovation from the overwhelmingly male business crowd. Darbyshire and McCreath retreat to the hotel restaurant, exhausted. They've put on the three Bush events in three days. They slouch on the banquette, staring at their BlackBerrys like five-year-olds in front of a TV as they deconstruct the event. They thought Parisella was too testy, too political, too Liberal. For the other dates, they gave the interviewer job to friends of theirs: entrepreneur Brett Wilson in Saskatoon, and former NHL goaltender Kelly Hrudey in Edmonton.

"He just kept pushing," McCreath says of Parisella, jabbing his finger into his partner's shoulder.

"I talked with the publicist-they were fine with it, they thought it was great."

"Fine with it or great?"

Darbyshire shrugs. They have a week of clean-up: paying bills, collecting money, sending out all the photos to VIPs, placating CEOs who didn't get what they wanted, cementing contacts for the next venture. Their entire company is here on the banquette, sharing a chicken club sandwich. It's an enterprise defined by action. ("We don't overthink," Darbyshire says. "That's one of the keys to our success." ) They are an argument for Dale Carnegie determinism: I act, therefore I am.

Andy McCreath and Christian Darbyshire grew up in Calgary, and have known each other since they were 12. McCreath briefly worked in the NHL head office in New York. Darbyshire, who has a commerce degree from the University of Lethbridge, worked for mutual-fund company CI Investments and sold copiers for Ricoh. But from the beginning, both men wanted to be corporate impresarios. They staged their first event in January, 2005, in Calgary: the Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs Conference. The main draw was Bill Rancic, who had recently been victorious on Donald Trump's The Apprentice.

That event drew 2,000 people. But long before it was held, the duo had been in touch with Bill Clinton's people, trying to book him for a speaking engagement. The Calgary conference gave them a track record, albeit a short and tangentially related one. After two years of pressing, though, and two further Young Professionals events, Clinton's people finally acquiesced.

The first Clinton event, in London, Ontario, in 2005, drew 6,000 people. Its success led not only to more engagements with Clinton but also gave tinePublic credibility with other high-profile American speakers. They've had some luck: Rudy Giuliani announced he was running for president just before he began a speaking tour with them. Any earlier and there would have been less interest; any later and his curiously spiteful campaign might have killed interest. They have also had some bad luck: Alan Greenspan got snowed in in Washington while 2,000 Toronto CEOs, who had paid $400 each to see him, waited unhappily at the Sheraton Centre. Darbyshire and McCreath finally rigged up a video link that put Greenspan's mournful mug on a large screen at the front of the room. They expected they would have to give everyone refunds, but no one asked for one.

What they are selling is a hazily defined commodity with an indeterminate shelf life. The politicians need tinePublic as much as tinePublic needs the politicians. As Bush remarked in his speech, he went from "60 to zero" after leaving office. His 14 years in public life (six as governor of Texas) ended, and he suddenly found himself living in a Dallas suburb, picking up after his dog Barney. The popular press is largely finished with him; the historians have yet to weigh in. In that lacuna, Bush, like many a politician before him, is trying to shape his legacy. He needs the crowds.

The crowds, however, don't need him quite as much. Ads in newspapers didn't do much to draw the public to Bush's first talk in Calgary last March, Darbyshire says. Indeed, the events rely almost entirely on sales to corporations, on working the phones. "Of the 1,800 tickets in Calgary, basically, Christian and I sold 1,400," McCreath says.

In Montreal, Bush was well received, but there was a sense in the room that he might have been as much a catalyst for other agendas as a draw in his own right. The lead sponsor (Optimal Payments) seized the opportunity to raise its profile, and the event was seen as a coup for the Chamber of Commerce, which promoted it. Networking was the order of the day: Consultants and hedge fund managers distributed business cards at the tables as if they were dealing blackjack.

The nature of the city determines what kind of show will work, and how much tinePublic can charge for tickets. And since the speakers' fees are non-negotiable (Darbyshire and McCreath decline to discuss fees, but Clinton was reportedly receiving $150,000 for engagements; certainly, Bush fetches the same or more), this city-specific tailoring is of no small significance.

"Calgary sells up front, Edmonton is last-minute," Darbyshire says. "You can charge twice in Calgary what you can in Edmonton."

"Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary are the highest."

"Montreal is political and unpredictable."

"And they want wine."

"In Saskatchewan, tickets have to be cheap."

Accordingly, the three Bush events differed in price point and venue size ($100 in Saskatoon in a 2,100-seat theatre; $100 to $175 in Edmonton in a 2,000-seat theatre; $400 in Montreal in a 1,000-seat ballroom with lunch and wine). They brought Clinton to Kelowna, B.C. (with a metropolitan population of just 166,000), where he was interviewed by Kelly Hrudey, a curious choice on all fronts. But it worked.

The commercial life of a politician is an elusive thing. Clinton was buoyed by his wife's appointment as Secretary of State, and by his high-profile involvement in freeing prisoners in North Korea. Bush has a book coming out next fall that will give him a lift, so he could do a second round. But that will likely be the end; old politicians don't draw forever. And sports figures, even big ones like Wayne Gretzky and Tiger Woods, don't draw as well as ex-pols. McCreath and Darbyshire need new faces.

Next Year's Modelmay take an unlikely form. Keith Stein, formerly of Magna International, introduced the duo to Kiss's Gene Simmons last year. "We went down to L.A. and spent, like, seven hours with him," McCreath says.

The star of A&E's Family Jewels was looking to do some speaking engagements, as it turned out. "Gene Simmons is one of the most genius marketers in the world," McCreath says. "The Kiss merchandise outsells every other band combined."

Which brings us back to product. What is it, precisely? Simmons is on TV every week in a reality show that chronicles his home life, à la Ozzy Osbourne. And Kiss is touring again. Why pay to simply hear him speak?

"I think it's just that intimacy," McCreath says. "He's not in makeup, he's just sitting there on stage answering questions. That has a lot of appeal."

While they were in L.A., Simmons took them to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Maria Shriver was at a nearby table with some friends; Simmons introduced them. McCreath and Darbyshire had a drink with Shriver and floated the idea of a speaking tour. They were naturally interested in her husband as well. Arnold Schwarzenegger is out of office in a little over a year. He has a wide constituency and is an effective speaker.

And of course there is Obama in seven years.

"Or three," McCreath says. "He'd be great."

There will be more competition for new speakers because other companies have emulated the tinePublic model.

"A lot of people have tried and failed," Darbyshire says.

"We can't tell you why they failed or they'd figure out how to succeed."

"But they don't know how to sell these events."

And selling is key. Selling the frisson of coming face-to-face with history. Selling Chambers of Commerce on the idea that the presence of these speakers will elevate their town, selling CEOs on the networking benefits. Selling the buzz that comes with an ex-president, the palpable glow that precedes them through lobbies and ballrooms. The people in the audience know they aren't going to hear anything that Clinton or Greenspan or Bush haven't already said publicly or written in their respective books. But seeing them in the flesh still has a great, if intangible, allure.

But Canada is a limited market, and McCreath and Darbyshire have exploited almost every possible city. There is some thought of going outside the country, though certain ex-presidents (Clinton) will travel better internationally than others (Bush).

"Let's template this and go to Mexico City, London, Chicago," Darbyshire says, one eye on his BlackBerry. "Whatever."