More on the Conservative double standard.
Mulcair blasts ‘double standard’ that cleared way for Conrad Black’s return to Canada
OTTAWA — News that former media mogul Conrad Black has been given permission to return to Canada after his release from a Florida jail sparked outrage from NDP leader Thomas Mulcair Tuesday.
Black has been serving the final days of a jail term for fraud and obstruction of justice. He has declared publicly he wants to return to his home in Toronto, which he shares with his wife, Barbara Amiel.
The federal government has cleared the way for Black’s return by granting him a one-year temporary resident permit, which is valid from May 2012 to May 2013, according to a source.
Mulcair said the government is not justified in allowing the “the British criminal Conrad Black” to return to Canada, while denying entry to other foreigners with criminal histories.
“This is a simple case of a double standard on behalf of the Conservative government,” Mulcair said. “There is obviously one set of standards for Conservative party insiders and another that applies to everyone else.”
Mulcair compared Black’s case to that of Gary Freeman, an American-born man who has been denied re-entry into Canada because of a criminal record. The 63-year-old was involved with the Black Panthers, and was extradited to the U.S. in 2008 and pleaded guilty to shooting a police officer in 1969. After serving a 30-day sentence, he was denied re-entry to Canada, where his wife and four children live.
“It is a clear case of a double standard, one for an American black man from Chicago, another for a British white man coming out of federal penitentiary,” Mulcair said.
The authorization of a temporary permit is the first step in Black’s quest to return to Canada long-term — but he will have to pass through a series of immigration hurdles to become a Canadian citizen again.
In 2001, the Montreal-born Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to accept a peerage in Britain’s House of Lords. He did this because then-prime minister Jean Chretien would not allow him to accept the title as a Canadian citizen.
Black was forced out of the global publishing empire he had built after shareholders in the U.S. questioned payments he and other Hollinger executives received from the sale of corporate assets. In 2003, Black refused to respond to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about those payments.
In 2007, he was convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice in a Chicago courtroom.
He had served 29 months of a 78-month sentence when the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the “honest-services” law that had formed the basis of his 2007 conviction.
He was released in 2010 while the courts re-examined his case. Ultimately, some of the counts for which he was previously convicted were dropped. He returned to a Miami prison last September, where he received credit for time served.
His sentence is due to end this weekend, although prison officials said he likely would be released Friday.
Black has made it clear he wants to return to Canada, but his criminal conviction and lack of Canadian citizenship pose problems.
Black’s ultimate goal is to once again become a citizen. But he can only be considered for citizenship after he has successfully attained permanent residency status and has lived in the country for at least one year. Experts have questioned how easy it will be for Black to get permanent residency status, given his criminal conviction.
Before his run-in with U.S. prosecutors, Black was one of the world’s most successful media moguls. In the 1990s, he bought a stake in the Southam newspaper company and founded the
National Post in 1998.
Elsewhere, his newspaper titles included Britain’s
The Daily Telegraph, the
Chicago Sun-Times, the
Jerusalem Post and the
Sydney Morning Herald.
On Parliament Hill Tuesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney would not say whether Black had been granted the permit. But he did answer questions about the case in general.
He said that foreign nationals are eligible to apply for temporary resident permits to come to Canada. He said he couldn’t comment on Black’s case in the absence of Black’s explicit permission without violating the Citizenship Act.
“It’s the only legal answer I can give,” Kenney told reporters. “If anyone of you can obtain a waiver from the Privacy Act from Mr. Black, we’d be happy to release all the details of any application, how it was considered and according to what criteria.”
Kenney said he expected there might be an application forthcoming, so he instructed his officials in February “to deal with any such application on their own, without any input from myself or my office to ensure that it was handled in a completely independent fashion.”
Every year, officials from the Citizenship and Immigration Department approve more than 10,000 temporary resident permits for foreign nationals, he said, and “a very large number” of those permits help to overcome inadmissibility for foreign nationals with criminal records if federal officials determine it’s a non-violent offence, the individual poses a low risk to reoffend and does not pose a risk to Canadian society.
Federal officials also will consider such other criteria as whether the person has long-standing ties to the country, family connections, and humanitarian and compassionate considerations, Kenney added.
Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said he has no objection to the government approving Black’s return given his “long attachment and association with Canada,” but expressed concern about the precedent this will set for other criminals seeking entry to Canada.
“In a sense the federal government is now, if you like, hoisted by its own petard,” he said. “If they accept Black’s request … then obviously that’s something they’re going to have to apply in a lot of other cases and situations.”
Black will have to fight an uphill battle to regain Canadian citizenship, Kenney said. Foreigners must first become permanent residents before applying for citizenship, he said, and one can’t become a permanent resident with a “relatively fresh criminal record.”
“For a foreign national with a criminal record, even one that’s non-violent, it’s a fairly lengthy process to establish Canadian citizenship,” he said.
Conrad Black's planned return to Canada attacked by Thomas Mulcair | News | National Post
