RSS Feed MenuNow that Conrad Black is released from prison, where does he go?
He’d like to go home, to the house his parents built and that he lovingly enlarged.
That is out of the question for now: The terms of Black’s bail require him to remain in the continental United States until the courts have finished their review of his sentence.
But suppose the courts do agree to remit the balance of Black’s sentence in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 9-0 verdict in his favor. He still will not be allowed to return to his home permanently, because he is no longer a Canadian citizen.
Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001. Some represent this decision as some kind of insult to Canada, almost next door to treason. (See for example the very ugly editorial in Thursday’s Sun newspapers: “[Conrad Black] is no Canadian patriot. He gave up his birthright, relinquished his Canadian passport, and sneered his way past lesser mortals as he donned the title of Lord Black of Crossharbour.”)
This view is wrong and unfair. Black renounced his Canadian citizenship because the federal government of the day pursued a unique vendetta against him. Black had acquired British citizenship, too. As a British citizen, Black was offered a seat in the House of Lords. The Chretien government took the view that no Canadian could accept such an honor. The legalities of the situation were complex, but let’s just say: This view was an extreme interpretation of Canadian law — and probably not an interpretation that the Chretien government would have taken had the case involved a Conrad White or Conrad Green rather than Conrad Black.
But at the same time as Black was living much of the year in Britain, he was also generously supporting Canadian institutions: sustaining this newspaper, building a wing at the Hospital for Sick Children.
That chapter in his life is closed now. If his request for a reduction in sentence succeeds, the next chapter will likely soon open.
Black will very likely apply for a reinstatement of his Canadian citizenship. The decision is discretionary, in the hands of the federal cabinet. Here’s why they should say yes:
- Black’s original renunciation was an act of political protest against a government that sought to limit his rights as a British citizen. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian citizens carry dual citizenship, and Canada would not ask them to renounce rights under their second nationality in order to keep their Canadian nationality.
- There are serious considerations of inequity here. Black’s business partner David Radler is welcome to live in Vancouver, although he was a full partner in whatever wrongdoing occurred at Hollinger. It seems very strange that only one of the two men should be disqualified as a Canadian.
- Black’s wife is a Canadian citizen. Canadian policy would normally favor unification of a husband with his Canadian wife.
- If Black did wrong, he has been severely punished for it. Not only has he endured criminal prosecution, but he also faces civil lawsuits and now an action by the IRS for back taxes. To pile one more penalty on his head seems harshly punitive — and of all penalties, exile is the cruellest.
- Perhaps the government is hesitating over reinstatement because it fears the political consequences? Of seeming to favor a (once) rich and (still) famous man? But if the government would say yes to a similar petition from somebody less rich and famous, it seems again inequitable to deny Black’s petition in order to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Fairness does not require that we treat the rich and famous more harshly than we treat the non-rich and non-famous.
Whatever else you say about Conrad Black, he is truly an eminent Canadian, who has contributed enormously to the country’s public life. It is time for him to be allowed home.
Originally published in the National Post.
Watusie // Jul 24, 2010 at 11:32 am
Almost as silly as this site’s obsession with Israel is this site’s obsession with Conrad Black. At times I think you are all hoping that if you fawn over the great man enough he’ll toss a jewel-encrusted bauble your way.
Black still has to answer for his crimes here in the US. Even if the establishment succeeds in enabling him to skate on the defrauding of investors, he will remain convicted of obstruction of justice – which means back to prison.
As for the situation up north: “Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001.”. End of story. No mulligans for giving the land of your birth the middle finger.
ZombieTory // Jul 24, 2010 at 11:36 am
a) The title makes you look silly. Conrad Lord Black, not Lord Conrad Black.
b) While some Canadians are permitted peerage in the UK, my understanding is they’re usually more strongly tied tot he UK than Canada.
c) Yes, Chretien was being vindictive, but the simple point here is that Black valued british privilege over Canadian citizenship. That basic fact is going to irk most Canadians, no matter what his motivation was.
d) None of this means he shouldn’t be pemitted to return to Canada. In fact, it seems most experts believe that he will. (i.e. http://jmortonmusings.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-conrad-black-admissible-to-canada.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter )
e) If he really wanted a PR win after he’s allowed to return he would renounce his peerage.
Oskar // Jul 24, 2010 at 11:40 am
There is nothing noble about this crooked fat cat.
arvinds // Jul 24, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Sorry for being off-topic. Does anybody here know a good source to begin reading Shakespeare? I recently read Macbeth and loved the imagery (…valuting ambition) ….- but I cannot claim to have understood it all. The language intimidates me – as English is not my first language. I am looking for something that might take up a play a few lines at a time and interpret it in plain English. I went to the Vancouver Public Library – but they have so much on Shakespeare – I dont know where to start. As this blog has a book section with some serious literary works reviewed – I thouht I might try my luck here.
Oh – and on Lord Black – if he protested to become a Lord, he can keep his protest and head back to Britain. My understanding is that David Radler never gave up his Canadian citizenship (with or without protest) – so even though he is a crook, he is our crook.
I only recently beame a Canadian citizen – so I am defending the institution with all the zeal of a convert!!!
TerryF98 // Jul 24, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Send him back to Canada when he has repaid the American taxpayer all the taxes he evaded on his shady fraudulent dealings.
You are welcome to the Criminal.
ZombieTory // Jul 24, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Arvinds:
Schadenfreude and vindictiveness are definitely not the Canadian way. They’re absolutely disgusting. If you think otherwise you have a lot to learn.
Defending Canada does not require trampling over others.
Rokker // Jul 24, 2010 at 4:14 pm
All fancy titles aside this guy is a convicted criminal. After he renounced his citizenship Canada owes him nothing. Let him go back to the UK where he groveled for his peerage.
Origuy // Jul 24, 2010 at 6:17 pm
arvinds, the library should have Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare. It goes into the background of the plays more than the language, but it does explain much of the language, which can be difficult even for native speakers.
For the plays themselves, the Pelican Shakespeare was used in the class I took in college. It has many footnotes explaining the Elizabethan language.
Bernie Latham // Jul 24, 2010 at 7:06 pm
To this Canadian (now living in the US) Conrad isn’t an entirely unsympathetic character. But on the other hand, who is?
I actually cannot recall anyone I knew in Canada who had much affinity for the fellow. Not only did he manifest the characteristics of a bully when contested or criticized, he was clearly driven by that particular pathology which leads some to need to be seen as dominant over others – the Lord appellation reflects this need in its more formalized manner (upper crust social class). That he also pushed Canadian political discourse to the right, quite intentionally, through the vehicle of his media enterprises is hardly contestable, if just fine with those on the right. But he also degraded it through re-structuring those media outlets to the end of profits rather than other journalistic or citizenship goals. I’d add here as well the close to absolute refusal by his media outlets to ever acknowledge the plight of Palestinians (though he was not alone in Canadian newspaper ownership in this failing).
Still, a tip of the hat to the fellow for his love of words and his affection for books (no Sarah Palin, our Conrad, and that’s a very good thing).
He’s a character and Canadian history will reserve a place for him. As US history does for Hearst. History reserves places for the good and for the dangerous. The reservation itself means nothing, really.
Bernie Latham // Jul 24, 2010 at 7:34 pm
ps… ought to qualify that last with the exculpatory note that as much as I found myself opposed to most everything about the man, he is decidedly not the sort of vile species of human that Rupert Murdoch (or Roger Ailes) represents.
arvinds // Jul 25, 2010 at 12:13 am
@Origuy – many thanks for the helpful tips, which will set me to work ASAP. I did not know about Asimov’s interest in the bard (is there any topic that Asimov missed writing about?)
searchlight // Jul 25, 2010 at 5:51 am
No, Conrad Black’s renunciation of Canadian citizenship was not “an act of political protest”. It was expediency and opportunism, nothing more. Black wanted to be a Lord – Lord Black of Crossharbour, no less – and he wasn’t about to let Jean Chretien stand in his way.
Black may not have completely closed the door on Canada anyway. He remains a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, a lifetime office he was appointed to in 1992. This is a different, mostly honorary body from the Privy Council office that serves the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Though the traditional role of Queen’s Privy Councillors, to advise the monarch on constitutional matters, is much diminished (if not entirely withered away), Black may retain the right to a special passport as a member.
But please, please – enough of Black already. Enough. The Canadian media has been chock full of stories all week about the release of the Lordly jailbird. The weekend edition of the National Post was filled with photos of the Lord and his wife, pro-Black editorials and detailed stories about What Conrad Will Do Next.
For what reason?? What makes Black worthy of all this ink, angst and bandwidth?
He sold his Canadian newspapers 10 years ago. He ripped up his citizenship a year later. He’s been sitting in a US jail for more than 2 years. WHY IS CONRAD BLACK STILL NEWS?
Mickey Dugan // Jul 25, 2010 at 9:55 am
Black did indeed turn his back on Canada, because Canada is a nation of declasse hoser rubes, and the poor little rich boy wanted desperately to be a part of the elitist British aristocracy/oligarchy, with the throne, crown, titles, costumes, medals, red carpets and accoutrements that accompany it. In a fit of pique he made a public show of renouncing his citizenship. NOW it’s time to pay the piper – to stand up and be counted as TRUE CONSERVATIVE who takes responsibility for his own actions. Just like the Tory-Republican hymn book preaches.
searchlight // Jul 25, 2010 at 4:24 pm
arvinds –
The best way to experience Shakespeare is to see and hear the plays. Aside from live performances, BBC video series is very good.
Don’t forget the Sonnets, either. ‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets’ by Stephen Booth is an excellent book that includes the sonnets, an essay on each one, and word-by-word definitions and derivations.
Helen Vendler’s ‘The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets’ is also an excellent source.
Blair Mitchell // Jul 25, 2010 at 9:09 pm
I am not sure that David Frum marshals the strongest arguments for the restoration of the citizen-hood of Conrad Black or, for that matter, that it is in the best interest of his friend that they should be posted on the pages of a national newspaper. It may be that that battle is best to fought by other forces in other places.
Hecklers aside, there have been flashes of deep character from this man. That is the place, and seeing what else might actually be there, I would say, from which to begin constructing his claim.
Bill Owen // Jul 26, 2010 at 3:05 am
Perhaps David is concerned that if he is ever arrested, he having renounced his Canadian citizenship and moved to his beloved America, he won’t be able to get in on a prisoner transfer from Pelican Bay to William Head.
This Black case, “LORD” Black (“Lord” spare us that crap) could be a bad precedent for social climbing Canucks.
Of course Khadr, although still a Canadian, is another matter…
clamps // Jul 26, 2010 at 7:37 am
One of the lead stories in my provincial newspaper this morning is that the local maximum security prison will be expanded to “…help meet the projected rise in inmates resulting from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s tough-on-crime reforms.” How would accepting a convicted felon who famously renounced his citizenship fit in with the Conservative Party’s move to get tough on criminals?
The best outcome of this entire situation would see Black return to Canada, and take the John Howard Society on as a pet charitable project. His return to society will be much easier than that of pretty much every single one of his fellow inmates. Let’s see him give his fellow rehabilitated felons the hand up back to society that he will not need.
Fairy Hardcastle // Jul 26, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Dual citizenship. How does that really play out? Do you swear allegiance to two countries? Sounds like political polygamy to me or just an inability to commit.
And how does it play out when you start to attempt to influence one country’s affairs through commentary, writing etc., as does the editor of this forum? To me, not well. It makes me wonder if that is why neither the editor nor some of the most vigorous posters here talk about core American events such as the Declaration. It puts everything asserted here in a particularly tainted light, namely, my sense that people here are trying to make America more like Canada. It makes me think about the fact that the editor and possibly others here didn’t grow up with the Fourth as a big day, with parades and readings of the Declaration and fireworks, with patriotic study of our founders and of the greatest nation on earth which they conceived. Oh how do you measure that, I hear someone say, how can you say America is the greatest? That is my point exactly — because it is my nation, my mother, from my very beginning, and by the God who created us all I don’t want America to become like Canada or the UK or France or Germany or any other nation.
fibocycle // Jul 28, 2010 at 3:10 pm
You state that “his view was an extreme interpretation of Canadian law — and probably not an interpretation that the Chretien government would have taken had the case involved a Conrad White or Conrad Green rather than Conrad Black.”
Perhaps this will be more appropriately stated as: “his view was an extreme interpretation of Canadian law — and probably not an interpretation that the Chretien government would have taken had the case involved a Conrad BLANC or Conrad VERT rather than Conrad Black.
fibocycle // Jul 28, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Perhaps the best outcome would be if Connie returned to Canada and became Prime Minister.
tequilamockingbird // Jul 29, 2010 at 6:09 am
“… it is my nation, my mother, from my very beginning, and by the God who created us all I don’t want America to become like Canada or the UK or France or Germany or any other nation.”
Exactly, Fairy. Surely it isn’t hard for you to understand that citizens of other countries have the same feeling toward their own homeland (as Obama correctly stated about the Greeks and the British). I’m Canadian, proud and glad of it, and I damn sure don’t want Canada to become any more like the U.S. than it already is.
Fairy Hardcastle // Jul 29, 2010 at 8:51 am
Tequilalmockingbird,
Yes, of course. That is the way it should be. Though massive immigration to her does boost Americans’ sense of being the best place in the world.