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Monday May 5,
2008 BACK | NEXT
Why not
Conrad Black?
by Angelo
Persichilli
THE HILL
TIMES
Now that we have Brenda Martin back in Canada and while
we are still working on bringing Abdurahman
Kadr back from Guantanamo, why don’t we
start fighting to bring Conrad Black back to Canada?
Why do media and politicians spend so much ink, airtime
and debates in the House to bring Canadian citizens jailed abroad
home, yet nobody talks about the possibility of bringing back Conrad
Black?
I
know the first answer is that he is not a Canadian citizen. And
that’s exactly what I want to talk about: Canadian citizenship. In
fact, this is the problem that Canada is facing with increasing
urgency and concern. Instead of looking at the life, accomplishments
and aspirations of people, we rely on technicalities too much to
decide who loves and who doesn’t this country. We believe that
having a picture on a piece of paper called a ‘passport’ is enough
to be considered Canadian. I disagree. I arrived in Canada in 1975,
I have dual citizenship and I feel very much a Canadian and proud of
it. However, at the same time, I don’t believe to be “more” Canadian
than Conrad Black.
Of course, he decided to give up his Canadian
citizenship; nobody took it away from him.
Well, since we like technicalities over realities, I
have some arguments I want to share with our readers. But before I
do that, I want to stress that I’ve never met Conrad Black, never
worked for him and I’ve never been in touch with any of his
associates or lawyers. And I’m not even particularly fond of the National Post.
Having said that, let’s talk about the Canadian citizen
Conrad Black.
We know what happened: he gave up his citizenship when
the then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien refused to allow him to become
a Lord of the British Parliament as a Canadian. We also know that
Mr. Black was not treated according to the Canadian traditions of
the past and the present.
Usually Canada doesn’t accept Canadian citizenship
applications from people of other countries who have a criminal
record. Technically this is the situation Mr. Black is in. However,
we must accept that his status is somehow different and unusual from
many other cases.
He was born, educated and worked for decades in Canada.
He helped the economy and created jobs. He gave up his citizenship
because he was put in an unfair and unreasonable position and forced
to make a choice. Well, other Canadian citizens were and are in the
same position and they are not asked to make the choice.
In the past, there were many other cases of individuals
with dual citizenship with positions in the governments of other
countries. We don’t have to go back to our history and the Baron
Beaverbrook membership in the English Parliament to see that the
Black case is common to many other Canadian citizens with dual
citizenship.
There are two Canadian citizens of Italian origin who
are members of the Italian Parliament. One of them, Basilio
Giordano, an Italian Canadian journalist from Montréal, was elected
last month as a member of the Italian Senate in Rome. And, for those
who are not aware of it, Mr. Giordano is the same person who last
year ran against Justin Trudeau for the Liberal candidacy in a
Montréal riding. The election was legal and first approved by the
Liberal government of Paul Martin in 2005 and confirmed by the
present government of Stephen Harper.
I
don’t know why Mr. Chrétien opposed Mr. Black appointment,
definitely it was not consistent with the Canadian tradition. The
Canadian government has always refused to intervene and interfere
with foreign governments regarding people with dual citizenship.
Mahar Arar has dual citizenship and he was tortured by the
authorities of his other country, Syria. Ottawa, as I understand,
never complained to the Syrian government about dealing with a
Canadian citizen. We profusely apologized to him for what wrong we
did, not Syria.
Another example.
There are countries like Italy who, until a few years
ago (and I believe Greece still does this now) that conscript or
jail young Canadian citizens, even those born in Canada, when they
go back to the Country of their parents and have not complied with
the requirements to be in the army. In many countries, a short
service in the army by young people a short period of time is
mandatory. Young Canadians have been conscripted or jailed in the
past but the Canadian government has always refused to intervene
considering it interference in a foreign country: this, Canadian
authorities said to those young Canadians of Italian origin, “is not
a Canadian problem.” I don’t understand why for the Canadian
government , citizens with dual citizenship can be in the army or
the jail of the other country but not in thei
Parliaments.
I
believe the principle should apply to good things as well: why can
the British government not appoint one of its citizens to a
parliamentary position? In fact, Ottawa has not intervened in many
other occasions and I’ve only mentioned some. Only Conrad Black was
pushed into a corner and I believe it was unfair.
I’ve red somewhere that Mr. Black had in mind to give
up his Canadian citizenship temporarily and re-apply later.
Unfortunately for him it is too late now because he has a criminal
record, he is a British citizen and he is in an American
jail.
I’m not entering into the legal affairs of Mr. Black.
However we know that he is in jail for something that is not
considered a crime in Canada and he is in and American jail because
somehow he was unfairly treated by the Canadian
government.
Rightly or wrongly he was forced to make a choice and
put in an unfair situation as a Canadian citizen.
I
believe the present Canadian government can give that choice back to
him. I don’t know if Mr. Black is a bad or good Canadian. What I do
know is that Mr. Black is as much as Canadian you can be.
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