This is priceless. After serving just three and a half years of his sentence in the United States for fraud and obstruction of justice, Lord Black of Cross-the Pond (or whatever) has been fulsomely pardoned by the U.S. president. There you have it. All is forgiven. Conrad Black is no longer an ex-con!
Do you think he will now come out of his modest semi-retirement in Toronto’s palatial Post Road area? Will he be lionized once again on the Toronto cocktail circuit? Will his darling wife be once again displaying her magnificent figure in her haute couture gowns for the ogling lenses of Canadian paparazzi?
Or do you think Lord Conrad will hie himself to the Brit consulate in Toronto and get himself a renewed passport to his native England. We Canadians should not forget our intense relief when he gave us all the figurative finger, told us to stuff our Canadian identity and got himself declared a Brit and appointed a British Lord.
You would even hope that the Canadian Border Services people would do their job and make sure he has not overstayed his visitor status. If he was not reputed to have a couple hundred million squirreled away somewhere, premier Doug Ford would probably demand he be sent packing before applying for welfare.
Mind you, Conrad’s pretentions, remind me of a wonderful 1949 British movie from the Ealing studios called Kind Hearts and Coronets. It was a fine example of British black comedy starring Dennis Price and Alec Guinness. Maybe Conrad did not need to use his political pull to become a lord. He could have checked those ancestor sites on the Internet to find if he was just six or seven deaths from a title and fortune.
Mind you, according to the States Attorney in U.S. District Court in Chicago in 2007, Conrad Black got his money the old-fashioned way. He defrauded his companies. The court found him guilty and the judge fined him and sent him to jail. His buddy U.S. president Donald Trump (the real estate developer) found him innocent. Who do you believe?
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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