Hypocrisy

Area tourist camp operators no doubt are fuming over news that disgraced media baron Conrad Black was granted a one-year temporary resident permit by Citizenship and Immigration so he can return to Canada following his release from a Florida prison on Friday.
Mr. Black has been serving time for fraud. He also is no longer a Canadian—having renounced his citizenship back in 2001 in order to become Baron Black of Crossharbour in the British House of Lords.
Yet he is welcome to live in our country while hundreds of American tourists, wishing to come to Northwestern Ontario for a week or 10 days or whatever to fish, hunt, and otherwise spend dollars desperately needed to support the area’s economy, are turned back at the Canadian border each year because of prior convictions—some dating back decades.
True, a pilot project is now underway in which border guards are given more discretion to allow tourists into Canada who previously would have been turned away. But it took years of lobbying and complaining to wriggle that small concession from Ottawa while here is a person of money and prestige who seemingly can waltz into the country for a $200 fee and little bureaucratic hassle.
The whole thing reeks of hypocrisy.
This isn’t to say Canada should throw open its borders to any and all comers regardless of their backgrounds (after all, good luck getting into the U.S. with a criminal record).
But allowing Mr. Black in, so he can live in his Toronto mansion for the next year and be on hand to perhaps collect a literary award later this month, while treating ordinary tourists on a week’s vacation far differently is a double standard that’s difficult to justify.