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rfmcdonaldRobert Siklos' Shades of Black: Conrad Black - His Rise and Fall, a revised version of a 1995 biography that appeared when former international press magnate and future convicted felon Conrad Black was nearing his apogee, makes for compelling reading. The Amazon reviewer is right to note that McNish and Stewart's Wrong Way goes into greater detail on the fine mechanics of the scandal that finally brought the man down, demonstrating how his fabled flaw sheer blinding arrogance provoked his enemies. Siklos' book does a brilliant job of showing the profound and systemic flaws of the man throughout his life.
Black wants Canadian citizenship, you know, in case his acquired British nationality might keep him from visiting Canada after a conviction in the United States. This desire curious considering his stated opinions of the country.
Perhaps we should poll Haitian-Canadians and Romanian-Canadians to see if they want to admit vainglorious accused felons with delusions of grandeur into the Canadian family. I'm sure that they'll demonstrate a geater generosity of spirit than Black; it would be difficult not to do that.
Black wants Canadian citizenship, you know, in case his acquired British nationality might keep him from visiting Canada after a conviction in the United States. This desire curious considering his stated opinions of the country.
Black's request of Ottawa is especially curious considering some of his well-publicized criticism of his native country. In November 2001, in his first major speech in Vancouver after he officially became Lord Black of Crossharbour, he called Canada a "one-party federal state with no deliverance in sight," and added, "Most Canadians remain resolutely oblivious to their country's objective decline."
Black attacked Canada's universal health-care system, and "soft-left" policies that he said were driving as many as 100,000 skilled workers a year to the United States. "The head of the Canadian government says they will be replaced by Haitian taxi drivers. They will not," he said at the time.
"To someone just arrived from Haiti or Romania, Canada is a far more satisfying place to be a citizen than it was to me," Black said in his speech.
"Renouncing my citizenship was the last and most consistent act of dissent I could pose against a public policy which I believe is depriving Canada of its right and duty to be one of the world's great countries."
Perhaps we should poll Haitian-Canadians and Romanian-Canadians to see if they want to admit vainglorious accused felons with delusions of grandeur into the Canadian family. I'm sure that they'll demonstrate a geater generosity of spirit than Black; it would be difficult not to do that.
