pardon

Friday May 17, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 17, 2019

Conrad Black says he won’t answer to criticism of his pardon because it’s not ‘worthy of response’

‘On anything like this you’re going to get people saying it’s a back-scratching job and he’s just rewarding me for writing nice things about him, but so what?’

Conrad Black Cartoon Gallery

Media mogul and former rival Rupert Murdoch was among the well-wishers who called Conrad Black after he received a pardon Wednesday from U.S. President Donald Trump that wiped away convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice dating back to 2007.

“I had a very nice phone call from Rupert Murdoch. I hadn’t spoken with him for many years. Most thoughtful of him to call,” Black said in an interview Thursday in the living room of his home in Toronto.

“He congratulated me and he said he’d congratulated the President for doing it.”

Calls have been coming in “from all over the place, from people I knew when I was a guest of the American people (in prison) and from people I went to Grade 2 with, and all stages since then,” said Black.

“And all but one or two were really very gracious, quite affecting many of them.”

Asked how he would respond to people who say he received the pardon because of Trump’s tendency to view only facts that suit him, or due to the past business dealings the two men had, or the flattering articles and book Black has written about Trump, Black said he wouldn’t respond directly to such critics because he doesn’t find their position “worthy of response.”

“Look, on anything like this you’re going to get people saying it’s a back-scratching job and he’s just rewarding me for writing nice things about him, but so what? Some people criticize Santa Claus, some people find fault with everything,” he said.

“The President and the very gracious message the White House issued last night was very clear in saying what the motives were, and that they were an analysis by his legal counsel and their legal team of the facts of the case, analyzing the particular materials submitted on my behalf by (lawyer) Alan Dershowitz and others.”

Black views the pardon as a total exoneration. “It’s a complete final decision of not guilty. That is finally a fully just verdict,” Black told The Canadian Press on Thursday. (Source: National Post) 

 

Wednesday October 3, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 3, 2018

A historic vote in Quebec for every party, a tougher provincial puzzle for Trudeau

Everyone made history Monday in Quebec.

May 8, 2018

For the first time in Quebec’s history, the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), led by François Legault, won power taking a commanding 74 seats in the 125-seat national assembly.

The 12-year-old left-leaning separatist Quebec Solidaire hit historic highs in seats won — 10 — and in popular vote — 16 per cent. The party is also no longer confined to downtown Montreal but planted its first flags in Quebec City.

The other two parties made the kind of history one tries to avoid.

The Liberal Party of Quebec, with just under 25 per cent of the popular vote, has never fared worse in a general election since its creation at Confederation. Same thing with the Parti Quebecois: worst showing since its creation in 1970.

March 4, 2016

Quebec’s history-making election, though, followed a trend: yet another Liberal majority government in a provincial capital finds itself on the outs.

This trend is significant beyond Quebec’s borders and could impair the ability of the Liberal government in Ottawa to get as much done as it might wish on its domestic agenda in the final year of its mandate.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened his first First Ministers’ meeting, he would have looked around the room and seen many allies. Canada’s biggest provinces were all led by Liberals all of whom were leading majority governments: B.C.’s Christy Clark (Liberal in name, at least), Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne, Quebec’s Phillippe Couillard. Atlantic Canada’s four premiers were all Liberals and they, too, commanded majorities. If stuff was going to get done and done quickly, then all was in place.

August 8, 2014

But at his next meeting with the premiers, perhaps his final such meeting before he himself must face the electorate next fall, Trudeau will see quite a different crowd. Clark, of course, was replaced by a New Democrat in British Columbia who is hostile at worst and cool at best to Trudeau’s agenda while Wynne, Couillard and New Brunswick’s Brian Gallant (one assumes) have or will soon be replaced by right-of-centre premiers hostile to some of Trudeau’s core policies.

Two of those new premiers, Ontario’s Doug Ford and, now, Quebec’s Francois Legault’s have solid secure majorities. (Continued: Global News)