Cross Border Crooks

The FBI’s arrest of former Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington on fraud charges at his California home last week illustrates an aspect of life along the Canada-US border.

Under the laws of both countries, Mr. Pocklington is entitled to his day in court, and nothing more will be said here on the charges against him.

Pocklington was prominent as a businessman and a critic of Canada’s social and political system. These traits almost put him in a league with Conrad Black, now serving time in the US for defrauding shareholders of his Hollinger, Inc. newspaper empire.

Almost but not quite. There is a difference in pedigree. Until his conviction, Black was a member of Britain’s House of Lords, mentored by no less than former Prime Minister, now Baroness, Margaret Thatcher. He is also a writer, having produced solid biographies of Richard Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and former Québec Premier Maurice Duplessis.

But Pocklington, known as “the Puck” for his hockey franchise, has achievements of his own. He ran for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 1983.

The main purpose of this exercise was to make a statement against the “socialist” legacy of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He also took out full page newspaper ads linking Trudeau to a candidate in a local election for Mayor of Edmonton. In the meat business, he trafficked both in hockey players and animal carcasses until his debts were called.

The Puck and Black are peers in their disdain for the Canada where they became rich. They crossed borders to what they saw as greener pastures, heedless of traps in the fields they professed to admire.

One now languishes in circumstances that could have been avoided had he heeded the words of Jesus of Nazareth to “make friends with your accuser on your way to court.” The other is still in the initial stages of judicial process and has options.

Both may end up in the Cross-Border Hall of Convicted Felons, members of a larger club whose members have moved back and forth between “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” and “Peace, Welfare and Good Governance.”

They include Al Capone who is said to have used an underground network of tunnels in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, that is now a tourist attraction. They include lesser luminary the “Idaho Kid” whose rampages in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, were stopped by RCMP Constable Larry Lett.

And they include the original Canada-US free traders who trafficked in spirits between Montana and Alberta, ravaging First Peoples who lived in both. This led to the formation of the North West Mounted Police (today the RCMP) to patrol the Canadian west.

So far we’ve not mentioned serial killers for whom escape into Canada means refuge from the death penalty. Or Canadians awaiting death sentences in American jails: sentences Canada’s current Conservative government is inclined to let take their course.

In fairness, the Canadian government did not intervene either on behalf of Lord Black who applauded its election as a return to electoral balance in Canada.

The former owner of the Oilers has burned bridges of his own. While he may resent being lumped together with the former head of Hollinger, that may simply be a case of the Puck calling the Conrad “black.”