NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair should apologize to public servants for suggesting that they were “biased, prejudiced, and even racist” in granting former media mogul Conrad Black a temporary residency permit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday.
Ottawa has cleared the way for Black’s return by granting him a one-year temporary resident permit, setting off a political row in Ottawa after it was learned yesterday. Black applied for the permit in March.
Mulcair compared Black’s case to that of Gary Freeman, an American-born man who has been denied re-entry into Canada because of a criminal record. The 63-year-old was involved with the Black Panthers, and was extradited to the U.S. in 2008 and pleaded guilty to shooting a police officer in 1969. After serving a 30-day sentence, he was denied re-entry to Canada, where his wife and four children live.
“It is a clear case of a double standard, one for an American black man from Chicago, another for a British white man coming out of federal penitentiary,” Mulcair said.
Harper was unimpressed with the comparison, saying the NDP leader was accusing officials of being “biased, prejudiced, and even racist . . . without any evidence” during question period Wednesday.
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