What do Conrad Black and Lindsay Lohan have in common? Permission to enter Canada

When Conrad Black leaves jail and his Mafia buddies behind at the end of the week, he’ll be welcomed back to Canada (or at least will be legally allowed to reside here), because the government has granted Black a one-year temporary resident permit. Not cool, says NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, who thinks “the British criminal Conrad Black” is getting special treatment since the country often denies permits to other foreigners with criminal pasts. (Though the Globe and Mail helpfully points out that Canada doled out 11,000 such permits last year, of which 6,500 were issued to people with criminal records). More compelling, or at least stranger, was Jonathan Kay’s argument in the National Post that Lindsay Lohan has had scads of run-ins with the law but didn’t have any issues being allowed into the country. We’re not sure it’s the same situation (Lohan was only here to film a movie, while Black likely plans to live in Toronto), but it makes us giggle to see Lilo and Baron Black of Crossharbour (can we call him CoBla?) occupying the same sentence. [National Post]