“Con Air” an idea whose time has finally come to send illegal aliens back

To American border control authorities and America Patriots: the Vancouver Board of Trade had an idea that could solve your illegal alien problem—using flier miles from millions of average Americans to fly illegals back to Mexico. Welcome to “Con Air—Entire air planes full of aliens on the way back home! It’s Hollywood come to life.

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“Con Air”, just getting off the ground in Vancouver, British Colombia is reminiscent of the 1997 Nicolas Cage movie about a planeload of convicts being transported to prison. (That rousing cheer you can hear in the background as you read this is coming from America!) The unabashedly politically incorrect Vancouver Board of Trade is urging residents to donate frequent-flier miles so that people who are accused of crimes outside British Columbia can be returned to those provinces. If the Toronto-based Air Miles, a popular loyalty rewards program is used by about nine million Canadian households, think about how many households there must be in the U.S.! It’s no picnic for police in Vancouver, which is a drawing card for suspects on the lam because winters are mild in Canada’s third-most populous metropolitan area, which also happens to be a hub of drug abuse. At the moment, Vancouver has about 2,500 fugitives who are wanted on low-priority arrest warrants for crimes ranging from fraud to assault that were committed in other regions, say police. Authorities in the suspects’ jurisdictions aren’t willing to pony up the estimated C$2,500 it would take to fly them back from whence they came. “We’re sending a message that fleeing to Vancouver is no longer a low-risk endeavor,” said Bernie Magnan, an assistant managing director of the Vancouver Board of Trade who is responsible for the “Con Air” Appeal.” ([url=http://www.bloomberg.com]http://www.bloomberg.com[/url], Feb. 8, 2008.) “Vancouver Police support the project and are eager to get more people to justice, said Constable Tim Fanning, a spokesman. Vancouver has to clean up its Downtown Eastside district infamous for illicit drug use, prostitution and violence before the Winter Olympics in 2010 in any case. So there’s no better time for the debut of “Con Air”. The Vancouver Board of Trade is putting its proverbial money where its mouth is. When the board kicked off the appeal for donations from the public last month, it began by pledging more than 1 million of its own directors’ reward miles. There have been no takers thus far from national airlines. No point-paid flights have got off the ground and Airline miles programs aren’t endorsing the campaign or even agreeing to cash in points to move fugitives at this stage. Michele Meier, a spokeswoman for Air Canada’s Aeroplan program, said she doubts that the Vancouver appeal for points would qualify under the airline’s policy on points donations. “Sending back suspects is not a charitable cause,” she said. Montreal-based Air Canada is the country’s biggest airline. Perhaps not a charitable cause, but a big bonus in relief! The Vancouver Board of Trade is not counting on Air Canada to put wings on their idea. Magnan says the group is in talks with several loyalty programs that are considering accepting donated miles to fly suspects home. “The wheels of progress can turn slowly,” he said. Chartering entire planes on public points-paid flights to return illegal aliens to a certain home country might find huge appeal in the U.S. Meanwhile, “Con Air” could be an idea whose time has finally come.