By Arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
A recent Canadian Press/Decima Research poll was conducted about how Canadians view Conrad Black who was recently found guilty on four of eleven charges against him by a jury in the Northern District of Illinois. Black is currently awaiting sentencing on these charges that is set for November 30.
The poll was conducted between July 19 and 22 and over 1,000 people were contacted. The results are found to be accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. According to Decima Research, there was no distinction in the results between those respondents who followed the trial closely or fairly closely and those that did not.
Only 8 per cent of respondents thought that Black was convicted of too many of the 11 counts that he was facing while 48 per cent thought that the jury got it right. Twenty-two per cent of those surveyed felt that the verdict was not harsh enough. The consensus was that the overwhelming majority of respondents felt that Black deserved to have been found guilty of at least the four offences that the jury found him guilty of.
Over two thirds (69%) of respondents thought that Conrad Black should do jail time while only 10 per cent of those polled thought that a fine would be a sufficient punishment. Forty per cent of those who were polled felt that Black should serve between one and nine years in prison while a lesser amount; 29 per cent, felt that his upcoming sentence should exceed 10 years.
Much of the mainstream media is spinning this poll as proof positive that the majority of Canadians simply don't like Conrad Black and look forward to seeing His Lordship go off to the slammer. If this is in fact true, it will come as to shock to no one, least of all Lord Black who wrote in his 1993 tome, Conrad Black: A life in Progress about how English Canadians love to bring down anyone who is even "slightly exceptional".
If the media spin is true, then a lot of Canadians simply want to see Conrad Black in jail not for anything that he did but for who he is. If this is indeed the case then there is a glaring inconsistency in Decima's poll results. While 69 per cent of respondents want to see Conrad Black behind bars, a not insignificant percentage; 40 per cent of those polled want him to serve between one and nine years behind bars. This is far less than the 15-20 year sentence that U.S. prosecutors are expected to ask for when Black returns to court in the fall. If the spin is correct that the majority of Canadians simply hate Conrad Black you would expect that those people would want him to serve 479 years or life, whichever comes first. At a minimum, more people would agree with the range of sentence that the prosecutors are expected to seek.
There are a couple of reasons that can explain this inconsistency. One is that that ordinary Canadians don't spend as much time at the elites do in reveling in the downfall of Lord Black of Crossharbour. It could also be that the 48 per cent that thought that the jury did the right thing simply showed deference to the jury who listened to all of the evidence when the respondents at most simply followed the daily media coverage of the trial. If this is the case, it makes the survey results, as interesting as they may be, pretty well meaningless.
There is an alternate explanation when it comes to what Black should receive when he is sentenced. If the country is in fact made up of Black-haters, a lot of them only want him to do between one and nine years in jail. If this is true then it says a lot about how soft on crime Canadians really are. The mid to upper range of the one to nine years is what Black would likely receive had he been convicted of similar offences in Canada. According to Decima, a lot of people think he is guilty and want him to do time but not that much time.
There is no doubt that Canadians are generally soft on crime; especially when it comes to violent crime and young offenders. If the majority of Canadians really wanted to see harsher penalties they wouldn't elect the soft on crime politicians who refuse to pass tougher legislation. If this scenario is true, then we shouldn't be surprised by our weak laws and lax judicial system.
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