Well, surfing the Web today I found a news item that made me laugh Apparently the man who produces the CTV program Dragons' Den, Kevin O'Leary has another show in the works, Redemption, where ex-cons (mostly drug dealers) get a second chance to employ their savoir-faire in business.
O'Leary is quoted as saying that if you are a successful criminal you have what it takes to be a successful businessman. Gee, who woulda guessed? The Bronfmans maybe.
Who can dispute that? SUCCESSFUL criminal being the keyword. (These ex cons are not that successful in that they got caught and paid time. I suspect most very successful criminals don't get caught, and many are in business - or politics Well, all of them.)
Anyway, my story Milk and Water about Montreal City Hall in 1927, the era of US Prohibition circles around the topic of what constitutes criminal behavior. My point: It's all about class, really. Especially when it comes to illegal booze or illegal drugs.
My grandfather, Jules Crepeau, was the Director of Municipal Departments in Montreal from 1921 to 1930, and he is the main character, and I have him talking to Tom Wells, my husband's grandfather, a Westmount businessman.
Tom tells my grandfather about his cousins, the Townsends, who made enough money to retire on in one year, with a mail order booze business in the early 1920's. They weren't breaking the law, they found a loophole in it.
The two more than middle aged men also discuss the Montreal Water and Power purchase, where Lorne Webster the industrialist and his consortium, the flip the profitable utility company that has been 'a thorn in the side of the city' for years, making 4,000,000 in a few months. All at the expense of the Montreal taxpayer. My grandfather is the one who pays for that savvy -or suspicious - business deal, depending on point of view, with his own job.
There's a philanthropic aspect to O'Leary's show: he knows how hard it is for convicted felons (even those who went to jail providing the middle class and upper classes with their recreational drugs) to get back into society as they can't get a job or get credit.
My daughter in law, who is a criminologist says, the penalties for selling crack are higher than for selling cocaine? The same product. Why, because the very rich do cocaine the very poor do crack, I guess
