Why does convicted fraudster Conrad Black still have his Order of Canada?

Canada's favourite misbehaving toff is due to get out of a U.S. prison this spring after completing his sentence for defrauding investors in his newspaper company.

He'll likely face deportation, probably to Britain since he gave up his Canadian citizenship in 2001 in order to become Lord Black of Crossharbour before cruel misfortune befell him.

Black's criminal conviction should bar the Montreal-born Black from re-entering Canada as a "foreigner."

But one of Black's critics says the former press baron is being allowed to keep his membership in this country's highest honour, the Order of Canada, despite his conviction.

Toronto Star columnist Bob Hepburn wonders if Black's influential friends have stalled the review that could strip him of the order.

"Is there one rule for poor aboriginal Canadians, marginalized Sikh Canadians and working-class Irish Canadians, but another for upper-class white Anglo-Saxon criminals from a rich neighbourhood in Toronto?" Hepburn writes.

Black was once one of the most powerful moguls of the English-language media. His Hollinger organization owned many major Canadian metropolitan papers, including the National Post, which he launched. Hollinger International Inc. also owned top-drawer papers such as Britain's Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post and Chicago Sun Times.

Black himself was a columnist and the author of well-received books on the lives of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, among others.

But the edifice began to crumble in 2005 when he and associates were accused by U.S. prosecutors of improperly taking some $60 million out of Hollinger. He was convicted of several counts by a Chicago jury and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $6 million in restitution.

Appeals reduced the number of conviction counts and the length of his prison term. After being out on bail, Black returned to prison last fall to serve his remaining time. He's due to be released in May, according to Hepburn.

Many Canadians who resented the lavish lifestyle of Black and his journalist wife Barbara Amiel, gleefully followed his downfall.

Hepburn says several Order of Canada members are so angry Black still has his award that they're thinking of giving up theirs in protest.

"Black should have lost his award long ago, says one member with deep knowledge of how the order is awarded and — in rare cases — how it is revoked," Hepburn writes.

A spokesperson for the 11-member council that oversees the order said last September it would make a recommendation to Governor General David Johnston about Black's membership. But to date nothing has happened, said Hepburn.

"Is it because he has lots of friends in high places?"

Hepburn argues Lord Black "meets every condition set out in the council's formal, written policies for 'termination,' namely being convicted of a criminal offence and having his conduct undermine the credibility and relevance of the order."

The four people stripped of the order to date all met the same criteria as Black, he said.

Saskatchewan First Nations leader Davi Ahenakew lost his membership after being convicted of hate speech against Jews. Though the conviction was reversed, his order was not returned.

Lawyer T. Sher Singh of Guelph, Ont., lost his membership after being disbarred for mismanaging clients' money.

One-legged runner Steve Fonyo's multiple criminal convictions got him booted from the order and a fraud conviction stripped NHL heavyweight agent Alan Eagleson of his.

"What's the only difference between these four men and Black?" Hepburn asks. "Nothing, except money and friends with power."

Black has had a string of high-profile visitors to his minimum-security Florida prison, including former prime minister Brian Mulroney and Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's secretary of state.

Hepburn noted Black himself thinks he should have been expelled from the order "if I had actually committed a crime." Black insists he was wrongfully convicted.

"His legal appeals are over; his prison term will end in several weeks," says Hepburn. "There's no excuse to delay a decision any longer."