Letting Us Off the Hook

Six years ago, a U.S. immigration officer working at the Calgary International Airport pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from an Alberta company to facilitate the entry of its employees to the United States and to delay those of its competitors. The officer was sentenced to six months in jail and subsequently deported. Hydro Kleen Group, the company, admitted to one count under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and was fined $25,000.

The Hydro Kleen case was unusual. Not because of the details of the case. As long as there have been commercial enterprises, there have been attempts to gain advantage by fair means or foul. What makes it unique is that ten years after Canada signed an international accord to combat bribery and passed domestic legislation to that effect, Hydro Kleen is the only case, and a minor one at that, that Canada has prosecuted under that law.

As I read Roy Cullen’s The Poverty of Corrupt Nations, this...