Pubdate: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 Source: Times & Transcript (Moncton CN NK) Copyright: 2007 New Brunswick Publishing Company Contact: http://www.timestranscript.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2660 Author: Brent Mazerolle IS RAPPER IN DOGG-HOUSE AT CDN. BORDER? Snoop Dogg was convicted of having cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. Martha Stewart was convicted of lying. Calvin Broadus, A.K.A. Snoop Dogg, was also arrested three times in the past four months for illegal possession of weapons and was once tried for murder (he was cleared in the murder and the three weapons charges haven't yet been dealt with in court). As for Martha, well, besides her white collar crime of lying to investigators about a stock transaction it is also alleged she is sometimes mean to her staff. Martha wanted to come to Canada in 2005 to help raise money for the Children's Wish Foundation. Calvin wants to come to Canada this month to rake in some Benjamins and buy some more bling. That has one Riverview resident asking which felon should get hassled at the border? Martha Stewart got hassled big time in 2005 when she wanted to row a giant pumpkin in a charity event, though Canada's Citizenship and Immigration minister of the day, Joe Volpe, did ultimately intervene to allow the domestic diva into the country. Rapper Snoop Dogg comes to the great white north this week for a 10-city tour that wraps up in Moncton January 31 and, so far, there's been very little said about letting the gangsta star in the country. Not everyone has been silent though. Riverview's Marvin Buckley is appalled that the Doggfather plans to lift his leg on Moncton, and called the Times & Transcript this week to say so. Buckley is a lifelong friend of Evelyn Breau, whose daughter Monique was murdered in a case of domestic violence in Moncton just before Christmas 2005. With Snoop Dogg's criminal past, not to mention his songs and videos glorifying gun violence and the objectification of women, to say Buckley is hip-hopping mad with federal officials is a bit of an understatement. "Just what kind of creep do you have to be before we don't let you in?" he asked yesterday. Buckley is also baffled by the double standard that seems to suggest Martha Stewart somehow represents a greater threat to Canadian society than a hip-hop hoodlum. Lastly, he is angry that civic officials are allowing the City of Moncton owned Moncton Coliseum to host the show. He quoted city manager Al Strang as making the distinction between actually promoting the show and merely renting space, but Buckley argued "it's a very fine line." Attempts to reach the city manager as well as Ian Fowler, general manager of the city's Recreation, Parks, Tourism and Culture department, were unsucessful yesterday. There is some argument, of course ,that if you kept every performing artist out of Canada for having a criminal record, we would rarely see a concert in Moncton. Certainly, it would have been difficult for the Rolling Stones to rock the hill without Keith Richard, who has a drug conviction - in Canada - dating back to the 1970s. By the same token though, Sir Paul McCartney's tokin' in Japan a few years after Keith Richard's arrest might have spared all Canadians the spectacle of seeing the zillionaire Beatle on the ice floes of Newfoundland harping at us about how sealers should just walk away from their livelihoods. Just how does it work? What criminal convictions will keep you out and how can you get let in? One answer is absolute - any criminal conviction makes you "inadmissible" in the eyes of the Canadian Border Services Agency. "A criminal record is a criminal record," CBSA spokeswoman Jennifer Morrison said yesterday. However, Canada gives its frontline border officers the authority to make a determination on the spot on whether or not someone should be allowed to enter the country. Morrison said the officers' professional judgments were rooted firmly in laws and policy directives. "Every person is a unique situation and it has to be determined by the officer," she said, pointing out it is not just celebrities who get exemptions. Officers look at everything from purpose of the visit - attending a funeral for instance - to the degree of criminality of the person. If, for example, you are a war criminal or a terrorist, it won't matter how many funerals you want to attend. The length of time that has passed since your last conviction can also play some role in the determination, though Morrison said there is no established formula. Snoop Dogg's last conviction was over a dozen years ago and his acquittal - which it must be emphasized was just that, an acquittal - on the murder charge was in 1996. This fall, he has been arrested twice for possessing illegal firearms and once for having a collapsible police baton, but he is innocent unless proven guilty and those matters haven't yet come to court. As for Snoop Dogg's arrest in the homicide, that his bodyguard McKinley Lee gunned down a 20-year-old gang member in a drive-by shooting while Dogg was at the wheel of a vehicle in 1994 was not disputed. A jury, however, acquitted both men on the grounds of self-defence, finding they feared for their lives because the man had pointed a gun at them. Snoop Dogg's 10-city Canadian tour is in support of his newest CD Tha Blue Carpet Treatment, which some have called an homage to the notorious street gang the L.A. Crips. The Crips' gang colour is blue, and blue bandannas are what Crips traditionally wear to distinguish themsleves from other gangs. In pictures on the CD's cover and liner notes, Dogg wears blue paisley and a female companion in one photo wears a bikini that is essentially three blue bandannas sewn together. The compact disc itself is painted to look like a blue bandanna. While Snoop Dogg has said "tha blue carpet treatment" is merely a humourous twist on the "red carpet treatment" celebrities routinely get, the "blue carpet treatment" has been alleged to be a Crips form of punishment, in which gang members roll up someone they judge to be in need of correction into a carpet and beat them. A Times & Transcript reporter tried to confirm this with a call to gang experts at the Los Angeles Police Department, but in a surprising twist, the LAPD's media relations department referred the reporter to the official website of the Crips, saying the gang itself would be the best source of that information. To access the Crips website you have to e-mail a webmaster for special directions to find your way to it in the cyber world. Attempts to do so failed yesterday. Snoop Dogg has acknowledged that as the young Calvin Broadus he was a member of the gang but says he is no longer part of e organization. Snoop Dogg's concert and tour are expected to do well. The rapper's CD Doggy Style was the first debut album to ever enter the charts at number one and he has sold close to 20 million albums since that 1993 debut. He has also parlayed his fame into acting gigs and a line of softcore sex videos. Marvin Buckley still can't believe the country and the city are letting the Dogg slip in the backdoor all in the name of a bit off spinoff revenue. "Surely we don't need the money that bad," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek