BE HONEST AND YOU'RE HISTORY IN THIS COUNTRY

"You gotta ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well? Do ya,
punk?"

- - Harry Callaghan

Ah, yes. Good old, bad old, Dirty Harry, squinting down the barrel of
his cannon and giving the bad guy one last shot at macho redemption.
Is Harry's gun empty? Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't work out for the
perp.

Well, luck's a funny thing. Sometimes you're the windshield, as my
pappy used to say, and sometimes you're the bug.

Except when you're all windshield, like Joan Ginther of Bishop, Texas.
Last spring she won $10 million with a scratch off ticket in a Texas
lottery.

"Oh, goody," thought Ms. Ginther. "I can put that with the $3 million
I won in the 2008 lottery. And the $2 million I won in 2006. Not to
mention the $5.4 million I won in 1993."

True story.

Experts say you've got a better shot at being fricasseed by a
lightning bolt than you have of winning a lottery. Joan Ginther's been
struck by Fate's Golden Forefinger four times in the past two decades.

Unlike Chris Tarttelin. He's a 37-year-old Brit trying to become a
Canadian. He figured he'd won the Life Lottery when he moved to
Saskatoon with his wife and two kids two years ago. He's a computer
software developer and he'd already lined up a good job - just the
kind of new blood you'd think we'd bend over backwards to attract. All
he had to do was pass a routine medical exam and he was in.

Oops.

Turns out Mister Tarttelin suffers from one grievous personal handicap
that renders him unfit for Canadian citizenship.

He's too honest.

When asked if he'd ever taken drugs, Tarttelin replied, "I tried pot
as a teenager but I didn't really take to it. I tried it a couple of
times and that was about it."

Wrong answer.

Tarttelin was told he would have to have a psychiatric assessment.
What's more he'd have to have the assessment done and a report from
the psychiatrist within 60 days.

"You can't see a psychiatrist in Saskatoon in that time frame," says
Tarttelin.

He's moving back to Britain with his family.

The level of hypocrisy here is truly mind boggling. A psychiatric
assessment for a couple of joints smoked 19 years ago? If that's
valid, 98 per cent of Canadians should be on the couch or living at
the funny farm.

Barack Obama tried pot. So did Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ted Turner,
Stephen King and Sir Richard Branson. Pierre Berton went on Rick
Mercer's TV show and delivered a joint-rolling tutorial. He was in his
80s!

I venture to guess that the Citizenship and Immigration buzzards who
vetoed Tarttelin's bid for Canadian citizenship themselves toked up a
time or two in their lives.

Lesson for all prospective Canadian immigrants: if you admit to so
much as sniffing a cannabis leaf you're history.

Liars and cheaters, however, are welcome.

It all comes down to luck in the end, and its Chris Tarttelin's bad
luck to be unusually honest.

"I'm a painfully honest person. It doesn't occur to me to answer
questions any other way."

Loser. We don't need your kind in Canada. Why don't you try Germany?
They're more tolerant of over-indulgers there. As evidenced by the
35-year-old Polish immigrant who moved to Bochum, Germany five years
ago. Recently he went to the doctor to have a cyst removed from the
back of his head.

The doctor removed a bullet instead. Confronted with the lead nugget,
the guy dimly recalled receiving a blow to the head at a New Year's
party "in 2004 or 2005."

He told the doctor he didn't remember it all that clearly because he
had been "very stoned."

Talk about dumb luck.