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Smuggler ill, wants to go home

Infamous pot convict’s cancer stirs yearning for return to U.S.

By: Bruce Owen

Posted: 05/17/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Macdonald's children point out Ottawa is paying for his expensive care at Winnipeg's Fred Douglas Lodge. (MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

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Whitey Macdonald pleaded guilty last year to smuggling marijuana. (MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

Ian Jackson "Whitey" Macdonald wants to go home to die.

The gaunt, 73-year-old convicted marijuana smuggler can barely walk — he shuffles instead, mostly to go to the bathroom every few minutes because of his prostate cancer.

But he can’t go home. He’s confined to Fred Douglas Lodge where he’s serving his two-year-less-a-day conditional sentence, essentially house arrest.

He pleaded guilty last September for his part in an international marijuana- smuggling scheme RCMP shut down in 1980, the same operation that saw former Manitoba MLA Bob Wilson convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Besides being confined to Fred Douglas Lodge, Macdonald is confined to a body racked with cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

"The cancer is starting to bother me," Macdonald said Wednesday, in the company of his three children from his first marriage. "I don’t want to use cancer as an excuse, but it is becoming a problem.

"I’m probably very lonely."

His health ailments are such that Macdonald is spending more time in hospital for treatment and taking more medication.

His children, Lisa Alexander, Kelly Weiss and Basey Shane are in Winnipeg this week appealing to authorities to let their father go to his farm in Pennsylvania to be with his wife Angela, who has her own health issues.

"I talk to her every day, but I haven’t seen her in months," Macdonald said. "She needs me. I need her."

Alexander also said they want people to know of the growing cost to the province’s health-care system of caring for their father.

"Canada’s paying for everything," Weiss said. "Why are they spending these resources? What’s the underlying motive for that?

Alexander said she and her siblings grew up not knowing much about their dad. They moved to Los Angeles with their mom as kids when their parents split in the late 1970s, before Macdonald went on to become a Winnipeg criminal legend.

Macdonald, or "Big Mac," was first arrested in Florida in 1980 where police said he spearheaded a series of deals in which he’d ship 15-kilogram bales of marijuana to Canada, using a network of associates. The drugs had been brought in from Colombia.

Following his arrest, Macdonald complained of angina pain and was taken to hospital. He fled while the guard was preoccupied.

It would be 30 years before U.S. Marshals tracked Macdonald down to the Florida town of Homosassa where he was living with his wife under the name Jack Hunter. Within months, he was in a Winnipeg courtroom.

He’s since reunited with his son and two daughters, who each say their "pop" has served long enough. Generally, offenders are eligible for full parole after serving one-third of their sentence.

"I haven’t been in any other trouble," Macdonald said from his mobility chair.

"Canada is punishing him, and I get that," said Alexander. "They got their guilty plea, but we’re being punished, too. We’re being punished a second time."

The other punishment, perhaps impossible to measure, is the time Macdonald missed out on seeing his children become adults and parents. He has seven grandchildren and one great-granddaughter he’s never met.

"I think my dad realizes through getting to know my sister, brother and I that he really missed out on a great family," Alexander said.

"We all turned out good and he had nothing to do with it," Basey said.

"Of course I regret what I’ve done," Macdonald added. "I’d give anything to do it all over."

The family has appealed to prosecutors and federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, but have not got a reply.

"We realize that what we’re trying to do is really a shot in the dark," Alexander said. "It’s not something that’s so easily done, but it has been done.

"He’s not a threat to anybody, as you can see. The man just wants to go home and die at home. I think his biggest mistake more than trafficking marijuana is what he did to his three children."

"I just need one more chance," Macdonald said. "I think I could probably keep my family together and happy."

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

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