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Galloway Barred While Bush Toasted

Canadian government ignores citizens in Bush welcome, Galloway refusal

24 March, 2009

Canadian border security has shocked anti-war campaigners by barring British MP George Galloway from entering the country. Galloway was scheduled to speak on March 30 at a Toronto conference, "Resisting War From Gaza to Kandahar,"but his appearance at the event and other stops on the Canadian leg of his current North American speaking tour are in jeopardy pending the outcome of legal action Galloway is considering to overturn the ruling.

The Canadian government’s eagerness to ban Galloway—an elected representative of the British people currently sitting in Parliament—on "national security grounds" contrasts sharply with their refusal to heed the requests of thousands of Canadian citizens and dozens of organizations to ban alleged war criminal George W. Bush from entering Canada ahead of his recent speaking engagement in Calgary.

As The Corbett Report previously reported, the efforts of Lawyers Against the War and a coalition of grassroots organizations urging the Canadian government to bar Bush were ultimately unsuccessful. Bush spoke in Calgary on March 17, although hundreds of protesters made their presence known at a gathering outside that saw Mohawk activist Splitting The Sky arrested for attempting to perform a citizen's arrest of Bush.

Reacting to the ban, Mr. Galloway said it was a sad day for Canada, noting that he had previously regarded the country as "a bastion of the freedoms that supporters of the occupation of Afghanistan claim to be defending."

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney confirmed for the press that the ban had been enacted "based on a number of factors" in accordance with sction 34(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This section of the act allows border security to bar foreign nationals from entering the country for a broad spectrum of activities, from espionage and violence against foreign governments to merely affiliating with groups that the government suspects will engage in such activities some day.

That latter point is of particular relevance to peace groups, who are now left wondering whether they are seriously being targeted by the Harper government as potentially subversive organizations. In a particularly unsettling moment at the end of a TV appearance that pitted Meir Weinsten of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) against Mr. Galloway in a debate over the merits of the ban, Mr. Weinsten warned Galloway and his supporters that the JDL "will be looking into these organizations [hosting Galloway's speaking events] to expose their links to terrorist organizations." Watch a video of the exchange in the player below.

The press, as well as Mr. Kenney's spokesman, have intimated that the ban is being imposed because of Mr. Galloway's alleged support of terrorist organizations and supposed incitement to overthrow foreign governments, although it remains unclear what new political stand Mr. Galloway has taken since his last Canadian visit in 2008 for this change in immigration status to apply. In a particularly enlightening article on the website of War Criminals Out!—one of the organizations which opposed Bush's entry last week—Joshua Blakeney exposes the various charges against Galloway cited in support of the ban as baseless and flawed. Picking apart each claim one by one and showing Galloway to be a staunch supporter of the principle that all people are entitled to political self-determination, Blakeney also exposes the hypocrisy of Jason Kenney, himself an appeared in support of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which has been designated a terrorist organization in a number of European countries.

Kenney—who has the authority to overturn the ban—has affirmed that he will not intervene to allow Galloway in. Mr. Galloway has indicated that he is considering whatever legal recourse is open to him in a last-ditch effort to enter the country.

Summarizing the situation, Galloway lamented that the ban "has further vindicated the anti-war movement's contention that unjust wars abroad will end up consuming the very liberties that make us who we are."

Related works from The Corbett Report:

Splitting The Sky talks about his arrest (interview)

Splitting The Sky Arrested (article)

Splitting The Sky (interview)