Canada Blocks Outspoken British MP

Anti-war politician vows to speak to Canadians after 'inexplicable' decision to deny entry on security grounds.

British MP George Galloway Courtesy: mkjones.co.uk

(OTTAWA, Ontario) - Canadian officials have denied outspoken anti-war British MP George Galloway entry into Canada on grounds he poses a threat to national security.

Alykhan Velshi, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, said today Galloway has openly supported Hamas, classified as a terrorist group in Canada, as well as other terrorists.

And for that reason, Velshi said the minister is refusing to override the decision by Canada Border Security Agency officials under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

"What we are not going to do is give special treatment to someone who has bragged about providing 'financial support' for Hamas ... and who sympathized with the Taliban terrorists who are killing Canadians overseas," Velshi said.

Galloway, who was expected to begin a Canadian speaking tour in Toronto on March 30, called the ban outrageous.

Galloway said his supposed support for Hamas amounted to leading an aid convoy into Gaza to break the "illegal siege" following the month-long Israeli incursion in January.

"I led a convoy of 110 British vehicles, more than 300 British citizens, to break the illegal siege of Gaza just a few days ago. Most people in the world think that feeding people under siege is something to be commended rather than something to get you banned," he told the Star in a telephone interview from his London office.

"This is now being after-the-fact conjured forth," said the 54-year-old Scotsman.

He noted that when news he was being denied entry to visit Canada first appeared in the British press, it was supposedly because he had expressed opposition to the NATO-led Afghan war.

He is still awaiting a written explanation of the government's decision. Kevin Ovenden, Galloway's spokesman, said that document was supposed to be sent from Canada's High Commission in London today.

"It still hasn't arrived and I think I know why," Galloway said. "Because we'll be challenging this in the courts in Canada, seeking a judicial review on the minister's decision, and as he has no basis for excluding me that would stand up to judicial scrutiny, I suspect they're now scrambling around ex post facto trying to put one together."

He suggested it is legally "inexplicable" to block his entry to Canada and the decision should only be seen as a way to win political points with narrow interest groups in Canada.

"This has been deliberately created as a kind of wedge issue along with others, like the funding of the Canadian Arab Forum (sic) and so on," Galloway said.

Kenney ordered officials in the immigration department not to renew a $2.1-million contract to the Canadian Arab Federation to provide immigrant language instruction. The government may also scrap a $500,000 contract to help immigrants find jobs when it expires next year.

An explanatory letter to the CAF accused them of promoting hatred, anti-Semitic comments and expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Galloway was last in Canada in 2007 for a speaking engagement and media appearances, and in 2006 appeared on CBC-TV's The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos. He has no criminal record, has never been denied entry to any other country and will still travel to the United States for that portion of his speaking tour.

He's vowing to still speak out to Canadians as well.

"I'll come to the Canadian border and I will be heard in Canada one way or another. Whether it's by megaphone across the bridge or through the new technology that now exists. This here-today-gone-tomorrow minister will not stop me being heard by those who want to hear me in Canada."

Canada has banned a number of high-profile individuals from entering Canada in the past, though most have been barred because they have criminal records.

In January, former U.S. radical William Ayers, an anti-war protester and co-founder of the Weather Underground, a group that targeted U.S. government property such as the Capital Building and Pentagon with bombs in the 1960s, was denied entry for a 1969 conviction.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, was also barred from attending the opening of a Toronto opera based on her life story. She had a 1991 conviction for kidnapping and being an accessory to murder, and another conviction in 2003 for fraud and theft.

A number of entertainers have also been denied permission to tour in Canada because of their criminal pasts, including hip-hop artists Ghostface Killah, NAS and Common.

Some critics have called the government's decision to bar Galloway an attack on free speech.

"It is important to allow Canadians to hear different points of view and at least he should be allowed to express them. Once you start censoring what Canadians can or cannot hear, that's a dangerous slippery slope with unintended consequences," NDP MP Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) said.

Chow said it is yet another example of the Conservative government's "bunker mentality, it's my way or the highway."

Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 for urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq. He formed his own party, Respect, and won re-election to the Commons in 2005.

In 2005, Galloway created a spectacle on Capitol Hill by denouncing U.S. senators while testifying before a committee that accused his political organization and his wife of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.N. oil-for-food allocations from Saddam Hussein.

Canadian Jewish Congress lauded the decision to refuse Galloway entry.

"We applaud the Canadian government for keeping George Galloway, a man who thrives on his support of terrorists, out of Canada," said CJC Co-President Sylvain Abitbol.

With files from The Associated Press ===========================================================

Special thanks to Ottowa Bureau