George Galloway’s Canadian conundrum

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Just over a year ago, British MP George Galloway was about to come to Canada for a short, four-city speaking tour. That tour never happened – at least not in person, anyway, as he was barred from entering the country by the Canadian Border Services Agency. Now, a Federal Court hearing will determine whether that decision should be overturned, and Canadians ought to be paying attention.

The problem with Galloway – that is, the reason he was banned from Canada in the first place – is that the Canadian government considers him to be a supporter of a terrorist group. That charge stems from a financial donation (approximately $40,000) that Galloway made to, as he put it, “the ministry of health in Gaza to pay for the salaries of the doctors and nurses who hadn’t been paid… it’s a symbolic donation.” However, the Canadian government has attributed that to financially supporting Hamas, the governing party of Gaza, a group that it considers as a terrorist organization.

But it gets a little tricker. The decision to ban Galloway from Canada was taken by the CBSA, but all along there have been charges that it was actually the Conservative government of Canada that prompted that action. According to the Globe and Mail, an immigration officer in London told Galloway’s assistant that “Mr. Galloway has been deemed inadmissible by Canada’s immigration minister, Jason Kenney, and that he [Mr. Galloway] would be denied entry at a Canadian port of entry.”

In fact, the Globe asserts, the decision to bar Galloway from entering Canada (a decision that Minister Kenny maintained operated under normail bureaucratic avenues) actually took less than  two hours, and stemmed from an email sent by Kenney’s communications director, Alykhan Velshi, to the Immigration Department’s director general of communications, Edison Stewart. From the Globe:

Mr. Velshi sent along copies of articles quoting Mr. Galloway’s articles, as Mr. Stewart forwarded the case to senior officials including Stéphane Larue, the director-general of the Immigration Department’s case-management branch, who said he would ask CBSA to do a “very quick inadmissibility assessment.” Mr. Velshi chimed in that if it came up to Mr. Kenney, “I can fairly predict that he will not ever give a [entry permit] to someone who advocated the kind of things George Galloway advocates.”

Which all means that there’s a bit of explaining to do on all sides. It seems the two most important questions that need answering are: Where exactly did Galloway’s money go? And, was the decision to bar him from Canada in fact one that was made entirely by the immigration minister, and not via the regular channels? At the time, the Tories denied having anything to do with it, and in fact Kenney said that he didn’t have the power to bar someone, only to overrule a CBSA decision.

Third, and perhaps just as important, is the question of whether Canadians were denied a basic right by Galloway’s forced absence. The CBC put it this way:

At the time [of the entry refusal], Federal Court Judge Luc Martineau said he wasn’t satisfied that the necessary conditions had been met to issue an emergency injunction.

One of the conditions is called “irreparable harm” — in this case, whether or not the rights of Canadians will be infringed if they don’t get a chance to hear Galloway.

In the end, Galloway made his appearance anyway, only via video link from New York, not in person. That means that Canadians – at least the ones who wanted to – heard him speak, thereby assuring that their rights were met. But that’s a fairly tricky argument, given the ease of video conferencing. Effectively, if that’s the standard, everyone would be barred physically, with the recommendation that they download Skype.

The review of the decision will begin Wednesday (it was due to begin today, but was postponed thanks to a lawyer for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association falling and hurting herself), and undoubtedly will bring with it a whole new set of headlines and of pro-versus-con protests from those gathered outside the court building.

Canadians ought to be interested in this decision, as it addresses some fairly fundamental questions about our country and what value we place on freedom of expression. Was the government right to bar Galloway before he even said anything to Canadians, thanks to some rather unclear financial ties to a terrorist organization? Or should we let Galloway – and perhaps others – enter the country and voice what might be very controversial opinions? Where, or how, do we draw that distinction?