George Galloway's Latest Publicity Stunt
Former British MP George Galloway, who has never encountered a spotlight he’d like to avoid, says he plans to sue the Canadian government for barring him from Canada last year.
Except he wasn’t actually barred. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney warned that he was not welcome here to make anti-war speeches because he supported Hamas, which Canada views as a terrorist organization. So Mr. Galloway changed his mind about trying to enter, and made his speech to a Mississauga audience via video link from New York. At the time there was something of an uproar about the banning. Many who disagree with everything Galloway stands for (even Britain’s Labour Party expelled him), felt Canadians would somehow survive if allowed to hear his rantings.
And last Sunday, at a downtown Toronto United Church, he voiced his legal threats against the federal government and Mr. Kenney. At issue, surely, is not Galloway’s (or any other foreigner’s) right to enter Canada, but Canada’s right to exclude anyone it doesn’t want visiting (or immigrating) here. Until someone becomes a Canadian citizen, his/her “rights” in Canada are limited.
I suspect that’s how most people feel, though this is not necessarily the practice. Last year, Federal Court Justice Luc Martineau ruled that non-citizens “do not have an unqualified right to enter Canada . . . (it) is a privilege determined by stature, regulation or otherwise, and not as a matter of right.”
More recently, Justice Richard Mosely opined that the government was politically motivated in not wanting Galloway here and was unfair in implying that by giving aid to Hamas he was supporting terrorism. Galloway says a million pounds he helped raise for Hamas, (including his own pledge of 25,000 pounds), was humanitarian aid.
So far his threat to sue the Canadian government and Kenney for invasion of privacy -- or for implying he supports terrorism -- are mere words. Grandstanding, like his efforts to lure Kenney into a boxing match, or at least a debate.
It’s all vintage Galloway – who sued Britain’s Daily Telegraph in 2004 and won, over allegations that he’d received something like $800,000 from the oil-for-food program with Iraq, which sullied his reputation.
Galloway is a magnet for contrarian issues. He feels “the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life,” whose demise resulted in “the U.S rampaging around the globe.”
He opposed both Iraq wars, and has urged British troops to refuse to fight. He called Tony Blair’s Labor government a “lie machine,” and was kicked out. In a speech to the Oxford Union he claimed “democracy in Cuba is more free than in the UK.” Friendly towards Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, he said in a 2004 speech in Jordan: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” It was later claimed he meant the Iraqi people, not Saddam.
This year, when he tried to lead an aid convoy of 200 trucks from Egypt to Gaza, violence ensued between Egyptians and Hamas. Galloway was deported and “will not be allowed to enter Egypt again.” Galloway replied: “I’ve been thrown out of better joints than that.”
Since losing his seat in the Commons, Galloway has taken to radio and several TV shows, hosting some of them. He owns publishing houses, has written a couple of books and writes a column for the Guardian newspaper – which figures.
If he sues the government, the trial should liven up the Canadian scene.