Conservatives love to talk ‘free speech’ and get upset when they meet the legal wall after they libel or defame. But if you happen to be a non-Con, the rules change. Bill Ayers has found this out in his attempts to travel to Harper’s Canada, where is currently barred because of … well, nobody can really explain why.
There’s another irony, of course, in the government preventing me from exercising the very responsibility I was invited to address. This is a basic issue of free and open debate and the democratic exchange of ideas – not one of a potential threat to the nation’s security.
The technical issue here is that the border guard who turned me back in Calgary said that, according his computer, I had quite a lengthy arrest record. True, I said, arrests from sit-ins, occupations, and antiwar activities 40 years ago, and all misdemeanours. Well, he responded, you have one felony conviction, and that’s why you will not get into Canada today.
But I don’t have any felony convictions. Prove that you don’t have any, he said.
Years and a lot of lawyer’s fees later, I’m still having trouble disproving a negative, if you get the Catch-22 here … but wait! I just realised that some of those fees are, indeed, contributing to the prosperity of Canada! OK, I’ll stay out.