Galloway & Hypocrisy

Within the George Galloway controversy there is an abundance of hypocrisy. 

We have, of course, Galloway's own flagrant hypocrisy in that he applauded the British government's decision to deny entry to Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

 

We have, as well, some of my fellow conservative free-speechers who (rightly) criticized that decision by the British government but (wrongly) supported the decision by the Canadian government.

 

We also have the case of the federal New Democrats, who have jumped on the Galloway bandwagon:

 

Harper's Conservatives are wrong to bar MP George Galloway,” said New Democrat Immigration Critic Olivia Chow. “The Minister of Immigration is becoming the ‘Minister of Censorship’. This bunker mentality indicates a government afraid of hearing contradictory points of view."

Minister Kenny’s reasons for denying George Galloway entry are an affront to freedom of speech and show the Harper government is frightened of an open debate on an unpopular war.

 

Well, Galloway's hardly anti-war - rather, he's pro-war, just on the other side.

 

In any event, the NDP logic in this case is that government should not be sheltering us from opinions even if they are offensive. Where was that logic last November:

 

Canada's public safety minister needs to stop a notorious American anti-gay group from entering the country, according to Vancouver East MP Libby Davies of the NDP.

The Westboro Baptist Church is planning to come to Vancouver next week to protest the performance of the Laramie Project at Havana Theatre on Commercial Drive.

The play is about the death of Matthew Shepard, a young man who was beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998 for being gay.

Davies wants Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan to make sure border officials block the group, because she says their anti-gay message breaks Canadian law.

"In Canada, it's against the law to incite hatred against gays and lesbians or any other identifiable group," Davies told CBC Radio on Wednesday morning.

Of course, the hateful words of the Westboro Baptist Church are included in the play itself, so Canadians are already exposed to them. In this case, though, the NDP sounds exactly like those wanting to keep out Galloway.

 

The BC Civil Liberties Association has been consistent on these issues. Here's (PDF) what they said at the time:

 

So too here, we should not use government law enforcement agents at borders to filter what is said and heard in this country and to exercise a paternalistic judgment of what is fit for us to hear. Going down that path would be dangerous.

 

If only speech that the government of the day or some border agent likes us to hear is allowed to enter the country, one of our most precious freedoms will be impaired.

 

UPDATE: If it's hypocrisy you like, there's plenty more where that came from. Take those valiant defenders of free speech (hah!) the Canadian Arab Federation and the Canadian Islamic Congress: here's (PDF) their news release:

 

"It’s also unfortunate that Minister Kenney thinks Canadians need him to protect them from Mr. Galloway’s opinions -- that they are unable to draw their own conclusions about the merit of what Mr. Galloway has to say,' observes Valiante adding, 'I certainly think that given the facts on either side of an argument, that Canadians can reason for themselves."

 

(Via BCF) So, to re-cap: the CAF & CIC both claim to believe that Canadians are mature enough to be exposed to different ideas and that border agents should not be in the business of screening people for their views. Hmm, that's funny, because less that two years ago both groups were calling on a controversial speaker to be kept out of Canada (emphasis added):

 

The Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) and the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) issued a joint statement today protesting an upcoming Toronto conference on "Immigration Policy, Border Controls, and the Terrorist Threat in Canada and the United States," organized by the far-right Fraser Institute.

(...)

 

The CAF and CIC are therefore asking municipal and federal authorities to respond to the June conference in three areas of concern:

* Immigration authorities are urged immediately to bar Bat Ye'or from entering Canada