This Is Not A Story About Free Speech. This Is Not A Story About National Security.

Listen to:

Terry Glavin on the "Galloway affair"

Or read, if you so prefer:

This Is Not A Story About Free Speech. This Is Not A Story About National Security.

Or this here:

Mr. Galloway was not barred from Canada. Mr. Galloway was not banned from Canada. Mr. Galloway did not ask to come to Canada, or attempt to enter Canada. He was not turned away, nor was he denied the right to speak here. None of these things happened. None of these things occurred. No Canadian was denied the right to hear Mr. Galloway, either. He beamed his speeches by video to the Canadians engagements that he himself chose to avoid.

Canada showed Mr. Galloway every possible courtesy, but one: We declined his request to be set above the law, to be exempted in advance from an ordinary border admissibility stipulation that requires prospective visitors to be neither triggermen nor bagmen for any organization that Canada lists as a terrorist organization. For this one impertinence, Canada was shunned by Mr. Galloway. Yet Canada stands accused of shunning him, trampling upon his rights, and doing so for the most fantastic and non-existent reasons.