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Today's Top News
Canada’s Olympic Crackdown
Going to Canada? You may be detained at the border and interrogated. I was, last week. I was heading from Seattle to give a talk at the Vancouver Public Library. My detention provoked outrage across Canada, making national news. It has serious implications for the freedom of the press in North America.
I drove to the border with two colleagues. We showed our passports to the Canadian guard and answered standard questions about our purpose for entering Canada. No visas are necessary for U.S. citizens to enter.
The guard promptly told us to pull over, leave the car and enter the border crossing building.
What followed was a flagrant violation of freedom of the press and freedom of speech. A guard first demanded the notes for my talk. I was shocked. I explained that I speak extemporaneously. He would not back off. He demanded notes. I went out to the car and brought in a copy of my new book, a collection of my weekly columns called “Breaking the Sound Barrier.” I handed him a copy and said I start with the last column in it.
“I begin each talk with the story of Tommy Douglas,” I explained, “the late premier of Saskatchewan, father of Canada’s universal health care system.” Considered the greatest Canadian, Douglas happens to be actor Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather, but I didn’t get that far.
“What else?” the armed guard demanded as we stood in the Douglas border facility.
“I’ll be talking about global warming and the Copenhagen climate summit.”
“What else?”
“I’ll address the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“What else?” The interrogator was hand-writing notes, while another guard was typing at a computer terminal.
“Well, that’s about it.”
He looked at me skeptically. “Are you going to talk about the Olympics?” he asked.
I was puzzled. “Do you mean how President Obama recently traveled to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympic Games to be held in Chicago?”
He shot back, “You didn’t get those. I am talking about the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.” Again, stunned, I said I wasn’t planning to.
The guard looked incredulous. “Are you telling me you aren’t going to be talking about the Olympics?” I repeatedly asserted that I was not.
Clearly not believing me, the guard and others combed through our car.
When I went out to check, he was on my colleague’s computer, poring through it.
Afterward, they pulled me in a back room and took my photo, then called in the others, one by one. Then they handed us back our passports with “control documents” stapled inside. The forms said we had to leave Canada within two days and had to check in with their border agency upon leaving. We went to the car—and discovered that they had rifled through our belongings and our papers and had gone into at least two of our three laptops. We raced to the event, where people had been told about our detention. We were 90 minutes late, but the room remained packed, the crowd incensed at their government.
It was then that I started learning about what was going on. The crackdown is widespread, it turns out. David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, told me, “We have a billion dollars being spent on security here; protesters and activists have been identified as the No. 1 security threat to the Olympic Games ... we have new city bylaws that restrict the content of people’s signs.” According to critics, the police can raid your home if you place an anti-Olympic sign in your window. There are concerns that homeless people may be swept from Vancouver, about how much public funding the Games are receiving while vital social services are financially starved. Anti-Olympic activists—and their family and friends—are being followed, detained and questioned.
Our detention and interrogation were not only a violation of freedom of the press but also a violation of the public’s right to know. Because if journalists feel there are things they can’t report on, that they’ll be detained, that they’ll be arrested or interrogated; this is a threat to the free flow of information. And that’s the public’s loss, an Olympic loss for democracy.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
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62 Comments so far
Show AllGet 'em, Amy!
The Olympics have been politicized to the point that they need to be terminated forever.
If my local electeds ever spend one dime of taxpayers' money trying to lure the Olympics I will start a recall/impeachment movement immmediately and so should every caring citizen everywhere.
When Amy Goodman spoke in Boulder last Saturday, she described in even greater detail what happened at the border crossing. Clearly the North American police/surviellance state continues to develop its instruments and tentacles of repression in ever greater breadth and depth. The empire's ruling class have glib political front men in Harper and Obama, slick tongued and adept liars. Meanwhile the homeland security apparatus fed with tens of billions of tax dollars is a corporate bonanza and is increasingly being used to repress and attack any portion of the population giving even the slightest evidence of opposition to the agendas of the rulers, witness the events at the 2008 Dem and Repug political conventions and the G-20 Pittsburgh. The incarnations of Big Brother smile and smirk from their many lairs in the national security state.
Amy, your experience is becoming increasingly typical. Even when traveling to visit someone within Canada, you are very likely to be pulled aside and subjected to a thorough inspection and examination of yourself and every article or item you have with you.
Here in Vancouver, where I live, whole sections of the downtown core will be off limits if you don't have a pass or games ticket. Vital deliveries for business in the downtown core affected may only have deliveries made before 6:00AM.
Travel on the newly completed Sea to Sky Highway past Lion's Bay will be forbidden unless you have a valid games ticket or pass, or can prove residency in Squamish, Whistler or Pemberton. And even then, no more than two people per residence may travel that route at the same time.
And to fill the seats (because ticket sales are slumping) the schools in the Lower Mainland will be closed, with several thousand children 'winning' seats in the opening and closing ceremonies. Never mind that the working parents of these children will have to scramble to find adequate and very limited child care for this three week orgy.
The crackdown on the homeless in Vancouver is assured. Legislation was passed that will allow the homeless to be scooped up off the streets and forcibly confined to shelters, 24 hours a day, for the three weeks of the Games. Their meager belongings will not go with them ,and will in fact be shoved into the nearest dumpster.
The sign law has been 'amended' to 'allow' (gee, thanks guys) protest signs, but only outside the security perimeters of the games facilities. The PTB tell us that the sign law was emplaced to protect 'Olympic Copyright' so businesses not approved by IOC/VANOC can't ride the Olympic gravy train. And we will still have the out of camera range 'free speech' pens. Lastly, the VPD three weeks ago confirmed they had purchased an LRAD sound cannon, but they promised to only use it in it's loudhailer mode (this from Canada's TASER use capital...)
We will have something on the order of 25 000 police and active duty military 'protecting' the security of the Games. As your article stated, so far, without a single day of competition, we have already burned through *ONE BILLION* dollars. And that is not the worst of it. A 'No Fly' zone will blanket the Greater Vancouver area, the Whistler corridor, and Whistler. No flights of any kind except scheduled airlines are allowed (and even they will be curtailed). No tourist or business helicopter flights, no ballon flights, hell, not even model planes will be permitted to fly. They are even considering a kite ban.
And to top it off, the US has said that they would be operating *ARMED* Predator drones over Vancouver and area to 'protect' US athletes and officials. With rumors swirling of a possible visit by Obama, I can see things are only going to get worse.
Many people I know and many more I talk to have said they are getting out of Vancouver for the duration of the Games. And the underlings in the Legislature are openly calling the Olympics 'Gordo's Games'.
To end this I will apologize for the terrible way you were treated at the border. Hopefully you will come back to visit.
"Here in Vancouver, where I live, whole sections of the downtown core will be off limits if you don't have a pass or games ticket."
This is unso. "Live Sites" and "Fun Zones" will be free and accessible without tickets. Access to venues and the two media centres will be restricted to ticket-holders and/or accredited personnel. So no: you won't be able to walk into GM Place at will. You can't do that now.
"Vital deliveries for business in the downtown core affected may only have deliveries made before 6:00AM."
Again, unso. Businesses on closed roads won't have deliveries at all. Businesses elsewhere are encouraged to schedule deliveries before 6:00 am.
"And to fill the seats (because ticket sales are slumping) the schools in the Lower Mainland will be closed ... "
Wrong again! West Vancouver, Delta and Surrey are the only Lower Mainland School Districts that have modified their spring break to coincide with the Olympic or Paralympic Games. All other districts will break at the usual time. The University of British Columbia, an Olympic and Paralympic venue, will extend its reading break by one week to coincide with the Olympic Games.
"The crackdown on the homeless in Vancouver is assured. Legislation was passed that will allow the homeless to be scooped up off the streets and forcibly confined to shelters, 24 hours a day, for the three weeks of the Games."
Legislation has been passed allowing police to transport people at risk to shelters during extreme weather. It does not permit shelters to confine them, not even for a minute. This legislation was in response to the burning death of a mentally ill homeless woman last year, and it is supported by most mental health and poverty advocates, shelters, and many homeless people themselves. In the past, police had only two options: leave a person at risk on the street, or arrest her, typically on minor charges, and put her in jail. Additionally, shelter capacity has been increased, and there are now shelters that accept shopping carts and animal companions. How is this not a good thing?
I could go on, but won't. Accurate information is available to anyone who cares to look for it.
I didn't vote for the 2010 Games, and I have many concerns about how they will affect my city, and particularly its most vulnerable residents. However, the amount of distortion and outright lying some in the anti-Games camp engage in even after their claims have been thoroughly debunked is appalling and would be laughable if they didn't detract from serious discussion of real issues.
"And to top it off, the US has said that they would be operating *ARMED* Predator drones over Vancouver and area to 'protect' US athletes and officials." –(Galenwainwright).
–Unbelievable, but not in the least surprising that things have come to this.
Friends in London told me that similar 'protections' were discussed when George Bush visited. Instead attack helicopters and American jets had to suffice during what amounted to an American military occupation by proxy.
The next thing will probably be some kind of 'small scale' military contingency 'task force' occupation– specifically designed for foreign cities by American troops.
Acceptable levels of collateral damage: For each American who dies, one hundred civilians or 'terrorist sympathizers.' That sounds about right. Of course, the Americans will be operating with complete impunity, that has been pre-arranged in advance. Perhaps even by Hillary Clinton herself?
Thanks for your report. –(Jill Bains)
This article demonstrates that Amy Goodman articles are all about Amy Goodman. The kind of selective border-harassment she decries as a "crackdown" has been happening to dull normals going in both directions for years.
About 10 years ago, I was asked to get out of the vehicle I was travelling in (to Boston from Montreal), while American border police stripped it down to the metal, removing interior panels even. And then they went through my personal items and read my travel journal. After about an hour, they called me into a designated room and asked me questions about it. "What were you doing in Amsterdam?"
So this "article" is more like a page from Amy Goodman's diary. How many other stories she writes about are really about Amy Goodman's trials in the world of alternative media?
[Q]atzelok's "comment" is more like a page from qatzelok's "I Despise Amy Goodman" diary.
[Q]atzelok believes that IT'S story is more worthy of attention than Amy's, and resents the attention being paid to Amy.
How many other comments it writes about are really about qatzelok's trials in the world of comments threads?
· Yr Obd't Servant
I'm not a famous celebrity with media connections, but I liked your post nonetheless.
You may not be a "celebrity with media connections"– a baseless and insulting description you disdainfully try to stick on Amy Goodman. But you are a sneering and spiteful little fascist with a barely masked proclivity for displaying a sense of your own palpable inferiority.
That neither I or my family was even allowed into Canada does not dignify, in comparison, the very specific treatment Amy Goodman was subjected to. That Goodman's harassment was anything but accidental is the point you seem to overlook, despite your entreaties to the contrary.
Perhaps less than one in one hundred Americans and even fewer Canadians know about Amy Goodman or her work. It is a grotesque distortion to disparage her– and by inference her work–with the disrespectful fluff moniker of "celebrity." It is 'smear' mongering, all the more hypocritical because it claims to be anything but.
It does not take much psychoanalytical training, intuition or acuity to sense that you are in fact 'delighted' that Amy Goodman was detained as she was. The same with the rest of your ilk 'up thread,' which inferred much the same thing.
Wouldn't it just be more dignified to admit that, instead of posting some prevaricating, disingenuous vulgarity that is personally embarrassing to you?
Even crypto-fascists should not willfully deny themselves a modicum of personal dignity or abase themselves in public, even if only in the virtual ether of internet anonymity.
–(Jill Bains)
You make some really good points, Amfortas. I guess she's not really a celebrity at all. Just some ordinary person who got held up at the border.
So then, why did Common Dreams print this boring story about nothing special?
And as for your accusing me of being a fascist... I guess you're implying that it takes a fascist to wonder why - in the age of the Internet - it's still always the same voices and always the same faces who are supposed to represent "the rest of us."
This not the first report from Democracy Now! on the problem -- in fact here's something from October 2008
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/23/headlines#17
ACLU: Border Guard Powers Undermining Privacy Rights
The American Civil Liberties Union says the expansive powers of border guards is creating what it calls a “Constitution-free Zone” for large swaths of the US. The ACLU says because the government is claiming border and customs powers extend 100 miles inland, many Americans are being subjected to privacy invasions that wouldn’t normally be allowed. The so-called 100-mile “border region” includes nine out of the top ten major metro areas and two-thirds of the US population.
Here in the Happy Little Kingdom, aka Denmark, the gov't just passed a "Trouble-maker" Law [loemmel pakke] in order to be able to keep law and order during the Climate Conference this month.
The law includes among other things:
1. Preventive arrest and 12 hr. detainment of people who look mean.
2. 10 doubling of fines for disorder and illegal demonstrations.
3. Arbitrary arrest of people participating in or near illegal demonstrations
4. Mandatory 40 day jail for disturbing the function of the police (sit-downs in the street that block the police, for ex.)
On top of this, because they expect they will be forced to make so many arrests, empty warehouses have been selected to keep arrested trouble makers. These quarters will not be comfortable says the police chief, but people can just behave themselves.
And yes, of course, law-abiding demonstrators have nothing to worry about, especially if they stay at home.
_______________
There's a glory in the morning because the earth turns 'round and a promise in the evening when the sun goes down
why it is so important to discuss one well-known person stopped at border and asked question for unusually long time ?
People are treated much worse than Ms. Goodman on daily bases on either side of border. At least she was allowed to cross go into Canada, there are people who got held for hours and send back even though they present all legal papers and documents.
Apparently , it seems its more about Ms. Goodman as the opening segment suggest "I was heading from Seattle to give a talk at the Vancouver Public Library. My detention provoked outrage across Canada, making national news."
"What followed was a flagrant violation of freedom of the press and freedom of speech."
It happens everyday on the both side of border, what is the difference this time ?? That Ms. Goodman - a well-known, person has to go through difficulty ?
It would make sense if the issue is covered for an average person than Ms. Goodman.
This is what I was alluding to in my above-post. Amy Goodman's headline ought to be "Media Celeb Ticked off at Being Treated Like Nobody by Border Guards."
I'm sure Glenn Beck gets more face recognition, and that's just not fair.
No, you don't seem to get it. BECAUSE it happened to a relatively well-known person, we can make an issue of it. When it happens to plain folk like you and me, no one gives a damn, and nothing can change. The fact that they are doing it to someone like Amy means a) that they don't care about bad publicity -- or certainly not the bad opinion of "liberals" (in the US sense of the word), and b) that it's now possible for those of us who have experienced this sort of thing to rally and try to change it.
Amy Goodman is by no stretch of the imagination a celebrity, and it's quite unfair to accuse her of self-indulgence here. What happened to her was outrageous; would you have her hold her peace?
Media celebrity? How many people listen to or see Democracy Now? If it's enough to call her a celebrity, I feel a little better about this sad Orb we live on.
Yes. Progressive media celebrity. Amy and her show, DemocracyNow! are mainstays for those of liberal persuasion who are interested in facts, not corporate government propaganda. Amy won the 2008 alternative Nobel prize from a group called Right Livelihood (www.rightlivelihood.org).
Remember when Canadian airport officials refused to allow Col.(ret) Ann Wright, also a former U.S. diplomat, fly into Canada to give a speech to the Canadian parliament? Their excuse: Ann had been arrested in the past for committing acts of civil disobedience at home!!
Canada DOES seem to be dissolving into a U.S. corporate clone/clown. Sad, but we can't depend on getting ethical, human-rights supportive behavior from countries that espouse Milton Friedman's capitalism.
Amy Goodman wrote: "We raced to the event, where people had been told about our detention. We were 90 minutes late, but the room remained packed, the crowd incensed at their government."
These are the words of someone who thinks she's some kind of messiah. She gets detained - like any other person might - and then goes on to say that her adoring fans were incensed at their government.
Can someone else replace her on a rotating basis or will she always be the sole representative of the "other side" the same way that Bernie Sanders and Naomi Klein are?
True democracy would entail having more than a handful of "rest of us" opinions to counter MSM spin.
"These are the words of someone who thinks she's some kind of messiah." What a bunch of BS! This a passionate person that appeals to more of the same. She provides the message and it's people who provide the adoration. Our democracy is not going to have "more than a handful of 'the rest of us' opinions" if we slam ones willing to step out of the crowd.
This is why the Freedom Riders put white kids on the buses and the white kids were well aware and understood. If they got the tar and feathers kicked out of them, it was national news, not so for the young Black men and women. Just how it was and how it is. Use what you got. And lest anyone forget, please recall this woman's heroic and courageous actions in East Timor...she never has, I can assure you. That kind of trauma never leaves...
and with all respect, 8thAvatar, they can shoot us in our face and make it never happen...all gone...nothing happening even when its happening...like right now in some cell, in some basement in Chicago or NY or Vancouver or Abu Ghraib or or or some man or woman or child is having something horrible done to them by our people...by our bent shrinks and mengele's, our "healers", and what we do to the least we eventually do to everyone else, and it goes on for year after year after decade after decade and the only thing that changes is that all of it gets worse...more horrific...I thank Ms. Goodman for doing what she has done and done so very well for so very long. Prosper.
Apologies to Amy on behalf of my craven BC government. They would ban the contents of my head if they had any idea how I felt about the Olympics.
Vancouver councillors recently clarified the sign law to specify that only commercial signs will be summarily removed. It's about protecting the corrupt Olympic brand.
Good luck Vancouver. Our social program funding has still not recovered from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Montreal paid off its 1976 Olympic debt, it might have taken them until 2006, but they did pay it off.
I'd guess that Vancouver will be able to pay off their debt in 70-80 years...
Makes me happy that I don't live there anymore, although I'm sure that the old drunkard will be able to get the federal gov't to cough up some coins for the games. It's long past the time when the Olympics should fade again into the history books.
Amy should try being a Canadian travelling south to the USA. 30 years ago I was in a procession of cars heading to my uncle's (a decorated WW2 and Korean veteran) funural in Buffalo NY.
My car was pulled out of the procession, searched, dismantled while the other cars sat there and watched. Then I was told to put it all back together and to continue on if I wanted (about an hour later) Everyone was late for the funeral, so I waved the rest of the cars to go on ahead without me.
After I has reassembled my car, I turned around and reentered Canada, and have never been back to the USA since.
As a rule today, I do not travel to or stay in fascist countries...with the USA at the top of my list. Soon I am afraid I will not be able to remain in Canada either....without violating my morals
Yeah, when they say "love it or leave it," where is there to go?
The Canadians are following the lead of us here in the US. We've been turning away scholars because of the content of there endeavor for a while now. The border has been turned into a way to punish those whose ideas are contrary to the rich and powerful. Don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Welcome to the New World Order.
King George Bush the 1st
Olympics: won't watch 'em, don't care about 'em, wouldn't walk across the street to see 'em. Nothing but political grandstanding, regardless of where they are held. A total waste of time & money in a world that has better uses for both .....
Ahhh, we were so proud to be leaders in the "Free World", shining the path to right and good.
But, our example is going in the opposite direction. Say good-bye to sanity! Hello NWO! Like it or not.
All because there are too many greedy sheepel feeding from the government feed bucket to care about people who's ambitions are to live an honorable life in harmony with all.
And, I thought is was bad here in Atlanta in 1996! Oh well. While I enjoyed the Olympic Games, I really wonder if they are worth all the money, the hassle and the hype. It seems, in the government's quest for noterity and growth, they run over the area's citizens with regularity and lack of concern. As for peace and unity [two themes of the Olympics], it seem these too have been suplanted by the all-consuming quest for profits! Maybe, I will rethink my plans to attend the Vancouver Games; after all, I am not a winter person!
Your surprised this happened? I've had a few experiences at Canadian customs, NO WAY i'll ever go back.
If you really want to get those customs agents riled up, when they ask you about you're person life, tell them its none of their business (it will make the situation much worse for you, but it is soooo worth it).
The same can be said for the US customs agents too tho, my uncle is one, horrible people, extremely insecure and love to abuse power to cover it up.
I live in seattle, and have traveled back and forth to canada many times over the course of my life, but cannot think of any reason to do so now, simply because the border crossing is so annoying, insulting, violating, condescending, dangerous...on both sides, by assholes working for both countries...
that being said, I have wonderful memories of the people and places I have known in canada...
I'm not sure when I'll visit mexico again, either, although the mexican authorities were much more polite upon my arrival than the us badges were upon my return...pointless suspicion delivered with open animosity and thinly veiled threats...
olympics? the only valid olympics are the gorgeous mountains just west of puget sound, and just southwest of the border crossing that is the focus of this article...
the five-ring athletic thing called the Olympics is a sick joke...off with its head...
certainly, america is no longer the only country on the global FUBAR list, is it?
Has anyone here read Christopher A. Shaw's "Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games"? It goes into some detail about the scandal that is the so-called 'Olympic Movement'. Shaw is a UBC professor - and has been harassed (including by the CBC, if I recall from the book) for speaking out against the Olympics. Apparently the harassment continues - according to this video clip on the site http://www.2010watch.com. I guess we need people like him - and Amy Goodman - to recognize the early warning signs before things get too far down towards an authoritarian state. By then it will be too late.
For once I agree with the Amy critics. She was only alalowed because she IS a celebrity.
That said - no matter how bad the Canuck(YEH! CANUCK) border officials are, they do not hold a candle to the US border officials.
But I could be wrong !
I don't understand why some people think this is about Amy Goodman or that her 'celebrity' status is the main factor here. I think it's about the 2010 Olympics. If the border officer had asked about the Afghanistan war, then it would be about that. The point is, someone wants to know what she will be talking about. Add to this the fact that others have been refused visas in the past for their stance on certain issues. True, any sovereign country has the right to refuse entry to or question anyone from outside - but the question should be, what is a supposedly democratic country trying to hide? Why fear the protesters?
I have spent a fair amount of tourist money in Canada the past two summers. This coming summer I had planned to take a boat tour from Seattle up the Alaskan Coast. After reading this report I will book our passage on a ship that does NOT make any stops in any Canadian ports. My money is obviously not welcome there. I just hope that someone from the Canadian Tourism industry reads this and passes the message on to those who will be hurt by the lack of tourists from the US.
And it will not just be in 2010 that tourism will suffer.
"After reading this report I will book our passage on a ship that does NOT make any stops in any Canadian ports"
In that case you will not be visiting Alaska since all ships call at Canadian ports due to the US Jones Act.
But seriously don't let this incident put you off visiting Canada. The border agents are just paranoid about the Olympics and these days you have to be over 50 or so to know about the wonderful Tommy Douglas. If Amy had said that she starts with talking about Douglas I would have hoped that would have been enough to ensure speedy entry.
But when all is said and done this is merely a storm in a teacup, probably due to the border agents being told to watch out for radicals who would intend to disrupt the Olympics.
That's strange. I have already located four cruises that do NOT make port in Canada. I checked the Jones Act (1920 version). It deals with merchandise. As far as I know, the 14th Amendment ended the merchandising of people.
The one nice moment in reading of Ms. Goodman's mistreatment was realizing what a salutary misstep in tactics the border-goon had committed.
Americans of a certain generation have a fondness for Canada that comes from the haven it provided during the Vietnam era. It reminds me of the fondness a couple generations of Europeans had for the States after the Marshall Plan.
Given the this, the tar sands, and Canadian complicity in American military adventurism, many of us will have to awaken from our various nostalgias.
I amend a line I heard often in Mexico: "Poor Canada - so far from God, so close to the United States."
I don't get it.
What is Canada trying to protect?
Being that paranoid implies guilt, what did they do?
Why is the Olympics such a sensitive issue for them?
What is the controversy with the Olympics in Canada?
"Cause we're all in this together"
i believe, if you dig, you will find that, like other cities hosting other events in the past, an event of international magnitude require the ultimate in 'housecleaning' and 'festivity'...
in many cases, as Pittsburgh so recently reminded us, 'housecleaning' consists of 'relocating' anyone 'undesirable' to a distant elsewhere, up to, and including, the use of force and incarceration...
'festivity' involves the continual display and distribution of unrealistically fantastic local conditions, up to, and including, 'normal' citizen elation and fine, expensive 'escorts' for the Olympic committee members, which can only be maintained by fervently attempted control over virtually all aspects of the event, for many days and weeks prior, and, in a number of cities, for the foreseeable future...
At last the word is getting out about how repressive the BC Liberal regime has become. It's not just the Olympics either. The Liberals attack on women and unions has been astounding. Right now our paramedics are boiling mad as they have been cheated of the right to free collective bargaining, women are facing cuts to women's shelters, provincial and federal government defunding of women's centres (it is now illegal for women's centres to act as advocates for women!); women are the big losers in the almost total destruction of legal aid, cuts to health care, cuts to daycare, cuts to seniors care, cuts to jobs, the lowest minimum wage in Canada etc. We have the highest level of child poverty in Canada, the highest homeless (this government has built no social housing for families in 9 years, again this mostly affects women and children), sports funding for kids has been cut, class, sports and prosthetics funding for the disabled has been cut. The province is a shambles, all to pay for the boodoggle Olympics.
gnken
In 2006 I crossed over on a Ferry on the St. Lawrence River to Wolfe Island. I was traveling with a bicycle and 17 ft sea kayak on top of my car. I presented my passport/license to the official. I was the only vehicle getting off the ferry. She asked some questions, one being if I was carring a firearm? I told her no. She asked how I would defend myself? I told her I guess I wouldnt. My reason I was enroute to paddle the Reideau Waterway from Kingston to Ottawa. She went into the office, came out about 5 mins later to ask if I have committed any crimes in America? No - I also added that I have been working in police work for 21 years. She asked what I did? Dispatcher. What is that? I explained to her. Oh she said like 911? Yes I told her. She looked puzzled and went back into her trailer office. I then call my place of work and had them query my name thru NCIC. It was neg. When she came back out told her I checked thru NCIC and she asked me how I did it. I called on my Cell. Well after 20 minsutes she gave me back my passport and I was allowed to leave. When I got off the Ferry at Kingston, I saw the city police office and turned in. I went in and introduced myself and showed my I.D. I was taken back to the Detectives and I had them query my name in the computer. Canadian Justic System, Interpol, and NCIC is also checked. All negative. I guess we will never know what her issue was with me, but I suspect she had to keep calling down to Wellsley Island and ask questions cause she wasnt sure how to read the response on the screen. My name may have flagged a similar name because the computers check dob's, name, (First/Last, Middle) height/Wgt. I guess we have to get use to this kind of treatment. For years I have "Beebopped" back and forth across the boarder with Canada.
I have visited Canada a bunch of times, mainly to ski. One time I made the mistake of bringing my computer, and of course, the border guards felt that they had the right to comb through it, asking me obtrusive questions about whatever files I had. After that I learned to not bring my computer into Canada. It's a shame, because I am a software developer, and I had the chance to take a temporary job in Canada, but I was not about to be put through that humiliation ever again!
And entering back into the USA can be just as much of a hassle. Interestingly, I never get bothered when arriving via an airport (other than the drug dog sniffing around at the luggage pick up, especially if my return was from the Amsterdam airport), but it has usually been the rule when I would arrive via my car.
One time, I arrived back in the USA from Canada via car, and I had some old ibuprofen tablets that I had bought in Eastern Europe. Since they did not look like regular tablets that the stupid USA border guards could identify, wouldn't you know that those idiots actually look a chip out of every one or so of the 15 or so tablets (I guess to check that it wasn't contraband?) LOL!!!
Oh well, I've finished skiing all the good areas of Canada, so I don't have a reason to go back.
I don't have any doubt that this is and has and will happen. What I find interesting is that in my numerous travels back and forth across the border with bumper-stickered car/truck, I have yet to be detained. Its always a hi, where you from, where you going? how long ya gonna be there? and so on...
I'm always bright and open and smiling and looking them in the eye, and if possible, making a brainless very light joke about something, even the weather...
I always expect to be stopped but I'm not. Way back when I busted for 4 joints and fined a 100 bucks - even then I thought I got off easy -- early 70s mind you -- but never have been stopped since. Its weird.
Maybe its the animals I travel with... maybe its my face. I dunno. Weird. My car is covered with uber left bumper stickers...????
I have leaved near the Canadian border nearly all of my life and it has always been, most especially since 2001, much much more difficult and tedious getting back into the States than getting into Canada. I'm afraind that this is just the tell-tale sign that Canada's government is following the US lead. Walls and checkpoints work both ways: to keep people out and to keep people in.
A lot of us in Canada are pissed with the right-wing arse-holes running our country. they are mostly from Western Canada and funded by big oil and redneck decendents of American immigrants from the 1920's. As a Nova Scotian of left persuasion, I feel more at home in French Canadian Quebec where they truly do not give a f*#@ about what the rest of corporate American thinks.
Standard treatment for American agitators prior to any homegrown demos, and there will be demos, at the Olympics. Wouldn't want those innocent youth getting the wrong ideas from experienced protesters would you? She can come back when there are no Demos scheduled. Basically anyone who can be found by Google and other data bases is suspect. And can't we all be found with a few keystrokes?
I'm a Canuck living in Indiana for 15 years. I have lived in a few places in both countries as well as others. When we were in Arabia my wife and I were always amazed at the ineptitude, convoluted stupidity, and arrogance of Saudi border guards. We talked about it a bit and finally realized the problem. They had been trained by British and American bureauRats.
Nobody should be surprised that Canadian bureauRats are just catching up. The Canadian gunverment has only been helping out in the AFPak region for a short time and never helped with Vietnam and other American and Brit atrocities perpetrated as the white man's burden in support of the armaments and financial industries. This is 'War on Terror' gang. Get used to it.
In 1910 my Dutch grandfather, who was a resident of Canada, found work in Niagara Falls, New York. He crossed the border with just his family and a job offer. His son, my uncle, was born in NY State at that time. They stayed for several years before going back north.
This is a different world versus 100 years ago only with respect to the power of national gunvernments whose operators now believe they own their defined territory and its residents. It has nothing to do with the supposed differences amongst Conservatives, Liberals, New Dems, Republicans, Democrats or any other pond scum, all owing their welfare to the banking cartels and our taxes.
When crossing a border these days I just put up with the nonsense and hope I don't attract attention or trip some trigger, random or otherwise. Those are just unaware simpletons doing a very boring job, following orders, and waiting for payday.
The real problem is with the belief system of the boob who treks to the polls on election day thinking he is making a difference with his vote. I have news for him. My fifth grade social studies teacher didn’t know shite about anything except payday and neither did his. We all need to read and think about the essence of the system of rule. If enough people grow up maybe someday things will change for the better. Otherwise, get used to it.
Ms. Goodman's travails are no more noteworthy than those of anyone who has to stop at an imaginary line to answer stupid questions from a dope who can find no other employment, as well as to be subjected to searches of his property by the same pinhead. But perhaps her notoriety will cause just a few to stop and think about the whole preposterous setup. We can hope.
And for heaven's sake, I agree that everyone needs to stop being awed by those silly Olympic games.