Canadian Border Guards Harass U.S. Journalist

Officials decline to comment.

Quote :

U.S. journalist Amy Goodman said she was stopped at a Canadian border crossing south of Vancouver on Wednesday and questioned for 90 minutes by authorities concerned she was coming to Canada to speak against the Olympics.

Goodman says Canadian Border Services Agency officials ultimately allowed her to enter Canada but returned her passport with a document demanding she leave the country within 48 hours.

Now I'm not up on Canadian law but I believe that Canada has a "right of free press" similar to the First Amendment, yes?

Quote :

After much questioning, Goodman said the officials finally asked if she would be speaking about the 2010 Olympics.

"He made it clear by saying, 'What about the Olympics?'" said Goodman. "And I said, 'You mean when President Obama went to Copenhagen to push for the Olympics in Chicago?'"

"He said, 'No. I am talking about the Olympics here in 2010.' I said, 'Oh I hadn't thought of that,'" said Goodman.

"He said, 'You're saying you're not talking about the Olympics?'"

"He was clearly incredulous that I wasn't going to be talking about the Olympics. He didn't believe me," Goodman said.

What a crack team of guards they've got there. Apparently there were no other scofflaws about, so let's target someone who might say something about an event that will be happening in Canada.

And I thought our Border Patrol was a bit off the beam...

Have they been having trouble in Canada about the fact that the 2010 Olympics are being held there? Because I haven't heard anyone say a thing since it was announced.

I think that they thought we were going to be resentful of the fact that we lost the Olympics to them. Which some Americans are, I'm willing to bet.

Or will be.

Has this been decided?

Well, if it has, I will readily believe that some Americans are acting like disgruntled fanbrats because they lost to Canada of all places, when obviously the awesomeness of America should have been seen. The committee wouldn't give it to them out of jealousy!

(This is not my opinion. I rather like Canada.)

That being said, the guards really should have let the reporter be. But it is their country and they have every right to know what our citizens are up to, and they do have every to tell her to go home. It was really unecessary, but it is their right.

Lapin wrote:

I think that they thought we were going to be resentful of the fact that we lost the Olympics to them. Which some Americans are, I'm willing to bet.

Except we didn't even bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics - Vancouver beat out Salzburg, Austria and PyeongChang, South Korea.

I think it more has to do with the political slant of the reporter (Amy Goodman is extremely leftist) and the issues that always develop with any Olympic bid post-1996 (displacing homeless and low-income people to build venues, drawing up "free-speech zones" for protesters of said actions, the usual allegations of kickbacks and graft, etc.)

Ohhhhh. We didn't bid? Don't we normally bid? Did we finally realize that this BS is too much trouble?

Are we learning?

Lapin wrote:

Ohhhhh. We didn't bid? Don't we normally bid? Did we finally realize that this BS is too much trouble?

Are we learning?

Nah, we're looking at bidding for the 2020 Summer Games and exploring bidding for the 2022 Winter Games (the USOC stated that they wouldn't support a 2018 Winter bid because of all the energy expended in the failed 2016 Chicago bid).

...I need to stop hoping so much.

Lapin wrote:

I think that they thought we were going to be resentful of the fact that we lost the Olympics to them. Which some Americans are, I'm willing to bet.

I'm wondering if this is connected to the protests against the Beijing Olympics, which were a pretty common sight for a while. But, surely everyone knows that none of the reasons for those protests could reasonably be applied to Canada, right? And the US was hardly the only nation in the world with those protests happening, so...? I hope that this had nothing to do with it.

KelinciHutan wrote:

Lapin wrote:

I think that they thought we were going to be resentful of the fact that we lost the Olympics to them. Which some Americans are, I'm willing to bet.

I'm wondering if this is connected to the protests against the Beijing Olympics, which were a pretty common sight for a while. But, surely everyone knows that none of the reasons for those protests could reasonably be applied to Canada, right? And the US was hardly the only nation in the world with those protests happening, so...? I hope that this had nothing to do with it.

There were legitimate reasons for the protests against the Beijing Olympics: their blatant human rights violations are beyond appalling. Quite frankly, even if an American journalist wanted to "investigate" the goings-on surrounding the 2010 Olympics, let her. What could we possibly have to hide?

...Although I hope for our sake that the Canada Men's hockey team doesn't get involved in another scandal like last time. Crap, that was embarrassing.

So, I guess Canada is really, really proud of hosting the Winter Olympics? Didn't they host it sometime in the 2000s already?

Ceres wrote:

So, I guess Canada is really, really proud of hosting the Winter Olympics? Didn't they host it sometime in the 2000s already?

No, the last time Canada hosted either Olympics was in 1988, when the Winter Olympics were held in Calgary. Since then, the only other time they were held in North America was in 2002 (Salt Lake City).

Sorry, it's early, I'm bored and Wikipedia is holding me hostage at the moment.

So far most of my experiences with the US-Canada border have led me to expect different nationalities in confrontations such as these.

If anyone wants to make a fuss about an Olympics, they should come here - I'm about 2 miles from the stadium for 2012 and it's an expensive nightmare.

We'll fill them in on the issues.