Canada is still based on Monarchy and that has nothing to do with democratic principles.

Not to dismiss the problems in Vancouver surrounding the Olympics, but a
“famous” speaker who might be paid a large honorarium to lecture might not
qualify as a “tourist” for border-crossing purposes, and thus require a visa in
order to “work,” i.e. speak for compensation over and above their normal salaried
employment, even if they are a US citizen who normally can enter as a tourist
without a visa.

With the tightening of visa restrictions around the world, gone are the days when
one can count on travelling for work on a tourist visa in any country.

I’m the publisher of The Vancouver Observer and we covered this incident in the story posted on the front page of DemocracyNow’s website.  We just published another story today that is related: 
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/editorsdesk/2009/12/28/olympic-protesters-guide-legal-implications-civil-disobedience-british

And some time ago, I wrote yet another story about a Canadian who was refused entry to the US, the other side of the coin and an equally if not more outrageous incident involving the Department of Homeland Security. http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/investigations/2007/10/05/acid-free-america

I’m the publisher of the Vancouver Observer and a very grateful Canadian immigrant.  AS hapless as the border guards were in questioning Amy Goodman about the Olympics, Canada remains a leader in civil liberties and human rights.  These are complicated times and we have to fight harder than ever all over the world to protect democratic principles.  Nowhere is the commitment to these principles stronger than in Canada—-even if they sometimes fail miserably to hit the mark.

i’m an unabashed pragmatist and liberal. that said, i
listen to democracy now on npr in the states. find the
format more flair than substance and prone to
hyperbole. this article strikes that same note. my 2
cents

Perhaps (and this is just a suggestion), we should all, oh, I dunno’, just shelve the Olympics until such a time as we can all pull our heads out of our collective asses.

Seems to me - and I could be completely wrong in thinking so - but until such a time comes when people stop allowing corporations to dictate how governments respond to those they govern, there’s really not much point in having “International Competitive Sporting Events” where the only real winners are Coca-Cola, RBC, GM, Petro-Canada, Panasonic and Ronald McDonald.

If you can’t stomach corporate interests over public rights, well, I mean, they’re YOUR dollars until you give them away.

Wow, after reading all of the comments posted here, I
don’t know what to think.  Maybe I should just stay
home and watch the Olympics on TV and then visit BC and
Alberta at a later time when it’s easier to
travel without being harassed.  I still love the
beauty found in Canada’s natural world, though. 
There’s nothing quite like the Canadian Rockies and its
lakes and streams and wildlife and botanical wonders. 
It is truly an amazing place.  Canadians are greatly
blessed in this respect! GREATLY blessed!

Is anyone really suprised. Canada is a country where they have no free speech or freedom of religous expression. If you are a preacher who, like me, believes that the Bible is the literal Word of God and you preach that homosexuality is a sin you can go to prison. There are preachers is prison for saying that homosexuality is a sin, that men should be leaders of the household and wives should submit to there husbands authority. Weither you agree with that or not the right to believe and preach should be absolute. In Canada you go to jail. So I am not suprised about Amy being detained at the Canadian Border.

I so agree with the paranoia created by the Games.  Not only the gvt is freaking out but all of this is orchestrated by the actual organizers VANOC who are spreading fear to everyone.  Come on last week the police is Vancouver was proudly announcing that they had infiltrated the protesters group! Wow, how democratic.. and doesn’t the police have anything better to do?? Please lets get back to reality , we are talking about a sports event.  I live in Vancouver and i think the police, the city (which has lost all its powers on this mater) and VANOC are behaving like dictators. I wish no one comes to the games and I really hope there won’t be any snow. I am sorry Ms Goodman had to witness such behaviors.  Remember what happened two years ago with the deadly tasering of a Polish immigrant!

Just to reply to Clovis:
Ms. Goodman does have “First Amendment” rights in Canada, they’re just not called that.  Up here they’re referred to as Charter Rights.  Specifically, from section 2 b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
... (b) Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

FWIW

Well what to say the entire issue has taken a very dramatic and horrifying turn. Anti-Olympic organizers in Vancouver scored a hat trick over the last seven days. She was held interrogated for 90 minutes and the Immigration Gestapo searched her car. They also demanded to know what she’d be talking about in Vancouver and Victoria and insisted she leave the country within 48 hours.

Canada’s Olympic Paranoia is explained here:
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/2009/12/03/vancouvers-olympic-paranoia-explained

Canada’s government is not Liberal, it is big-Conservative (=GOP clones).  And it’s not so much the CANADIAN government that’s behind Olympic paranoia, it’s the BRITISH COLUMBIA government, with the federal Tory government backing them up (the BC governing party goes by the name Liberal, but they are arch-neoconservative and very much distanced from the national Liberal Party).  The operations of the Integrated Security Unit, which was created for the Olympics, include the BC division of the Canadian Border Services.  It’s the BC government whose attitudes/views were reflected in the nasty behavioiur of the border guards.

As someone above noted, criticisms of our governments by no are near impossible to air/reach print, unless safely sanitized or twisted; in some ways it’s a miracle that Ms. Goodman’s detention at the border was even covered by the CBC; I haven’t looked for coverage in any Canwest Global newspapers or broadcast media (our equivalent to Fox News, with Izzy Asper in the role of Rupert Murdoch).  This has meant a proliferation of independent media, including blogs, trying to pick up the slack on political and economic news the major media won’t cover, not honestly anyway.

The Olympics and the hype/paranoia surrounding the games are in many ways a smokescreen for huge changes to the province’s governing structure and a sell-off (more like a giveaway) of the province’s resources to US investors.  In relation to this, a number of current court cases implicating the governing party and its politicians - including the Premier (equiv to a US governor) - are underway, with barely any coverage in the major media - except articles helping to cover them up or downplay their import.  I hope Ms Goodman is reading this, or another earnest investigative repoerter from the US, who wants to take on t he involvement of Us corporations in corrupt practices with the BC government, and that not only the Olympics comes under external scrutiny (though there’s plenty to do with the Olympics alone worth a whole book full of columns/reports).

I would also suggest that alternative media from the US intending on covering the Games establish a newsdesk in Whatcom County, which adjoins Greater Vancouver.  This would, theoretically, avoid any overt interference by the Integrated Security Unit; though reporters crossing the line regularly would probably be similarly harrassed (unless because of the embarrassment re Ms Goodman a new directive of “hands off” is given to the border guards).

On a calmer note, what is happening at the border between Canada and the US, and happening by members of each countries’ border patrol units, is manifestation of President Bush and VP Dick Cheney’s foreign policy. A policy based on Machiavellian psychological pathologies. The bombing of symbolic buildings in America (military, political (attempted that is), and economic might and form of economics),  had leaders of other nations, including Canada, join the sick bandwagon.

Americans voted president Bush into power twice. They did not questions the storyline about the high jacking of planes. They did not question their media corporate owned media (truth to power, remember this?). Instead, they chose to go back and shop and continue to be drones, not engaged citizens. It is no wonder that democracy is all but dead in America.

It would be lazy thinking, however, to only blame Americans and America Empire for this border patrol fall out. Where are the citizens of the countries that contributed to the Reditions, that had other nations do America’s and other Western nations’ alleged necessary dirty work of torture - while saying through their foreign affair secetaries and ministers that the West is about democracy?

The UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada and a few other Bush followers decided to go along with making the ‘terrorist’ the replacement for the Cold War ideology.  There is money to be made in paranoia.

And, there is power to embrace for a wee, wee, bored and disillusioned with one’s life border patrol.  A moment of being a Big Man/Woman, but not facing up that you are mere fodder for the Power Elite. So he or she grabs power when they can.

Read the Swiss psychiatrist Erik Fromm’s books. He wrote about the human condition and violence, our being so easy to succumb to dominating others: parent to child, teacher to student, big military to those with small ones, men and their muscular strength using it against their womenfolk and girlfolks. So there you go. Dominance is primitive behavior and those with weak egos, are the most vulnerable to doing harm to others when in a place of power.

I would strongly suggest that all clean up their own countries’ glass houses, because there is a lot to clean. While President Bush and VP Cheney may not be in the White House, the politik operatives and the multinationals who ask the political leaders to do their bidding (with the help of passive and inactive citizens), are still running the show. The only way to stop this is to be informed, share information about such incidents referenced in this article with others and to organize and globalize in standing up to and speaking truth to power. More focus should be directed at multinationals - politicians always have their pockets open, seeking crumbs just so they can have a dinner moment with the overly paid CEOs of Wall Street (and their wannabes). So, while America is our Era’s Roman Empire (without building beautiful fountains and viaducts), many pols, CEOs and the Power Elite apparatus is making money from it - only by average people keeping eyes wide open and sharing information about misdeeds to humans, economic systems, the environment, etc., will this change.

I myself think that we are in the last chapter of the Dutch-given global capitalism turned British Empire industrialization (that took the heart out of community and a closer relationship to hearth and work), and America’s thinking technological progress solves all problems. All of human experiences are but chapters, paragraphs and pages. Like other Eras, this one will pass. This time, however, like Mary Shelly’s monster, our self built Dr Frankenstein’s monster may be the thing that does human nature in - a hubris, created from our own human nature.

Nothing says the world, trees, plants, fish and warm blooded creatures would miss the greedy and overextended human animal. Nothing.

It’s not a freedom of the press issue.  You didn’t go there as a reporter.  You went as a speaker and commentator.  You are no longer a reporter.  You are the same as any other citizen, celebrity, rabble rouser or public official.  Let’s not confuse this with freedom of the press.

Try not to judge the situation by the actions of just a few people. Border crossings have become a target for complaints but we must realize that those appointed to protect have a serious responsibility and in these days (after 9/11) extreme measures have become the order of the day for the flimsiest of reasons. Few will appreciate that we have been probably saved many times from the actions of people who would cause us harm because of the seemingly ‘extreme’ actions of Border Guards, on both sides.

American customs agents have been belligerent, aggressive, unfriendly, and
ornery since the election of G. Bush and Co.  The passport thing was the brain
child of American, not Canada.  Do Americans resent being treated in the same
way Canadians are routinely treated entering your country?  Gee, that’s too bad.

The myth of the enlightened Canadian is just that, a myth. We have lots of people with all kinds of political views, including extremes. A couple of the comments above reflect the extreme anti-Americanism some people harbour. While the American border guards are usually not friendly, neither are the Canadian guards. And I’ve not heard of any respected Canadian journalists held up at the U.S. border in recent years or questioned about their views on particular issues. In fact, busloads of Canadian protesters were allowed across the border to attend those demonstrations in Seattle about ten years ago that turned violent.

What a joke.  I’m a Canadian who used to visit the US twice a month for shopping.  Now I don’t go because of the hostility of the US border people.  You Americans dish out much more to visitors than seems to be described here.  I’ll probably not spend another dollar in the US ever again.  Canada trying to protect the Olympics is nothing compared to the daily harrassment happening in reverse.

Is this a US citizen complaining about how another nation operates border control? Talk about pot calling kettle names. An Aussie, has to give up fingerprints and a photograph to visit the US, just because they come from Australia. Perhaps all countries should treat American visitors the way they treat everyone else. Onya Canada!

I cannot believe that the barbaric and wholly fascistic ferocity evidenced by some of these replies actually emanates from the supposedly enlightened citizenry of Canada who, at least in the long-dead past, were often held up as shining examples to the world of a charmingly good-hearted and fair-minded people.