This afternoon British orator, activist and former member of Parliament George Galloway was allowed to enter Canada (Montreal Gazette). Sure a hell of a change from April 2009, when Canada’s Tory government informed Galloway  he wouldn’t be allowed in because he supported terrorists. At the time, critics (including us) called bullshit, saying the real reason Galloway was blocked was because the Conservative government didn’t like his brash opinions on Palestinian-Israel relations and Canada’s war in Afghanistan.

Here’s an edited-down excerpt from what I wrote last year:

Yesterday, an outspoken and somewhat wacky British Member Of Parliament was banned from entering Canada for two university speaking engagements on security grounds in the same week George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion of Iraq on bogus pretenses, was allowed into Calgary for a speaking engagement. British MP George Galloway was banned by Canada Border Services Agency officials. Pertinent minister Jason Kenney, who has the power to overturn stupid and evil decisions, says he will not do so. The decision by Canadian officials is stupid and makes the Minister (whom we’re sure had nothing whatsoever to do with banning Galloway) look like an asshole who doesn’t support free speech unless it’s the kind of free speech he likes. Critics (e.g. me) suspect Galloway is actually being barred because he says inflammatory things about how the war in Afghanistan is wrong. In other words, he’s being banned for being anti-war.

Full screed here (Ye Olde Dogge Blogge).

Galloway enters Canada after a court decision that the Conservative Government was Full Of Shit. From last week’s Globe And Mail article on the judge’s decision:

The judge said he agreed with Mr. Galloway’s Canadian supporters that “that the main reason why the respondents sought to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering Canada was that they disagreed with his political views.”

The judge concluded the government fell short of the standard required to label someone a terrorist.

“It is clear that the efforts to keep Mr. Galloway out of the country had more to do with antipathy to his political views than with any real concern that he had engaged in terrorism or was a member of a terrorist organization,” the judge stated.

Want more? They’re on the story over at Rabble.