A member of the European Parliament opposed to the Canada-EU free trade deal was denied entry into Canada at a Montreal airport October 11, then later given a seven-day reprieve from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
French farmer José Bové, an anti-globalization activist and outspoken critic of the Canada European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), had been invited to Canada by the Council of Canadians, the National Farmers Union and other groups and was scheduled to speak at a public forum that evening in Montreal.
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However, his detention, which required he check into a hotel and fly back to France the following day, meant he could not attend the event.
That prompted an outcry about political interference to suppress someone from speaking in opposition of CETA. Bové was in Canada at the same time as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was visiting to promote the trade deal.
“Is the case for CETA on such thin ice that it can’t withstand free speech?” Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the COC said in a news release.
Bové was sent to his hotel, with his passport confiscated and told he would have to leave Canada the following day. However, a few hours before boarding his return flight to France October 12, he was granted a temporary permit to remain in Canada for seven days.
That enabled him to attend another event as keynote speaker, the Council of Canadians’ Groundswell conference in St. John’s October 14, as originally planned.
However, in a statement the Council of Canadians said many questions remain about why Bové was to be expelled in the first place and how that decision was reached.
According to a Canadian Press report Bové said CBSA agents had initially told him he was being refused entry because of his criminal record stemming from convictions related to incidents in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including one for vandalizing a McDonald’s restaurant and another for a protest against genetically modified organisms.
Bové said he told the CBC that “was strange because he has been to Canada many times before without issue.”
