[Music]
welcome back to power in politics after
a controversial year and a half long
delay outspoken former british mp george
galloway
is here in canada as we speak mr
galloway is in canada as part of his
cross-country speaking tour it's called
free palestine free afghanistan free
speech now remember he was barred from
entering canada in march
of last year why was george galloway
considered such a threat let me show you
the hot sheet on them
the former labor party mp was thrown out
of caucus back in
2003 for his opposition to the iraq war
in 2005 he regained his seat as an mp
for the respect party in march of 2009
he was banned from canada following
claims he offered financial support to
hamas and that's a terrorist group
according to canada and called a threat
to national security last september a
federal court dismissed the case saying
the government acted politically to
suppress his opinions
right now george galloway is gearing up
for a sold out speech tonight at york
university in toronto was the ban
against an attack on free speech in
canada spearheaded by the minister of
immigration jason kennedy kenny rather
are his political views so dangerous
that they should be suppressed and what
what does he actually think we should do
as he'll speak about tonight about the
war in afghanistan joining me now is
george galloway mr galloway thanks for
being here welcome your tour once banned
now on is called free palestine free
afghanistan free speech
give us an idea obviously you tried to
come to canada before you weren't
allowed and now you're back what will
you be talking about well as i was
saying before i was rudely interrupted
18 months ago
i'll be talking about the foreign policy
of canada how i believe that it's not
helpful to the conflicts in the world
and certainly not helpful to the
interests of canada
inevitably we'll spend a fair bit of
time talking about the fact that i was
rudely interrupted on a wholly
fictitious basis an abusive process by
the government of canada which they were
judicially caned for in a 50 60 page
judgment uh which is why i'm back here
and now but the much more important
issues of course are the the war in
afghanistan and the war which is i'm
afraid getting ready to break out in the
middle east and the
things we need to do to try to bring the
first to an end and avoid the second
all right let's deal with a couple of
issues first let's deal with your
personal situation and i want to come
back to afghanistan in the palestine
israel situation first you know
uh jason kennedy the minister of
immigration didn't want you here uh and
some people have said uh bernie farber
the ceo of the canadian jewish congress
have said look you're welcome to come to
canada if you don't break canadian laws
and one of the laws is you cannot
support what canada deems a terrorist
group which is hamas they have said
you've supported them and then you may
in fact be coming to canada to raise
money for
support for that group can you can you
will you be raising money to support
hamas
no and i never have and mr faber knows
very well that all of that is
fiction i'm not a supporter of hamas
i've never been a supporter of hamas
i've never fundraised for hamas and i'm
not fundraising for anybody
on this trip and neither would i have
been if i'd been here 18 months ago what
i have fundraised for in the past is to
bring relief to the people who are
suffering
in gaza now for four years
to punish them and their parents for how
they voted in a free and fair election
the only free and fair election has ever
been in any arab country ever and that's
just immoral to starve people's children
to punish them because their parents
voted a way we didn't like i didn't like
i was disappointed that hamas won the
election but they did win it all i say
is that we have to talk to
uh hamas and i've got news for the
canadian people if they didn't already
know it
we already are the british already are
the americans already are and the day
will come and pretty soon much sooner
perhaps than people think when everyone
will be talking to hamas because as we
found in the north of ireland you can't
possibly bring conflict to an end
without talking to the people who are
engaged in the conflict and that's
precisely of course what we're now doing
in afghanistan not before time you might
say 10 years on
you know
i'm just you know the foreign minister
of egypt
has said george galloway is considered
persona non grata you're not allowed to
go
through egypt to get to gaza you've said
that you would give your goods to the
leadership of hamas because they're
democratically elected so is that neces
does that qualify as dealing with hamas
or supporting hamas you're giving them
their supplies
that's the question here well
it would depend what the supplies uh
were wouldn't it uh if you're giving
somebody ambulances and wheelchairs and
medicine and children's uh milk and
teddy bears and so on it's bankrupting
the word terrorism of its meaning in the
language
to describe such a thing as
terrorism moreover every ngo in the
world including canada has to deal with
the political power that is in gaza has
to deal with the minister of health in
gaza for example who is a member of
hamas that's because they won the
election there so i mean it's all
throwing sand in the eyes evan i mean
it's all an attempt to confuse and
divert attention from the real issue
which is that a million point six
people
have been starving in a siege which is
illegal
and which is condemned by all
international organizations
all levels of the united nations
virtually all governments in the world
with the notable exception of mr
harper's government here and it's an
attempt to divert attention from the
need urgently to bring that siege to an
end not least because it's all based on
punishing people because of how they
voted yeah i mean and that is certainly
one of the the idea of collective
punishment versus
tagging hamas as a terrorist
organization let me ask you a question
do you agree that they canada calls
hamas a terrorist organization would
george galloway call them a terrorist
organization
no which is not to say that they haven't
committed terrorist acts just like the
african national congress when it was
led by nelson mandela could not be
described as a terrorist organization
though apartheid and its supporters in
the world
maybe even here
did call the anc a terrorist
organization but it was clearly not
which is not to say that they had not
ever committed terrorist acts they had
but to
just put a full stop after the uh
reference to terrorism misses the point
in any case
a settlement in south africa required
negotiation with the african national
congress but is it
but is that a parallel between uh
ireland or south africa when you've got
fatah in the west bank and hamas in gaza
there's clearly two kinds of leadership
going on
clearly the west and israel are ready to
negotiate with one side fatah but not
the other hamas for the simple reason
that hamas has a charter that says they
don't have any desire to make peace with
israel
well so does the plo which i've
supported all my life i am a supporter
of fata
and believe me i could show you my scars
of the decades i spent urging people to
talk to fatah and their leader yasser
arafat and being told that they would
not do so because they were terrorists
so this is a movable feast that's my
point this is a snapshot in time
when i
negotiated as a member of parliament
with leaders of sinn fein in the north
of ireland newspapers like the sun
denounced me as a terrorist but now
jerry adams and martin mcguinness are in
and out of the white house
as fast as you can say jack robinson and
that's the way things are in politics
but it is true but you know you have
been i mean
look you're not without controversy
you've been at the side of saddam
hussein you've been at the side of tariq
aziz who's now under a death penalty in
iraq you've been
you've been associated with some figures
here that do not have a very good human
rights record george galloway
well there are lots of people of course
who don't have a very good human rights
record one of them down the road george
w bush has just published a memoir
boasting about it i believe that you
have to deal with the people who are in
government in any particular theater any
particular time because i believe that
that's how international relations
operate tarik aziz i'm happy to talk to
you about as a roman catholic myself i
was very proud of the fact that he was
the only christian politician in any
position of power in any arab country
arab countries nearby you get sent to
prison maybe even get lashed in public
for going to mass but a roman catholic
was the deputy leader of iraq look
during a time of mass human rights uh
abuses though you admit it well well
well this is the point i'm making to you
that david cameron just led a huge
delegation to china
and
was some might say
extremely
nice to the chinese leadership all in
the interests of doing business and all
in the interest of doing business not
just of a commercial nature but a
political nature the power in china is
the
communist party of china so when you
meet the leader of the communist party
of china you really have to call him sir
you really have to call him mr president
there isn't any other way you can
conduct international relations george
galloway i i want to get your view on
a couple things we know nato is holding
a summit in lisbon and portugal that
will be a part of the ongoing for the
mission in afghanistan canada now is
saying it will continue post 2011 in a
training non-combat role in afghanistan
towards 2014. you're you've opposed
these wars what's your view on this
well of course it's purely a canadian
matter whether or not you extend your
mission or not it's not really my
business but i just wonder if the
canadian people ever ask themselves how
come these afghans need so much training
that's 10 years they've been being
trained nobody's training the taliban
and they seem to be doing pretty well on
the battlefield and i wonder if they
ever ask themselves if this rubric
training is a bit of a cover for
something else a bit of a cover for
continuing to have uh one foot uh in the
more of that battlefield and i think
that's a very big mistake for my own
country follows that i think it's a
mistake for yours i don't think that
you'll be out
by the time that you said you'll be out
and you've now postponed it three times
and i don't believe that your soldiers
will be safe because i don't think
anybody's safe in afghanistan it would
be better by far instead of sending more
and more soldiers whether you call them
trainers or fighters
to actually negotiate the terms of a
withdrawal from afghanistan and those
terms are available available though the
same terms that have always been
available and the other terms that we
will eventually leave afghanistan under
all right two real quick things um will
you take your speaking tour to calgary
to jason kenney's office you famously
challenged him to a five-round boxing
match and or a debate will you be going
to jason kenney the minister who
refused to let you in
originally yes because i'll tell you why
not because i want to interfere in
internal politics in canada i don't but
he hasn't accounted for
the fact that he said
several things in public that the court
found to be untrue
and
he behaved in a way which misled the
canadian people and parliament in a way
which i must tell you in most
democracies in the world no minister
would have survived with their portfolio
intact following a judicial caning like
the one he got from justice mosley
are you thinking of a lawsuit george
galloway
yes uh my lawyers here barbara jackman
and her colleagues are working on a
series of different areas where i think
canadian law has been breached