When I heard Coulter was coming to Canada I figured attending the event would be worth the entertainment value, if for nothing other than to witness the unhinged reaction that was sure to follow. Ottawa U didn’t disappoint.
When I arrived there was a line of a few hundred, maybe a thousand people outside the Marion building. A few of them were chanting in front of the cameras but the line was otherwise better behaved than for a typical rock concert. The size of the line was no doubt a bit of a problem because the room held no more than 400 (my estimate).
Since I had registered for the event ahead of time I had no trouble elbowing my way to the front, verifying my name was on the list, getting inside and chatting briefly with Ezra Levant.
After a while the fire alarm went off, the obvious false alarm having been dealt with we sat down expecting the event to start.
Instead Ezra announced that police told him it would be “physically unsafe” to bring Ann in due to the “unruly mob” outside. There was certainly no issue, or even noise, inside the auditorium.
Since I was inside at that point I don’t know how unruly they became outside. But this is the national capital, just a few blocks from Parliament Hill, the US Embassy, the Prime Minister’s Residence and countless embassies. The police surely have the capability to respond to anyone threatening a woman with dozens of TV cameras around. Instead, they chose to cancel the event instead.
After leaving the auditorium (from a side entrance, as the police insisted), I walked back out front to see what the commotion was:
A lone policewoman standing on the step asked me to leave after I took her picture. I did leave, after expressing disbelief that they canceled the event over what appeared to be a few dozen pathetic protesters chanting in front of the nearby cameras.
A truly pathetic situation all around.
The few CTV yappers I watched, could not hide their animosity toward Coulter.
And may the fleas of a thousand camels infest Bill Good’s withered nethers.
Coulter was interviewed by Tom Clark on CTV.
She made it clear that Canada is not being governed by a conservative government.
Quite shameful when you consider that a conservative speaking engagement at a university in the nations capital was cancelled because the speaker is a conservative?
Canada is not a free country.
Canada has been hijacked by some evil and mentally retarded people.
So much for tolerating alternate viewpoints. Free Speech, but only if the left agrees with it, everyone else is shouted down. Freedom for me but not for thee. What an open minded and accepting community! What utter rubbish.
Just remember what comes around goes around. You treat others as you wish to be treated. Remember that when the shoe is on the other foot.
Our American friends are being fed with the information that “thousands protested” and in other quotes two thousand. I believe the source of thousands was “The Star”. Presumably the usual suspect, if not I stand corrected.
Some of ’em getting pretty critical about we in Canada. The tragedy is that the damn press is always up front. Always ready to give the impression that suits their agenda.
I referred, them to this web site. I believe we have first hand witnesses. Figures that are given as about two dozen or so.
Oh the poor right wingers. I just have to laugh at some of the comments. The President of the University of Ottawa doesn’t have any explaining to do as some comments suggest. Levant, now there is a piece of work. So full of it, that if given an enema there would be nothing left of him. Coulter just got told to take your garbage message some where else. She is anti-Muslim, racist and vapid. We certainly don’t need to waste our time listening to her or her ilk spew their hate.
Peter O’Donnell, what you said.
Steyn:
” … Think of Ezra’s and my appearance in the House of Commons, and then imagine the scene when Miss Coulter testifies. So the threat is an empty one and M Houle seems to be being – oh, what’s the “respectful and civil” way of putting it? – a posturing wanker.”
“This is the pitiful state one of the oldest free societies on the planet has been reduced to, and this is why our free speech campaign matters – because those who preside over what should be arenas of honest debate and open inquiry instead wish to imprison public discourse within ever narrower bounds – and in this case aren’t above threatening legal action against those who dissent from the orthodoxies. Lots of Americans loathe Ann Coulter but it takes a Canadian like François Houle to criminalize her. The strictures he attempts to place around her, despite his appeal to “Canadian law”, are at odds with the eight centuries of Canada’s legal inheritance. Canadians should point that out to him politely, and explain that, although he lives high off the hog courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer, he does not speak for them.
Telephone : (613) 562-5800 ext. 5737 Fax : (613) 562-5106 e-mail: francois.houle@uottawa.ca”
Read it all:
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/22/mark-steyn-ann-coulter-is-also-asking-for-it.aspx
Think how mad they would have been at Coulter if they had lost the Olympic Hockey final to team USA!
This is why I left Canada 25 years ago. The creeping fascism was evident to me then. Canada is just one or two steps away from the real deal.
I hope Coulter demands that the university rebook her and provide a secure location. They should also permanently expel any student who threatens or uses violence to silence free speech.
Where is Canada anyway? Is that the state that’s in-between Idaho and Wyoming?
“I sometimes think the right may need to resort to uncivil methods if the left keeps this up.”
Unfortunately, that’s likely exactly what the agent provocateurs want, and with the MSM being what it is, we know what the next morning’s lead news stories would be, don’t we.
I was outside. It was not unruly at all! Not even in the slightest. 20-30 students were protesting, while hundreds of people were quietly hoping to get in to see Ann. That’s it!
I was there just a few hours ago, in the line-up with a friend. There weren’t “thousands” of protesters, as the Star et al report. Perhaps 40 or 50. Most of us were lined up quietly. We had to wait 45 minutes or more, listening to those fascists chant. Some of us yelled, (after they said, “No more hate speech”) “Then LEAVE!” I got some laughs when I said, after hearing the word “discrimination”, “Bet you can’t spell that!” and, a little while later, “I want my tax dollars back!” We also chanted, “Free Speech, Free Speech” back at them for quite a while.
The protesters behaved so badly. They chanted “hate speech” over and over. When the security was moving us down the steps, about 20 of them took the opportunity to rush in the door behind security. That’s probably what got security scared. Some were wearing chic Palestinian scarves. They crammed the front entrance and made it hard for the registered to get in. They chanted, “You won’t get in. You won’t get in.” They race-baited: one obvious Coulter fan bravely yelled, “Shut the f. . . up!” after a pompous speech by the main speaker and we all laughed; then one of the protesters said, “You’re a white man and you’re gonna tell me to shut up!” So my friend (bless her East-Indian, Jamaican soul) yelled, “I’M NOT WHITE!” That quieted them for a while. We were all told to dispurse by security, because the 600-hundred sitting inside already had to get out. One man spoke in a very frustrated manner to the police, saying to one of them, “You should do better with security! You let this happened in Cornwall too!”
I was so frustrated, watching those thugs stand there cheering when the word got out that the speech was cancelled, that I yelled at them, “You Liberal Fascists!” Someone with dreadlocks started for me, but a police man got inbetween and said, “Let’s not start anything here.” My friend and I walked the few blocks back to our car, muttering away about the whole business.
We were deprived of our right to see Ann Coulter speak. Many U of O students in that line-up wanted to hear her speak, and were deprived of that by a few fascists in their university who chose to pretend to represented all the students.
It was an embarassing night for Canada. Our security should have been better, and those thugs, going to a university that’s supposed to allow a free-flowing of ideas, should have behaved better.
What happened was wrong. It was chilling. I felt I was watching fascist youth in action.
T:
You keep chanting that Coulter is “racist”, “racist”. You wouldn’t care to back up that ridiculous assertion with a single fact or quotation, would you?
Didn’t think so. Tool.
Agreed sf. It was just a small group that was agitating. Most students were very interested in what Ann had to say. Really interested.
I was right beside the guy who overturned the table hoping to get others with him to storm the door. No takers. He was huge and had told me earlier he had registered and was with the Egyptian student union/club. Security hustled him out of there pretty quick. No other student pushed in after him because if so they would have been able to enter the auditorium.
Hardly any hooligans, a small number of protesters, just insufficient planning and no security/police to actually organize lines, check names and get this event going.
Pathetic
peter odonnel how does she make more sense than david suzuki? But yea this should not have been cancelled, there is more ruckus at minor midget AAA game out here than what had occurred at the campus. Seems like the left wing hear pulled a stunt slightly similar but far less hate filled then what the teabaggers are doing in the states i would think.
Oops, I meant “Concordia”, not “Cornwall.”
I will defend to the death your right to protest Coulter but reserve the right to shoot you dead if you impede my right to hear her speak.
Leftards will never understand that their right to protest is exactly the same as her right to speak.
I hope Ann makes an absolute fortune from this!
I for one will buy her next book. My own personal apology as an ashamed Canadian.
Those that died in the world wars must be rolling in their graves. As Kate has said many times, we need a good old fashioned famine to put things back into proper perspective. There would be little time to protest against what a frail women might say when you’re worried about where your next meal is coming from.
The next major war can’t happen soon enough. Time to relearn that freedom (including free speech) is important.
Dave.
I’m not sure that this could have worked out any better.
Had the speaking engagement gone off without a hitch, a few hundred would have heard her speak and no more would have been said about it.
Now, we have seen free-speech trampled, gross exaggerations by the MSM (1000’s of protesters vs.100’s), laziness and incompetence by the Capitol’s police and smug intolerance by the left. All of which will be exposed to the Canadian public on a national scale.
Thank you, Miss Coulter, for shining a light on the uglier side of Canada. You can’t kill a cockroach that you can’t see.
I was inside the lobby but not in the auditorium so I did not see what happened outside as Deb described. Wow. Inside the lobby was pretty tame though.
I do think however, that she would have been shouted down inside the auditorium if some of the students I saw actually got in….
Great article by Brian Lilley about what happened:
http://www.examiner.com/x-22884-Canada-Politics-Examiner~y2010m3d23-Ann-Coulter-speech-shut-down-at-University-of-Ottawa
The paragraph about “Sameena” is very telling.
RG
40-to 50 is all it takes in the beginning, Deb.
Ask Adolph.
Dear Deb – “chic Palestinian scarves”? They have to be the faggiest looking things since Namath wore
pantyhose.
At least this stupid, vapid zealot didn’t get to spew her venom, hatred and racist messages in Ottawa.
~T
After a while the fire alarm went off, the obvious false alarm having been dealt with we sat down expecting the event to start.
You know how Leftists always use the example for restrictions on free speech by stating the case that it’s illegal to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater because it endangers people?
crickets chirping…..
I was outside all night. There was a handful of pathetic little turds that were screeching outside – but nothing that could in any wat be construed as intimidating. They were a joke.
Look. I’m pissed off. I registered in advance and travelled 60 miles with friends to hear Ann Coulter speak – and it didn’t happen. What’s worse, there is NOTHING that happened at Ottawa U tonight that could in any way be construed as a security issue.
This keeps happening on University campuses. You have gutless, jelly-like administrations (who don’t want speakers like Coulter there to begin with) backed up by hopeless security. They look for any excuse to shut things down.
So here’s my advice. Don’t hold these events on University grounds. Hold them out in the rural areas and let local Landowner Associations handle the pre-registration, admission and security. End of problems… and everybody gets to hear the speaker.
Hey T you festering waste of DNA. Back up your socialist spew with facts otherwise go back to Obama’s basement and wait for orders.
Canada sounds like a Muslim country. No tolerance is unattractive. I guess argument/counter-argument (i.e., reason) means nothing to a Canadian. They like it raw and uncivilized.
Regular Canadians don’t support this fascist denial of free speech. It’s the lunatic fringe of layabouts, benefit sucking immigrants from third world hell-holes that they’d apparently like to duplicate in Canada, students with daddy’s credit card, and leftist academic freedom hating bozos; but I repeat myself.
Have a nice day, eh?
I was being sarcastic, larben. Those scarves are pathetic props for wanna-be radicals.
Oh please, with the sort of crap that Coulter says, I have no sympathy for her. She’s a horrible person who says horrible things so she can “stir the pot.” Good riddance.
Principlex: I’m a Canadian as most everyone else commenting here. Please don’t go lumping us into one group because of a few idiots.
I’d suspect that Ahmadinejad would have been able to speak.
Oh please, with the sort of crap that Coulter says, I have no sympathy for her. She’s a horrible person who says horrible things so she can “stir the pot.” Good riddance.
Jaeger, how much trash was out front after the “thousands of protesters” disappeared? Trash left behind is a pretty good indicator of “unruly” protesters.
Kevin, your comment nails it.
Mason, what you said.
Christopher to you she may say horrible things but do you defend her right to say them?
I’m all for letting Anne Coulter speak freely, howevah!!
Sometimes institutions receive threats that “we the people” are not aware of. That may have been the case here, and given the Liberal brainiacs that make up the party today, that is not hard to fathom.
I think her appearance in Calgary will level the playing field.
PS: Needless to say, the exact same commnet I made here at 12:48 AM was suppressed on CBC.Ca!
Joe Citizen: in Calgary, she could probably fill the Saddledome.
Well, the University of Ottawa has lived up to its local moniker tonight.
U of ZERO
“Here’s my advice: Don’t hold these events on University grounds. Hold them out in the rural areas and let local Landowner Associations handle the pre-registration, admission and security. End of problems… and everybody gets to hear the speaker.” – Jamie McMaster
That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.
How many right wing protesters show up at events put on by the left? Not many. Why? Speaking for myself I really don’t want to be around people like that, they have nothing meaningful to say, I actually feel sorry for those types. I will say one thing for them, they are good at following directions and doing what they’re told. Pathetic, naive, ignorant and insignificant little people, what a life.
Was she carrying peanuts?
It seems likely that the organizers did not have enough experience or perhaps financial resources to put on this gathering in the face of potential harassment from the usual leftist and islamist campus thugs. Without sufficient paid duty police and private security involved up front by the promoters, any contrived situation implying violence would give the U of Zero the excuse they wanted to pull the plug.
I wonder how many nasty emails francois.houle@uottawa.ca has gotten this evening.
LOL Cananda. LOL
Josephine: “The cops care only about keeping the peace and preventing injury or death: they’re not interested in fairness, it’s not their job to stand up for our freedoms and they do not care about what kind of message this sends to the fascists.”
I wonder if this derives from “harm reduction”?
Or maybe their “diversity training” is kicking in?
I think that there was actually a more substantial threat that was made toward Ann Coulter, the smell test isn’t adding up here on this one.
Now the MSM are fudging numbers to make it appear that there were thousands of demonstrators instead of less than 100 as written by those who are eye witnesses. There is some hanky-panky of a sinister kind which we will hear about after the speaking tour in done.
The proof will be if she is allowed to speak in Calgary tomorrow night.