See? You can yell “fire” in a crowded theatre after all!
Via Rightgirl – “…word is coming out of Ottawa that the Coulter event had to be canceled because volunteers were attacked by “anti-racists”.
Details at the Ottawa Sun. Update: It’s just hit Drudge, making this in all probability, the biggest publicity coup of Ann Coulter’s career.
Congratulations, Ottawa! She couldn’t have done it without you.
There are so many excellent points made on this site and the comments section (now closed, of course) on the CTV news site I could spend the next two hours thanking people for their taking the time to defend unfiltered free speech by posting their thought provoking responses, perhaps even giving opponents a dose of truth to think about.
It is abundantly clear that free speech is in serious danger in Canada – worse danger than I ever imagined. As Peter O’Donnell pointed out,the police taking sides in our nations capital, Ottawa, effectively canceling Coulters speaking engagement time is indeed a very bad sign and one we can not ignore.
I was utterly disgusted that the writer of the CTV article mentioned that “Coulter who wore a short black dress to her speech” – it appears they have now changed the article and omitted that sentence.
This is one of my favourite comments from CTV from a B. Kelley in Ontario:I can’t believe the number of posters who actually believe that we should launder everything that is said in this country to ensure that no one is ever offended or has their feelings hurt. Democracy was not only founded on the concept of free speech but the very continuation of it’s existence depends on that right. An expressed opinion is seldom fatal to the person who disagrees with it. Few people have ever bled when subjected to a statement they didn’t like. Coulter was not firing bullets, she was speaking words that you may or may not agree with but, in the end, they are nothing more than words. Have people not noticed that the countries in this world that suppress free speech are the same ones that breed radicals who commit acts of terrorism against innocent people? Have you not noticed that there is a direct correlation between the level of freedom in each country and the standard of living enjoyed by it’s citizens? Suppression of free and open thought, debate, speech and opinions is the first giant step toward a state of fascism that should be shunned by all thinking people, no matter where they sit in the political spectrum.
What I find puzzling is why would CTV show a picture of a “monkey” headlining their internet story about the Ann Coulter incident.
Both Ann & free speech won a bit today. Though anti-democratic forces thought to use it otherwise.
After this most Canadians now know what this Country faces.
Where the killing beast of humanity breeds at least.
JMO
I defended Anne Coulter on CBC. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional.
She is great. I just do not agree with everything she says.
Craig B. Chandler
The RCMP is responsible for policing crime in Canada…Why are they not involved.. A Mob shuts down a UA event. The activities of a Mob are criminal activity.. end of story.
The US ambassador must demand a response, or Canada “must” be put on the do not visit list..
‘Yes EBD @ 9:46….I’ve been reading that all day…”Ann Coulter, don’t like her, but I defend her right to say what she wants”.
Well, I like her. No apologies.’
Me too, Soccermom.
Anne is brilliant and funny; she enjoys living and she is not afraid of the truth. What is not to love? She is as beautiful inside as she is outside.
Anne defends little people, the little people who are slaughtered before they are born – Anne Coulter speaks my language, she speaks with mega brain power, making her speeches music to my ears.
Thanks for all the links everyone. I hope that Anne sues the pants off the HRC.
Yeah well, Ottawa seems like the ideal place for that monument to the victims of communism.
After all, they are basically living all around the damn thing.
Coulter is a Conservative and a Christian with a great sense of humour which simply isn’t acceptable in the cesspools of Leftism flooding through the halls of higher learning.
We’ve all lost a great deal in this country with this Lefty creep, this event should be a big wake-up and call to arms before they take away all our freedoms.
I was in the VIP seats at the London event. Ann’s speech was funny and made exceptionally good points about the double standard for lefties and conservatives.
Her point, Ottawa just proved it. There also needs to be an HRC complaint for not allowing the posters to be posted in the University Center.
How many incidents of violence have occurred during the gun owner rallies, such as the one where Bruce Montague burned his registration certificates?
I laughed at this comment on the Ottawa Sun wbsite. QED.
i’d like to know where in the hell does this lady(opps sorry blode bimbo)get off saying that our university is a bush league school yet our school is one they best school’s in the world for having dr. in there field get better jobs than the american’s
Robert R, March 24th 2010, 9:44am
You realize that there are US Marines behind those gates?
She’s in fine hands. I put money the Marines would have loved to been at the door when it got rushed…
The Ottawa Citizen reports that Police Chief Vern White is being considered for the next commissioner of the RCMP. It is his men that were frightened off by a few loud student protesters.
I brought this to the attention of one of the locals….his response:
Well I guess we are gonna have to be a bit more active politically. Next time this sorta thing comes up locally, me and the lads will “counter protest”….wearing work boots………
I realize this is not the image, we on the right side of things wish to project…but….it’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it.
My associate was obvious relishing an encounter between the farm boys and construction/welders with the callused hands and work boots against the metrosexual(girly boy lounge lizard)lefties.
As far as the US ambassador filing a protest—fugedaboudit—-OBOZO is likely pleased with outcome.
As Mr. Biden might say Unf***ing beleivable
sasquatch, if you do this, just make a human wall and make sure your side has video of the inevitable spitting and throwing of stuff from the lamers.
Maybe also dress up silly so the creeps won’t be able to characterize you as “intimidating steel toe-booted redneck oil workers that are killing the planet”.
Craig Chandler, you are a coward like John McCain. You only fight when you are attacking fellow conservatives. I remember your wimpy victory at the human rights commission. The HRC only prosecutes conservatives, as you well know. What did you do with the money you won from the person you accused in that kangaroo court?
Jamie,
I have never won anything in the HRC? I have never received money either. I have never taken anyone to the HRC, I have only been taken there.
Sad that you are such a liar.
Craig B. Chandler
On Craig Chandler.
My post yesterday at 9:41 pm. I know I had not got it wrong about Mr Chandler, even if I made the mistake of quickly thinking he was one of the protesters. I had just looked at the show at that point. The kow tow to the steely eyed, sneer voiced Kelley of CBC
I had mentioned gooey eyed CBC women shilling for Barack Obama. If I thought a little hard to back up, I got some help. I noticed a review on a publication by Rosemary Barton. It was mentioned that as a CBC observer she waited for hours in the cold to see a motor cade or such.
She was heard to scream “I saw him”. This as Obama came near. The sad thing is our tax payers dollars being used thus blatently.
Ann rocks!
Murray wrote: “I laughed at this comment on the Ottawa Sun wbsite. QED.
{i’d like to know where in the hell does this lady(opps sorry blode bimbo)get off saying that our university is a bush league school yet our school is one they best school’s in the world for having dr. in there field get better jobs than the american’s
Robert R, March 24th 2010, 9:44am}
Murray, QED indeed! People living in glass houses should not post stoned. 🙂
Ann Coulter loves the attention I’m sure. U of O is “easy” to get into she says. Yet she didn’t make it in and I’m glad anytime her hatred does not get a chance to be expressed in Ottawa or elsewhere. People like her make Democrats seem palatable in the USA. I wish she would run for president for that reason.
I arrived late (screw in my car’s tire), just as the fire truck was leaving. For having read about the techniques used by leftist groups to shut down conservative events, I immediately knew, even before turning the corner and seeing the big crowd outside the building waiting to go in that I probably wouldn’t see and hear Ann and Ezra that night. Still, suspecting that most of the people outside weren’t registered, contrary to me, I wiggled my way in and finally reached near the doors to the auditorium. On my way there, I bought all the (Ezra and Ann) books I found at the UO bookshop stand. A while later, the police moved in and told the crowd that the event had been cancelled. Some (most) in the crowd roared their approval, chanting “No more hate speech”, to which I replied, yelling “Freedom of speech”. Of course,the police didn’t make any distinction and wanted everybody out but I insisted for taking a peer inside the auditorium in the off chance that I could get a sense of what had happened inside. When only a dozen people were left, the constabulary summoned enough courage to make their move on me and two of them pushed me out the doors, with others joining to make sure that I didn’t come back in. I think I was the only person who was physically expelled. Oh well!
My impression is that the (obviously inexperienced) event organisers did not take crowd control seriously enough and were easily scared by a bit of rowdiness, not showing sufficient firmness when it was required. Only pre-registered participants should have been allowed in, period. That was supposed to be the rule. Maybe less fecklessness and more intestinal fortitude on the part of the babe-in-the-woods organisers would have been in order, I’m just sayin’… Also, what happened was quite predictable, especially after the Provost’s infamous letter – for which he should be sued. Universities are notorious for being bastions of lefty bias, and Ann Coulter is not a frequent visitor, so perhaps holding the event elsewhere in Ottawa would have been a better idea. I just hope she comes back soon.
If our founding fathers had been afraid of offending anyone, the Declaration of Independence would never have been written, nor the Constitution signed.
If A**Houle had not written such an inflammatory letter, then publicized it, the evening and Ann Coulter’s speech would most likely have gone well. To me, a WWII Veteran, his letter read like an incitement to riot all by itself, cowardly, puny, vicious, and he got exactly the results he was after. It is obvious to me and I’m sure to many others, that it was the Provost of the University who deliberately sabotaged the event. From now on, when I think of a Canadian A**hole, it will be spelled A**houle, like the cowardly lion from Alice.
As usual, the comments from many Canadian students (as happens in the U.S.) seem to be written at 3rd Grade Level; they’d never have graduated from 8th Grade back in the 30s and 40s.
Good luck Ottawa. It’s obvious that your Freedom of Speech is a thing of the past. Insist that your Provost’s letter be a standard warning to all future speakers on campus, just to be fair, of course.
” …U of O is “easy” to get into she says. Yet she didn’t make it in …”
cmr, Ann Coulter got into and graduated from Cornell University, into which it is much more difficult to get accepted than University of Ottawa.
It was the Frenchman Voltaire who, I’m told, commented, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
So much for the French freedom-of-speech heritage, of which my Canadian friends in a summer boys’ camp in Vermont once had every right to be proud. TLC-ers, what has happened?
(And in case you’re wondering, I still have a couple of ‘TLC Echo’s around.)
ANN COULTER DOES NOT BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH
CRAIG CHANDLER “DISINVITED” FROM PRIVATE RECEPTION
My father was correct, Ann Coulter does make me look moderate
Statement By Craig Chandler, Thursday, March 24, 2010.
RE: Being “Disinvited” By Anne Coulter from Private Reception
On Tuesday March 23, 2010 shortly after the Ann Coulter event at the University of Ottawa was cancelled by police, Colby Cosh wrote a column that appeared in Maclean’s Magazine online at http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/03/23/coulter-the-she-devil-in-her-own-words/#idc-cover This article perpetuated some falsehoods relating to Ann Coulter’s visit and myself.
The following is taken from the online article written by Colby Cosh “…Coulter says she went to her hotel room to relax and had a surreal moment. “I was watching the local news, which was all hockey and Ann Coulter, and some nut came on claiming that he was the organizer behind my speech. [murmurs in background] OK, his name is Craig Chandler. I sent an e-mail to my bodyguard saying Craig Chandler is disinvited from the event in Calgary. He’s on TV claiming to be the organizer and denouncing me!”
I was indeed on CBC discussing the Ottawa speech by Anne Coulter. CBC asked me to come to discuss Ann Coulter because intially my organization the Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB) secured the contract to bring Anne Coulter to Calgary with her speakers bureau. We have launched a speakers series which included: Governor Mike Huckabee, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. To my surprise, I then heard Ezra Levant was bringing her to Calgary. Being that Ezra is a friend I contacted him and asked what was going on and although I did not like his answer, I accepted it and let him know that I would not be bringing Ann Coulter to Town as a result. I also let him know that we would help him and promote the event throughout Calgary. We also purchased some tickets for the private reception.
It is very understandable why CBC thought that I was an organizer for the Ann Coulter event in Calgary when it was widely announced that the organization I was with was going to bring her up. As one can clearly see in the CBC video at http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/ID=1450395721 (Under Victim or Villan on the right side) I make it clear in the first words that I say that I am not an organizer. Unfortunately, even after I make it clear I am not an organizer of the event the CBC still displays that I am and that is where I think Ann Coulter is led to believe that I am claiming to be an organizer.
After reading the online Maclean’s article by Colby Cosh I was very upset and contacted Ezra Levant to inform him of the errors on CBC and that I would be contacting CBC. I contacted Mark Kelley the host of Connect with Mark Kelley and asked about the confusion because I did not realise that the display with my name as an organizer appeared on TV until reading Colby Cosh’s article. Mr. Kelley promptly responded with the email apology as seen below:
—– Original Message —–
From: Mark Kelley
To: executivedirector@pgib.ca
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 8:56 AM
Subject: Re: Last Night
Hi Craig…there was some confusion on our end that you were one of the organizers bringing Ann Coulter to Calgary…but that was our error…which you immediately rectified in before you spoke about anything else. If this has caused any confusion or concern, I apologize for that, and thank you for speaking to us about your support for Ms. Coulter’s right to free speech in this country. It was an enlightening, and timely interview.
Thanks Craig,
Mark Kelley
Host- Connect with Mark Kelley
CBC News Network
If Ann Coulter “disinvited” me to the private reception because of the mislabelling of me as an organizer, all of this was clarified almost immediately. My explanation and the email from Mark Kelley was forwarded to Ezra Levant (the actual organizer). I am sure Ezra Levant who is a friend of mine shared this information with Ms. Coulter.
Personally, I really do not think that is the real reason that I have been “disinvited”. In her statements to Colby Cosh she was also very upset that I was apparently “denouncing” her. When you watch the CBC video at http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/ID=1450395721 (Under Victim or Villan on the right side) I do make some statements that I think are the real reason that I will not be at the private reception this evening.
In the 6 minute and 31 second interview I defend Ann Coulter in every way imagineable, however, I do say 2 comments that I sincerely feel she did not like and they are as follows: “She says some things that are stupid…so be it” and “There are things she says that I disagree with…for example I have Muslim friends, we all know about the Muslim comments as you have said and I do not think they are worth repeating myself…I do not neccessarily think those comments were good, but, they were her opinions and she is allowed to have them” For almost 6 minutes I defended her comments and conducted over 22 interviews in her defence.
The Calgary Beacon – Calgary’s Only Online Newspaper seems to get that I am “…a tad upset” see http://www.calgarybeacon.com/2010/03/ann-coulters-calgary-spiel-could-re-ignite-canadian-free-speech-debate/ The Beacon is also correct when they write “Chandler says Coulter was having a bad day and the local CBC news clip she saw took his comments out of context. “I’m willing to forgive her”.
I have forgiven Ann Coulter, but, she is being a hypocrite.
Ann has no problem talking about free speech and whining that she could not be heard etc. I completely agree with Ann that she had the right to be heard and the protestors at the University of Ottawa were like brown shirts in trying to silence her. However, I do find it very hypocritical that I say something that she disagrees with and I am all of a sudden disinvited to the private reception. It is acceptable for people to disagree and I do find some of her comments extreme, but, I have been consistent in defending her right to say them.
My father’s response when I told him I was bringing Ann Coulter to Calgary seems to be the correct one when he said “One thing is for certain son, if you bring up Ann Coulter you will look moderate compared to her”. Also, my wife who is more conservative than I am was also very uncomfortable with Ann Coulter after hearing her books on CD.
After this experience, I do find Ann Coulter extreme. She claims to be an advocate of free speech, but, her actions have proven she only tolerates what she likes to hear. Free speech means you need to tolerate the voices of even those you disagree with.
Ann Coulter is a fraud, she does not believe in free speech at all, she just loves hearing the sound of her own voice and demands complete loyalty. Thank God for America that this women is not running for office because the real test of her values were clearly displayed in Canada and that is she will do anything to shut down anyone who has an independent thought.
One thing we can be thankful for as a result of Ann Coulter’s trip to Canada is that her visit has put free speech on the map again and ignited debate about Human Rights Commissions, hate crimes and independent thought.
Ezra Levant deserves praise for bringing Ann Coulter up. The only problem in this situation is that Anne Coulter really does not believe what she preaches, she is just trying to sell books.
As Mike Havery an Executive member of the Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB) said to me this morning “It is good we found out what a fraud Ann Coulter was now and that we did not end up paying $50,000 to bring her up”.
If being a moderate means I believe in treating everyone equally regardless of their race, language, culture or gender then I am as guilty as charged. I believe in free speech and I will continue to fight for everyone to have their say, even if I disagree with them and that means Ann Coulter as well.
Craig B. Chandler
Direct: 403-726-2371
Email: craig@craigchandler.ca
Website: http://www.craigchandler.ca
Side note, Ms. Coulter seems to be suffering from Anorexia Nervosa. I do hope she is ok.
I feel Ms. Coulter is playing the field. Who can blame her, the attention can become addictive, but I feel something is amiss in her life.
Time will tell I guess.