Physicist, child of Soviet dissident from satellite state of the former Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Canadian blogger for freedom, Alexandra Belair, granted an interview to describe exactly what happened when the event she had advertised for Parliament Hill on May 20th 2015 was first cancelled by Heritage Canada, and then after some publicity came out about the event cancelation, Heritage Canada claimed they had never granted her a permit in the first place.
This is an interesting few minutes for a number of reasons.
Many thanks to Alexandra Belair for taking this on and for doing the interview, and to Vlad for arranging it and pursuing an important story that the CBC and other media, whose paid work and supposed vocation it is to pursue important stories, would rather went away, being as they are now less in the news than in the narrative business. Despite the frustration and disappointment, there was a gain in knowledge for everyone interested in the status of free expression in Canada and the government’s readiness to accommodate sharia norms when bowing to Islam is convenient or expedient.
If I remember the story right, the guy charged in Burma over the Buddha headphones business wasn’t properly an activist, but someone trying to open a cafe or small business in Yangon. He assumed the Burmese would be as easy-going about that as the Thais, and was mistaken. What is most in play there might be the memory of British colonial attitudes, which were not infrequently arrogant and contemptuous.