EU anti-globalization politician allowed to stay in Canada

Yahoo News
October 12, 2016

French environmentalist Jose Bove attends a demonstration as part of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21), in Paris, France, December 3, 2015. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

OTTAWA (Reuters) - European Parliament member and anti-globalization activist Jose Bove will be allowed to stay in Canada after earlier being told to leave the country, according to organizers of an event where he had been scheduled to speak.

The Council of Canadians, a social justice non-profit, said on Wednesday that a decision to expel Bove from Canada had been reversed.

Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety, tweeted that "an appropriate outcome has been achieved" in the Bove case, though he said privacy rules block public comments on admissibility issues.

The Council of Canadians said Bove had been held by customs for several hours on Tuesday, causing him to miss a planned appearance at a public forum the group had organized in Montreal on the Canadian-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Bove tweeted on Tuesday evening that he had been blocked at Montreal airport for three hours and blamed it on his opposition to CETA.

Bove had said in an earlier interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he had been allowed to go to his hotel, but his passport was confiscated and he was told he would have to leave the country Wednesday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services declined to comment on the specific case.

Bove is the keynote speaker at a separate conference in St. John's, Newfoundland on Friday and he will speak at the conference as originally planned, the Council of Canadians said in a statement.

Bove is known as an anti-globalization activist and for participating in the vandalism of a McDonald's restaurant in 1999. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Andrew Hay, Bernard Orr)