‘Trudeau, the mule, should be made an ass’

Press, 27 July 1976, Page 16

‘Trudeau, the mule, should be made an ass’

From the “Economist.'’ London At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Nazi Government wanted to exclude Jews, but was eventually sober enough to obey an order to admit them from the International Olympic Committee and from mass decent opinion. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Canada’s Prime Minister, Mr Trudeau, has ordered a small team of Taiwanese not to carry a banner saying that they are the Republic of China, because, he contends, that they are not. His contention is right, but his action is illegal. Under what law passed by Canada’s or any other free parliament is any government authorised to forbid any group of free men to put on a placard in a hired stadium any words they please? if a group including Joe Bloggs hired the Albert Hall so as to allow Bloggs to carry a banner proclaiming that he was the King of Rumania, then nobody but a kook would believe Bloggs was king of Rumania, just as nobody but a kook thinks Taiwan is the Republic of China: but Bloggs should be free to proclaim it provided he does not do so in a manner that is seditious or obscene.

It will be for the people of Canada to show at their next General Election whether they understand this. Their country’ is diminished by Mr Trudeau’s claim that he is merely operating their immigration laws, thus proclaiming his Liberal Government’s strange principle at a great international festival that free speech in Canada is only for Canadians, not for an inconvenient group of prickly tourist Chinese. The International Olympic Committee is worried lest at the 1980 Moscow Olympics

the Russians may now also pick and choose who can run under what flags. Canada was elected as the Olympic centre immediately before Russia precisely because it was expected to set the best example in carefully keeping its promise to give free run to athletes from ail Olympic countries, a promise it has incontinently broken.

The need now is not for foreign politicians like President Ford to issue pompous protests to perfidious Canadian ones. The TV-given opportunity is that the youth of the world, at Montreal assembled, with several hundred million televiewers looking in, should call the powers

of laughter into action so as to redress the balance of freedom which overweening politicians are now disturbing in so many human affairs. As Mr Trudeau has been a mule, bubbling youth should make an ass of him.