Anybody still think this isn't going to get violent?From www2.macleans.ca:
Coulter: the she-devil in her own wordsby Colby Cosh on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 11:38pm - 69 Comments
Ezra Levant, who was present at the venue for tonight’s aborted Ann Coulter talk at the University of Ottawa, spotted my quickie weblog entry about the cancelled event and had me chat briefly with the leggy agitator. Coulter tells Maclean’s she never had the chance to move on from a private dinner reception at which she was signing books, meeting local conservatives, and waiting for the all-clear from her bodyguard, who was on the scene at the university. “I was just reviewing my speech. It was a fine little speech, and by the way, I cut it down so we could have an extensive question-and-answer period. I gathered that I was going to have a very exciting crowd tonight.”
The police, Coulter says, “had been warning my bodyguard all day that they were putting up [messages] on Facebook: ‘Bring rocks, bring sticks, you gotta hurt Ann Coulter tonight, don’t let her speak.’ And the cops eventually said, we’ve got a bad feeling, this isn’t gonna happen. And they shut it down.”
Coulter agrees with the suggestion that conservative speakers face greater dangers and nuisances in trying to encounter audiences on university campuses. “I speak at a lot of college campuses and I need a bodyguard… Michael Moore does not; Judy Rebick does not. I think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could have spoken tonight with less controversy.” She dismisses the possibility, however, that things are ever likely to change. “Unfortunately, conservatives are too polite, so they will never get a taste of their own medicine in that regard, in terms of angry mobs with sticks and rocks.”
She accuses the University of Ottawa’s academic vice-president, Francois Houle, of “inspiring hatred” toward her with his epistolary warning to her that she needed to be conscious of Canada’s criminal prohibitions of hate speech. Indeed, she says she intends, with Levant’s help, to ask police to proceed with exactly the same charges against Houle.
“He described the law to me very carefully—any speech that incites hatred toward someone based on membership in an identifiable group can be criminally prosecuted. Well, before I even set foot in Canada, he had identified me as having criminal proclivities because I belong to an identifiable group: conservatives. Or it could be because I’m a Christian, I’m a Presbyterian. I’m a female conservative. If what Francois Houle did to me is not a hate crime, then nothing is.”
After the event was cancelled by the police, 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!”
Today it’s Ann Coulter..who will it be tomorrow?
Canadian protest shuts down Coulter
Conservative blames university, provost
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, on a speaking tour of Canada this week addressing political correctness and freedom of speech, found herself silenced Tuesday when organizers canceled a speech at the University of Ottawa after deciding it was too risky to stage the event.
Miss Coulter's Tuesday speech -- the second of three planned across the country -- was called off after raucous demonstrations involving about 2,000 people outside the speaking hall and an evacuation of the University of Ottawa building when someone triggered a fire alarm. The event was cancelled shortly after 8 p.m. -- before Miss Coulter even had a chance to speak.
"It's a public-safety issue," Sgt. Dan Beauchamp told reporters in Ottawa.
When reached Tuesday night by The Washington Times, Miss Coulter said "this has never happened before" in all her years of public speaking, which have included frequent pickets and a couple of attempted pie attacks.
But she came out swinging, denouncing the University of Ottawa as a "bush league" institution.
"I go to the best schools, Harvard, the Ivy League and those kids are too intellectually proud" to threaten speakers. At the University of Ottawa, "their IQ points-to-teeth ratio must be about 1-to-1," she said.
The outspoken Miss Coulter had already sparked controversy on the tour when she all but dared Canadian authorities to try to muffle her under the nation's anti-hate codes, which have been criticized on both sides of the border as stifling free thought and free speech, particularly from conservatives. Her tour is formally titled Political Correctness, Media Bias and Freedom of Speech.
Before Miss Coulter's arrival in Canada, Francois Houle, the University of Ottawa's provost and academic vice president, sent her a letter reminding her of Canada's "reasonable limits on freedom of expression," and the possibility of "criminal charges," an action Miss Coulter openly criticized.
"I hope they do try to prosecute me," Miss Coulter told host Michael Coren on his self-named TV show on the family-oriented CTS network.
After the cancellation, Miss Coulter blamed Mr. Houle, saying "I've been scheduled to give three speeches in Canada. And guess which one I couldn't? The same one where the university sends me a warning.
I think we have an excellent hate-crimes case" against the provost, whose name she said "in English, Frank A-Hole."