EDMONTON - While former U.S. president George W. Bush talked about democracy inside a downtown Edmonton conference centre on Tuesday, hundreds of protesters were outside exercising their right to free speech with signs, songs and screams.

Protestors shout at people going into the Shaw Conference Centre to hear former U.S. President George W. Bush speak in Edmonton Alberta on Tuesday. (Photograph by: John Lucas, Edmonton Journal)"Stop the killing, stop the war," the protesters chanted to the beat of a drum. They held signs that said "Bush is a war criminal;" "Bush lied, 1,000s died;" and "Canada is not Bush Country."

Several dozen police officers kept protesters away from the front of the Shaw Conference Centre and as the crowd grew, metal barricades went up between the police and the crowd.

Marilyn Gaa, who holds both American and Canadian citizenship, held a three-metre-tall black-clad Grim Reaper with a sign on his back that said: "GWB I am your biggest fan" and on the front, "Thanks for 8 great years."

"For the eight years that George Bush was president I was profoundly ashamed and alarmed and angry and now it seems so unfair that he's making a world tour trying to share his 'wisdom' and make a lot of money," said Gaa.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/21-5

At least they know a war criminal when they see one.

Really now.... thought they stopped allowing that about 9 years ago.

no dual citezenship.

At least thats what Homeland security told my canadian wife when we were married.

maybe its no new( dual citizenship) My girlfriend is lithuanian second generation her uncle a recently retired Catholik priest maintained a duel citizenship and when he found out he was being forced to retire to a monestary in Chicago on 230 bucks a month he went back to his homeland were he will at least have medical care free of charge.

I know Canadians are not the smartest people in the world so maybe someone should tell them that Bush is no longer in power and no longer runs the war.If they want to protest the war they should be protesting a man called Barrak obama who is the countries new president.Then again I guess you could keep doing what liberals do best...cry,complain,and blame someone else for your problems.

Many morons pay big money to hear a terrorist talks about democracy, freedom, justice, property....... !!!.

I feel bad for Bush, people will always find something negative to label others with. I do hope i will live to see the legacy and END of this so called war though.

Feeling bad for G.W. Bus ?.
How many millions of lives did he destroy ???!!!.
Damn.....some folks are deaf, dumb and blind politically . And the tragedy is they never return to reality and the truth in front of them....!!!.

"Many morons pay big money to hear a terrorist talks about democracy, freedom, justice, property.......rofl rofl !!!."


I felt the same way when University of KY invited former pm Olmert to talk about Peace while he's responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent palestinians

THe reality is the world is a much,much,safer place today because of what George bush did.George bush served out more justice to all the countries of victims of terrorism than the worlds courts did in the last 100 years.How many dangerous criminals and terrorist did we capture under him?Some of the most barbaric terrorist resposible for countless bombings over the years dead under Bush.Subway bombings,hotel bombings,airline hijackers and bombings,etc.

Women were in nothing less than slavery in Iraq.The only job position they could hold was a school teacher.Now women are holding high level government positions.

Women in Afganistan are treated less than dirt.Sometimes being executed for simply starring at another man.Women are in modern day slavery due to the Taliban.

There are hundreds if not thousands more postive changes that have come to the middle East due to this war.I look at this war as the United states in taking out the garbage.

First of all, you can't liberate the peoples of other cultures. You can't GIVE democracy to a nation. They have to want it for themselves. Why do you suppose they are stil fighting.

Name ten terroists we captured. I can't. He didn't even get the one he was looking for, and that guy takes diallasys. We were in no more danger on 9/12 than we were on 9/10. Nothing changed, not the world, not our country. The only thing that is different is that our nation is now bankrupt for spending trillions of dollars on nothing, and getting nothing for it. Not even allies.

We cannot keep forcing our will and belief system (and that includes our belief in equal rights) on other countries. It's ethnocentric and wrong on many levels.

When diplomacy fails, you've already lost the war. Now it's just a matter of a body count.

True, many Canadians aren't the smartest people in the world...but then again - who elected him twice?
I suspect that it's that kind of bigoted statement that causes the worldwide general dislike of America and in many cases Americans but then again, what do I know...I'm just a dumb Canadian.

You're using sarcasm right????? Because facts are....terrorism attacks have risen 60 percent since the invasion of Iraq. In Iraq, violence rose 80 percent.
have you been to iraq or afghanistan sir? i doubt it, so you have no place speaking on something you know nothing about.
My cousin living in Iraq, who happens to be a woman..would certainly disagree with your assumptions. I take her word anyday over internet blogger.

I only meant that the president doesnt do anything by themself. They have to get the support to make something like War happen. Bush managed to get everyone gang ho behind his war,, whatever his motives,,and it didnt work out. Now people want to put blame for it solely on him when he wasnt the only one supporting it. Noone is perfect. I think the war was a mistake,, but y dwell on it and place the responsibility on one mans shoulders when it just isnt that simple. He wasnt the only one who made bad decisions leading up to that decision. This is why I hate the blame game and prefer to stick to responsibility and choice. He made a bad choice, with many others, now its done. We should move on.

excuse me, I dont really care for Bush, but my empathy is winning out on this one.

I know I am gonna get hit for this one, but it needs to be said. Every single one of you Americans that call President Bush a war criminal needs to be charged with Slander as it has already been stated IN COURT, and proven that President Bush never did anything illegal. By calling him a war criminal you are trying to cause him harm (not necesarrily physical harm, but harm all the same), when you know he is not guilty of what you accuse him.

Even if you do not agree with the facts and decisions made, President Bush has not been found guilty of any crimes, let alone any war crimes, thus it is slanderous to call him a war criminal.

Grow up people.

Just for the record, I don't think he's a war criminal, just an idiot.

The people of the countries in which we're fighting DO want freedom, it's those in power there who don't want to see that happen. It is a basic yearning of the HUMAN (not merely American) spirit to be free.

Though I couldn't give you names off the top of my head, I guarantee you I could very likely do some research and find far more than ten terrorists that we've captured in the course of the entire war. Just because Osama himself hasn't been found (probably because he's been buried somewhere for quite some time) doesn't mean that everything has been for naught. The only way one could say that "nothing changed" as a result of Sept. 11th is if you make the case that we were in danger before and we're in danger now, but even then, there are many of us who were blind to the danger before and are not now, so at the very least that has changed.

I think what you fail to understand is that if you react in the fashion that we did to the attacks, the terrorists win.

We've repealed freedoms:

Try going somewhere in the western hemisphere without a passport anymore. You could use to go anywhere on this side of the globe with only your drivers liscence.

How long does it take to go through the airport? Even when you don't leave the country.

How's your parinoia? Think we'll be attack again? Why shouldn't we, Europe has been hundreds of times, do they react like that?

That's what we've lost. Our rights. Why? Because we were afraid? What happened to our presidents. 80 years ago it was "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Now it's "Be afraid they're out to stop our way of life."

They don't want to stop our way of life, they want to live theirs without our meddling.

And to say that people yearn to be free is not true. People yearn to live without the shackles of oppression. Just because you feel free in a democracy does not mean others will or do. We had to fight for our own freedom. So did most countries that have it. The people had enough of totalitarian regimes and they got rid of them. We should support them when they decide to go for it, but we should not disrupt a soveriegn nations ability to govern itself just because we don't like how they do it. If that is so, why do we buy everything from communist China? Do they not have a repressive system as well?

Our government can't even maintain state policy in a consistant manner, why believe the hype instead of thinking rationally?

If the terms of Nuremburg were applied to america and Bush...GUILTY AS CHARGED