Two months after Maclean's magazine subjected to Maoist show trial by the British Columbia "Human Rights" Tribunal, at Robson Square, Vancouver...

Does Premier Campbell pay attention to the news and what actually happens in our province?

Premier Gordon Campbell stopped by Beijing's Main Press Centre Tuesday to sell his message about the state-of-the-art media centre the province is building in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games.

Instead, he found himself in a political discussion with reporters from some of China's government-run media who wanted to use his press conference to focus on problems affecting the Vancouver Olympics.

But the questions seemed to have more to do with political positioning than with eliciting information.

When one reporter from the China Daily, considered by Westerners to be a government mouthpiece, zeroed in how Campbell will handle "anti-Olympic groups such as the Anti-Poverty Coalition," Campbell gave a political lesson of his own.

"In Canada we will be open to opportunities for people to express whatever views they have," he said. "There will not be opportunities to break the law, [but] we will make sure there will be full and equal expression throughout the 2010 Olympics."
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It clearly wasn't what he was expecting when he announced that the new media centre, which will be built at a cost of $2.5 million, will serve upwards of 3,000 reporters and editors who can't get International Olympic Committee accreditation to the 2010 Winter Games.

In fact, none of the questions he received dealt with the 2,600 square-metre facility, which will be built at Robson Square.

He gave a terse "no" when asked if he was surprised that government-run media would zero in on the issues of poverty and free speech in Canada.

But the premier also didn't shirk from answering the questions, even though he knew that these issues would overtake his good-news message.

Campbell fires back at Chinese critics

Covenant Zone is considering joining the growing boycott of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, to be lifted only when Canada does away with Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and its equivalent in the provincial "human rights" codes. Dear Readers, do you think that a good idea?