OTTAWA–The Canadian government issued a visa to a prominent peace activist and Palestinian MP too late for him to make the long trek in time for a three-city speaking tour about Middle East politics.

"It is clear I cannot make it," Mustafa Barghouti said from Ramallah on Friday after having learned that Canada would issue him a visa when it was already impossible for him to arrive in time to speak at two of three scheduled public events.

The physician, independent MP and former presidential candidate for the Palestinian Authority, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was scheduled to speak on Palestinian politics and peace in the Middle East while in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

His appearance at the University of Toronto Saturday had been sold out and Barghouti was scheduled to meet with senior members of the three opposition parties Monday.

"The Harper government's obstruction of Dr. Barghouti's visa is part of a broader strategy to muzzle or obstruct any voice critical of the policies of the Israeli government," said his host organization, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, in announcing the cancellation of the tour.

Barghouti would not join in the criticism of the Harper government, but did note he was puzzled at the length of time it took to obtain the visa.

In the past, he said, he was issued visas to visit Canada within two to three days. In this case, he applied March 5.

The Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East said it went to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to try to expedite the visa this week, but the government said it can routinely take up to six weeks for the visa process to unfold.

The host organization decided to cancel the tour at the last minute Friday afternoon because Barghouti would not have time to pick up his visa and then travel to Jordan to catch a flight from Amman.

"At some point, you've got venues to cancel; you've got people to reimburse for tickets, all these different things," said the organization's president Thomas Woodley.

He said officials would have known how logistically difficult and time-consuming it is for a Palestinian to leave the country.

"They know he can't fly out of Tel Aviv because he is not an Israeli citizen," said Woodley.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokeswoman Karen Shadd said she could not comment on individual cases, but noted the website of the Canadian embassy in Israel recommends visitors apply for visas at least six weeks before they expect to travel.

"Canadian officials do their utmost to process applications in a timely manner when urgent situations arise, but in some cases, such as when information is incomplete or arrives at the last minute, this is not possible," Shadd said in an email Friday. She also noted 85 per cent of temporary resident visa applications in Tel Aviv are processed in 14 days or less.

The decision comes the same week Cannon criticized a controversial decision by Israel to build new settlements in the disputed territory of East Jerusalem.

"We feel that this is contrary to international law and therefore condemn it. We're very concerned with what is taking place," Cannon told the House of Commons foreign affairs committee on Tuesday.

It was the strongest language a Conservative cabinet minister has used against Israeli policy, but his office later downplayed the remark by insisting it did not represent a change in position.

Despite claims of political interference from the group that was sponsoring his tour, Barghouti dismissed the idea the housing issue played a role in the decision to grant him a visa.

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"Everybody is in agreement that settlements are bad," Barghouti had said from Ramallah earlier Friday while he was still awaiting the decision. "I am travelling to Canada to explain the situation to the people there, because the settlements are killing the possibility of peace and killing the possibility of peaceful resolution, and it's not Israel that is deciding whether I should get my visa or not. It's the Canadian government."

The Toronto Star published an article Thursday in which Barghouti said anger over the settlements could spark new clashes in the region, although he added Palestinians have little interest in repeating the violent confrontations of the second intifada in the early 2000s.

Still, he added that peaceful protests can escalate to violence when met with force.

B'nai Brith Canada did not lobby the federal government one way or the other about the visit, said its executive vice-president Frank Dimant.

"I think it's important to note that we had no intervention on this matter," Dimant said Friday, noting that while Barghouti calls for a boycott and disinvestment of Israel, he does not support "extremist, radical Islam."

"It's not as if there was any effort to the best of my knowledge by any Jewish group to try and delay the entry," Dimant said. "I believe that if anything it had to do with the bureaucrats, but certainly it was not an issue on the Jewish agenda."

The tour was to include a speech at the medical faculty of the University of Toronto on Saturday.

Barghouti was expected to meet privately with NDP Leader Jack Layton, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe and Liberal MP Bob Rae (Toronto Centre) on Monday.

The host group said they tried to organize meetings with Cannon and Peter Kent, the minister of state for foreign affairs, but were told they were out of town Monday.

Barghouti said he could not understand why the visa was taking so long given he had visited Canada on a number of other occasions.

"I got it before in two or three days. It's a bit strange," he said from Ramallah earlier Friday.

He said once he was granted a visa within 24 hours while he was in Washington, D.C., after learning he would make a stopover in Canada on his way home.

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