An outspoken, award-winning U.S. journalist with a speaking engagement at the University of Victoria says she and her producers were detained and interrogated for more than an hour Wednesday at a Canadian border crossing because border agents were afraid she was coming into the country to criticize the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Amy Goodman, the host of an American public radio show called Democracy Now, said the agents did not believe her when she explained that she was visiting Canada to promote her new book about health care, global warming, the economic meltdown and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"[The agent] was incredulous. He kept asking me: 'What about the Olympics?,' " she said in a telephone interview yesterday, en route to UVic. "They were demanding to know what I was going to be talking about, in detail."

Goodman said the vehicle she was travelling in with two assistants was stopped at the Washington-B.C. border around 6 p.m. Wednesday once agents realized she was a journalist. She said she was asked at least six times if she was coming to Canada to speak about the Olympics.

Goodman, whose show runs on 800 North American TV and radio stations, said she was finally released with a two-day work visa that expires today.

Faith St. John, a spokeswoman for Canada Border Services Agency, would not comment on Goodman's case, citing privacy concerns, but said there are many reasons for detaining someone crossing into Canada.