blog.paradigmslip.ca

Author: admin

  • 6 Days on the 4th Floor: My Denied Habeas Corpus – (Day 4)

    It’s difficult to provide a precise description of the day of my habeas corpus back on April 10th, 2015. Too much time has passed and pretty much everything that happened is on record at the court, so there isn’t much need for excess detail. I’m going to skim over most of what happened that day, but I’ll raise a few issues that stand out in my memory.

    I awoke anxious because I hadn’t heard from M that evening. She would arrive early with the news of the RCMP arresting her and seizing all my computers and the only medication capable of treating my condition. It was shocking, but knew I had a medical record of my illness and had may repeated attempts to obtain a prescription from my family doctor. I figured it would sort itself out (I was wrong about that.) so I wasn’t too worried. I was just anxious to get the whole issue before a judge.

    Two of the memories that stick out in my mind about that day relate to Jamie Merrigan, the lawyer for the hospital (also happened to be the Chief Adjudicator for the Human Rights Commission) who would argue against my right of habeas corpus.

    The first matter occurred while waiting for the hearing to commence. I was sitting at the table behind and to the right of him in courtroom 3 of the Danny Williams Building. I noticed he was using one of the new BB10 Blackberrys so I asked him how he liked them. I’d owned a Z10 prior to the RCMP seizing it and eventually destroying it for no good reason. Currently writing everything on a Passport. I just like the operating system. I like that both the hardware and software were Canadian made. I even owned stock in the company for a few years.

    His response? Only drug dealers and criminals like Blackberrys. They think the encryption is unbreakable and they’re safe, but the police have ways of getting into any device.

    I found this a bit odd. Sort of a veiled accusation that the only reason I liked my BlackBerry is because I was up to no good. I don’t use encryption on my phone. I only recently started using a passcode to keep my infant son off my Twitter account. I had nothing to hide on it. Yet this lawyer seemed to be accusing me of criminal activity. I suspected he’d heard about the police search of my home the night before and had decided I was a drug dealer. The RCMP would later come the opposite conclusion, that there was no evidence of trafficking or any intent to traffic, but that the entire supply was for personal use. Didn’t seem to make much difference to this lawyer. He’d already decided I was a criminal or a terrorist and that I would just take time for the proper authorities to gather evidence. He’d even make a similar statement to the Justices at the Court of Appeal hearing and was verbally smacked down by Justice Rowe for making unfounded and slanderous allegations during the hearing.

    I informed him I didn’t use any means of encryption or security on my phone, but that I didn’t think he was 100% accurate in his assessment of the abilities of the police to break encryption. You can use brute force computing power to break encryption, but it takes time. When you’re dealing with encryption of any sufficient sophistication, the possibility of real-time access is fairly non-existent. To be able to read everyone’s encrypted messages in real-time you’d have to have a backdoor into the system. He insisted that he had a math degree and knew better than I did. I told him I’d graduated from an electronic engineering technology program and thought his claim to any proficiency at math seemed questionable as he didn’t seem to understand the concept of orders of magnitude. I’d later discover he only had a liberal arts degree.

    The other thing that he did that sticks in my memory was trying to imply that I was hiding things from my lawyers and the court. That I’d purposely withheld a portion of my medical file that was somehow damning and the hospital was prepared to place it before the court. I took immediate issue with this, but had to flag it in a round about way. As my lawyers weren’t present in the courtroom, I had to speak to the legal aid and have her request a moment of their time. This would result in the court room being cleared of everyone save myself, my lawyers appearing via teleconference, and the legal assistant who was present with me. I raised the issue that i’d signed a consent form that allowed them full access to my file. Merrigan had established a false pretense by suggesting that I hadn’t offered full consent and was being secretive. I felt slandered by a statement that had zero foundation in factual evidence and wanted to know how that was going to be allowed to continue. We spoke briefly on the matter and agreed that it would be addressed in the future. The court was reconvened and my lawyers put forward the assertion that my full medical file would most assuredly be presented and I wasn’t withholding anything. It didn’t appear to matter as the assertion, combined with the fact of the mental health detention, appeared to be sufficient to have Justice Hurley deny the application and violate my Charter right to have the lawfulness of my detainment determined. As of yet this false pretense hasn’t been dealt with. I hope it comes up during the future habeas corpus hearing.

    Hurley himself should have likely been recused from the matter. He was overseeing my original Charter application and had a lawyer appear before him a day earlier to pass along that I’d been detained under the Act and was unable to appear. To any reasonable person, this would create an apprehension of bias issue and he should have never presided over the habeas corpus in the first place. However, in the rush to get the matter before a judge that was never considered. Habeas corpus was a right guaranteed by the Charter. It never occurred to me that the courts themselves would deny a Charter right.

    The final matter that bothered me about the habeas corpus application was the physical arrangement of the court. At the applicant, I was seated on the right side of the court with my legal assistant. I had no lawyers appearing on my side. On the other side of the courtroom we had Jamie Merrigan, as well as the screen used for teleconferencing. On this screen appeared both my lawyers, another lawyer for the hospital and my parents via telephone. So from the perspective of Justice Hurley, no arguments were coming from my side of the courtroom. Everything is coming from a single side. It seemed to me that this put me at a disadvantage in terms of how arguments are viewed and weighed by the judge. Jamie Merrigan was the only lawyer physically present in the room and he essentially instructed Justice Hurley to ignore the Charter issues at play and to defer to the expertise of the hospital. According to him, there was a scheme in place that could address this matter. This would be another misdirection on the part of Mr. Merrigan. While there was legislation that could allow review of my continued detention, there was no way to address the lawfulness of the detainment itself other than through the court. Habeas corpus was the most appropriate route. This has been made clear by the Court of Appeal, but two years after the original detainment.

    At the writing of this post the matter has been remitted back to the Supreme Court for a full hearing. There is no date set as they don’t consider the matter pressing. I consider the matter very pressing. The detainment and defamation have had long term effects on my ability to do almost everything. My family has been broken into pieces. My business has been destroyed. My research has been halted. I’ve been harassed by other government agencies and told to specifically to stop speaking out about the issue online.

    Where is the justice?

    Where is the freedom of speech?

    Where is the Charter?

    At the end of the 4th day, I returned to the secure 4th floor ward of the Western Memorial Regional Hospital. My Charter rights had been deemed non-existent by the Supreme Court.

  • 6 Days on the 4th Floor: My Life of Certified Insanity (Day 3 – Part 2)

    Picking this story back up two years later is more difficult than I would have liked, considering how things have gone, but i’ll do my best to fill in the details.

    When I suspended the recounting of my experience two years ago, I was up to the day of my Charter Challenge. As I’d been detained under the Mental Health Care and Treatment Act, my newly assigned lawyer Jennifer Curran appeared before Justice David Hurley and informed the court that I wouldn’t be able to appear essentially because I’d been certified insane and was being kept in a secure ward with no signing authority to see me to the courthouse. If I’d been arrested and charged with a crime, the RNC would have been responsible for seeing me to the courthouse. Instead, I was rubber stamped into mental health detainment simply because the RNC told the doctors at the hospital to do it. At least, that’s what the certificate of involuntary admission states. No diagnosis, just that the RNC wanted me detained for matters of public safety.

    I had just clued up the day 3 of the detainment from my perspective. April 9th, 2015. I was left waiting on the 4th floor ward for Misha to arrive, hopefully with a razor so I could ditch the playoff beard I’d been growing. I wanted to be clean shaven for my habeas corpus hearing the following day. She would never show up that night. I wouldn’t find out until later it was because the RCMP had arrived at my home as she was preparing to leave to serve a search warrant to seize all my electronics.

    This caught me off guard when I heard about it, but I wasn’t really surprised. I’d said some pretty harsh things about Stephen Harper, his perceived crimes, and the likely punishment that would come from having those crimes discovered. Remember, back in the Summer of 2014 I filed charges against Stephen Harper for inciting genocide between Arabs and Israelis in the 2014 Gaza War. At the time, I’d made it clear in the charges that his incitement would have enormous political and religious repercussions. His actions would create division between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the region and it would have global repercussions that would be felt in Canada and abroad. He legitimized the inhumanity of that war and created a whole new swath of recruitment material for fanatical Muslims who adhere to a violent interpretation of Islam. The rise in acts of religious terrorism since his initial speech to Israel in January of 2014 can be seen as a result of his influence on the region. These charges and my political views on the matter would have me flagged as a radical and a potential threat to national security.

    Suffice it to say I have said a number of bad things about Stephen Harper. There was one Twitter-based utterance where I reference a Kids in the Hall sketch in that I wished I could just pinch my thumb and index finger together and crush his skull between them. Using forced perspective of course. I didn’t quite put it in those words though and the RCMP interpreted them differently. The charges would be withdrawn at first appearance as the Tweet failed to meet the legal requirements for a threat, but at the time those words looked threatening and they felt had to charge me for typing them out.

    To prove I’d sent the tweet in question, they got a warrant to search my home and seize my electronics while I was detained. The warrant also authorized them to search quite a bit more and was quite overly broad considering I’d never once denied sending a tweet any time I’d ever been asked about them. If I hadn’t been detained, they wouldn’t have even had the right to ask for a warrant. They would have been limited to talking to me. But since it was unreasonable for them to speak with me due to my being kept incommunicado on a secure ward, they had no other option than to execute a search warrant to prove that I’d sent the Tweet from a month earlier by seizing all my electronic devices.

    The RCMP arrived at my home to execute a search warrant regarding a tweet that didn’t meet the legal requirements for a criminal threat on the evening of April 9th, 2015. A charge was laid, but was withdrawn at first appearance. No chance of a conviction. No crime committed. They were allowed to do this by notifying the justice that it was unreasonable to speak with me while I was detained under the Mental Health Care and Treatment Act and that they needed a search warrant regarding the devices in question to prove I’d sent the non-criminal, freedom of expression protected utterance.

    The judge complied with their request and authorized them violate the privacy and sanctity of my family home and seize all the devices that had ever logged into my Twitter account. It also authorized them to seize any relevant documents that might relate and was fairly broad in nature. Bet they thought they were going to be beating down the door of another radicalized lone wolf who was bent on taking down the government violently. Expecting to find a cache of guns or bomb making materials.

    Imagine their surprise to discover the complete opposite. I own no weapons. My computers contain no traces of violent imagery or sinister plans of any sort. I was working on insect-based research with the local university on means of restoring and maintaining soil fertility for agricultural use. Had built a business model around the idea and was working towards a larger scale implementation. They found a basement that had a wood working area that was full of home made grow chambers. In them I had mint, green onions, collard greens, grape vines, snap dragons and other species I’d been experimenting with.

    The only ‘sinister’ item that was found was a small quantity of marijuana. It was for a medical condition, but was unprescribed at the time. My family doctor at the time knew of my usage for my condition, and had since our first encounter back in 2009 when I approached him about both matters. He appeared amenable to the idea of prescribing, but wanted to defer it to a later time when it was more acceptable in the local area. He didn’t want to be the first. At that time I was seeking to get a legal prescription so I could be authorized to grow my own supply and cut the costs associated with it. I’d known there was an underlying pathology to my health since around 2002 when my health improved significantly after engaging in a period of recreational marijuana use. I knew there was a medical benefit, but had no idea what the condition was that it was treating, only that my health had improved. He would have the diagnosis handed to him in 2009 after someone informed me of something I couldn’t see myself, but he never went on to associate it with my existing health file that showed the existence of the condition since childhood. Suffice it to say I have a new family doctor who signed off on my prescription and the matter is dealt with properly. Aside from the fact that we’re still facing these charges.

    These charges feel like nothing more than an affront to my basic human dignity. I have a condition that is treatable with medical marijuana. In the eyes of some people that makes me a criminal, which is really just a modern word for sinner. My whole life and existence is then seen as a criminal act. Like I should have died ten years ago from a stroke brought on by massive blood pressure swings while I sleep and thereby not burdened the justice system with the need to address the legality of my existence. I have the right to seek out medicine prolongs my life. Interfering with someone’s attempt to save their own life is a crime in Canada, but good luck pressing that matter against the State. As it stands, this is still progressing through the courts two years later, in spite of the recent R v. Jordan decision that limited the amount of time a matter could be dragged out before the courts.

    There is no innocent until proven guilty in this matter. I claimed the entire supply as my own, but defended my possession as an act of self defense. Despite having a videotaped confession, they’ve refused to drop the charges against Misha because it gives them more leverage against me. In short, the courts have been used as a weapon against me and my family for speaking out about what I’d seen.

    Misha was arrested twice that night. Once when the first arrived to search the home. Again after they found the marijuana. Never properly cautioned. When she was released later on they dropped her back home without even a phone. All communication devices had been seized by the RCMP.

    Keep in mind that she’s six months pregnant at the time and that the warrant they used to gain access to the home was withdrawn by the Crown at first appearance so there was no evidence a crime had even been committed that would have allowed them access to my home.

    These matters are still proceeding through the courts. The Crown wants to punish us for being unable to secure the proper paperwork regarding our chosen form of medicine in a timely fashion. The matter isn’t being heard in any sort of reasonable timeline as we’re being pressure by legal aid to simply plead guilty and accept a punishment for having medical conditions, flying in the face of the original R v. Parker decision that legalized marijuana for medical use in Canada.

    I’m going to move on to Day 4 now. This will include the first habeas corpus that was denied. That ruling has since been set aside by the Court of Appeal and ordered back to the Supreme Court for a full hearing of the facts, but at the writing of this post it’s been two weeks since the ruling was issued and no date has been set.

    I do have a new date for the Charter Challenge that was interrupted two years ago. The application hearing is proceeding this Friday, April 28th. Justice David Hurley, the judge who presided over my initial application hearing and denied habeas corpus, is currently scheduled to hear the matter. I expect I’ll have to ask him to recuse himself.