B.C. Mountie sues force for harassment

WARNING: this story contains graphic details

CBC News

Posted: May 9, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/05/09/bc-galliford-civil-claim.html

RCMP Cpl. Catherine Galliford says she didn’t report the alleged abuse because she feared for her career. (CBC)

CBC News has learned the high-profile Mountie who first spoke out against sexual harassment in the national police force is suing her employer, alleging years of “persistent and ongoing” sexual harassment and bullying.

In a notice of claim obtained by CBC News Wednesday, Cpl. Catherine Galliford alleges she was sexually assaulted, harassed and bullied during her 16 years on the force.

The notice names Canada’s attorney general, B.C.’s justice minister, three Mounties, a civilian RCMP doctor and a Vancouver police officer.

Galliford was the face of the B.C. RCMP for years, revealing charges had been laid in the Air India bombing and announcing the arrest of serial killer Robert William Pickton.

According to the 26-page statement, the abuse began before Galliford was sworn in as an RCMP member. She alleges then RCMP Insp. Mike Bergerman groped and tried to kiss her in 1991 when she was at the RCMP’s training academy.

“[Bergerman’s] misconduct was wilful, and he acted with the intent of sexual gratification which shocked and sexually humiliated [Galliford] and demeaned her value as an RCMP officer and a human being,” the document reads.

Galliford did not officially report the misconduct.

“I never complained officially about the sexual assaults and sexual harassment because I knew that if I did it would come back on me in a negative way,” she told CBC News Wednesday.

‘Culture of sexual harassment’

The document goes on to detail years of alleged harassment, including repeated sexual advances by Staff Sgt. Doug Henderson — and an alleged  attack in a hotel room while they were on a business trip.

“Henderson aggressively sexually attacked [Galliford] … removing some of his clothes and exposing [himself] to her,” the statement reads.

Galliford also alleges repeated sexual harassment at the hands of Phil Little, a Vancouver police officer she worked with on the Missing Women Task Force.

According to the document, Little made several sexually suggestive comments, including, “I don’t know what I like better, your eyes or your mouth.”

Galliford also alleges Little exposed himself to her in his car while investigating Pickton, saying “I want to show you my mole. Don’t you think it’s cute?”

According to the statement, Galliford once again did not formally complain for fear of negative repercussions.

“The culture of sexual harassment within the RCMP is so pervasive that [Galliford] was helpless to personally stop it,” the document reads.

“[Galliford] had to accept a certain level of tolerance of [sexual harassment] as complaining about it would only make matters worse.”

‘Very sick’

Galliford’s lawyer Barry Carter says his client developed a severe form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the harassment and  the statement lays out a litany of symptoms, including agoraphobia, nightmares, alcohol dependency and significant weight loss.

Barry Carter, Galliford’s lawyer, says his client is very sick as a result of the harassment. (CBC)

Galliford has been off duty on sick leave since 2007.

“She’s very sick,” he said. “I would think her career with the RCMP is pretty much done.”

Galliford is also suing RCMP doctor Ian MacDonald, alleging he failed to properly diagnose and treat her psychological problems and made things worse by disclosing confidential information to her estranged husband.

“It would appear from reviewing the material that we have that there was an insistence on treating her dependency problems, her alcohol dependency, and ignoring the underlying problems that led to the alcohol dependency, which was her PTSD,” Carter said.

“As I understand, if PTSD goes untreated it gets worse and so this went on for years.”

Culture of fear

The force insisted she follow a relapse prevention agreement (RPA) related to her alcohol dependency, Carter said, but refused to treat her PTSD.

“As a result of … their perceived failure of the RPA’s, they started to see her as being difficult and manipulative and being deceptive and lying and being somehow a risk to the RCMP if she returned to operational duties.”

The allegations have not been proven in court. None of the defendants have had the opportunity to respond as the case was filed recently. If served in Canada, the defendants have 21 days to file a response.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens, the top Mountie in B.C., issued a statement to CBC News Wednesday night, saying that Galliford’s allegations remain unproven and officers had been assigned to investigate them.

Callens said two investigations were undertaken. One probe related to allegations that Callens said were linked to the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry into the police investigations of Pickton, currently underway in Vancouver.

Callens said the other set of allegations by Galliford did not pertain to the inquiry and were being investigated separately.

“The allegations relating to the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry have been fully investigated and I can tell you that we have not been able to substantiate nor corroborate any related to the alleged sexual harassment by RCMP members,” Callens said. “The remaining allegations continue to be investigated.”

Galliford is seeking unspecified damages for loss of past and future income in addition to punitive and aggravated damages.

Her high-profile case is the latest in a growing list of legal actions against the Mounties alleging a culture of harassment inside the force.

“I don’t know if my journey is going to change anything for other members who are in the force now or those who are coming after me because there is still a culture of fear,” Galliford said Wednesday.

————–

With files from the CBC’s Greg Rasmussen, Natalie Clancy

http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/6720

How Hitler defied the bankers

Many people take joy in saying Wall Street and Jewish bankers “financed Hitler.” There is plenty of documented evidence that Wall Street and Jewish bankers did indeed help finance Hitler at first, partly because it allowed the bankers to get rich (as I will describe below) and partly in order to control Stalin. However, when Germany broke free from the bankers, the bankers declared a world war against Germany.

When we look at all the facts, the charge that “Jews financed Hitler” becomes irrelevant.  Los Angeles Attorney Ellen Brown discusses this topic in her book Web Of Debt…

When Hitler came to power, Germany was hopelessly broke. The Treaty of Versailles had imposed crushing reparations on the German people, demanding that Germans repay every nation’s costs of the war. These costs totaled three times the value of all the property in Germany.

Private currency speculators caused the German mark to plummet, precipitating one of the worst runaway inflations in modern times. A wheelbarrow full of 100 billion-mark banknotes could not buy a loaf of bread. The national treasury was empty. Countless homes and farms were lost to speculators and to private (Jewish controlled) banks. Germans lived in hovels. They were starving.

Nothing like this had ever happened before - the total destruction of the national currency, plus the wiping out of people’s savings and businesses.  On top of this came a global depression.  Germany had no choice but to succumb to debt slavery under international (mainly Jewish) bankers until 1933, when the National Socialists came to power. At that point the German government thwarted the international banking cartels by issuing its own money.  World Jewry responded by declaring a global boycott against Germany.

Hitler began a national credit program by devising a plan of public works that included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. All these were paid for with money that no longer came from the private international bankers.

The projected cost of these various programs was fixed at one billion units of the national currency.  To pay for this, the German government (not the international bankers) issued bills of exchange, called Labor Treasury Certificates.  In this way the National Socialists put millions of people to work, and paid them with Treasury Certificates.

Under the National Socialists, Germany’s money wasn’t backed by gold (which was owned by the international bankers).  It was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government.  Hitler said, “For every mark issued, we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done, or goods produced.” The government paid workers in Certificates. Workers spent those Certificates on other goods and services, thus creating more jobs for more people.  In this way the German people climbed out of the crushing debt imposed on them by the international bankers.

Within two years, the unemployment problem had been solved, and Germany was back on its feet. It had a solid, stable currency, with no debt, and no inflation, at a time when millions of people in the United States and other Western countries (controlled by international bankers) were still out of work.  Within five years, Germany went from the poorest nation in Europe to the richest.

Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, despite the international bankers’ denial of foreign credit to Germany, and despite the global boycott by Jewish-owned industries.  Germany succeeded in this by exchanging equipment and commodities directly with other countries, using a barter system that cut the bankers out of the picture.  Germany flourished, since barter eliminates national debt and trade deficits. (Venezuela does the same thing today when it trades oil for commodities, plus medical help, and so on.  Hence the bankers are trying to squeeze Venezuela.)

Germany’s economic freedom was short-lived; but it left several monuments, including the famous Autobahn, the world’s first extensive superhighway.

Hjalmar Schacht, a Rothschild agent who was temporarily head of the German central bank,  summed it up thus… An American banker had commented, “Dr. Schacht, you should come to America. We’ve lots of money and that’s real banking.” Schacht replied, “You should come to Berlin. We don’t have money. That’s real banking.”

(Schacht, the Rothschild agent, actually supported the private international bankers against Germany, and was rewarded by having all charges against him dropped at the Nuremberg trials.)

This economic freedom made Hitler extremely popular with the German people.  Germany was rescued from English economic theory, which says that all currency must be borrowed against the gold owned by a private and secretive banking cartel — such as the Federal Reserve, or the Central Bank of Europe — rather than issued by the government for the benefit of the people.

Canadian researcher Dr. Henry Makow (who is Jewish himself) says the main reason why the bankers arranged for a world war against Germany was that Hitler sidestepped the bankers by creating his own money, thereby freeing the German people. Worse, this freedom and prosperity threatened to spread to other nations. Hitler had to be stopped!

Makow quotes from the 1938 interrogation of C. G. Rakovsky, one of the founders of Soviet Bolsevism and a Trotsky intimate. Rakovsky was tried in show trials in the USSR under Stalin. According to Rakovsky, Hitler was at first funded by the international bankers, through the bankers’ agent Hjalmar Schacht. The bankers financed Hitler in order to control Stalin, who had usurped power from their agent Trotsky. Then Hitler became an even bigger threat than Stalin when Hitler started printing his own money.

(Stalin came to power in 1922, which was eleven years before Hitler came to power.)

Rakovsky said:

“Hitler took over the privilege of manufacturing money, and not only physical moneys, but also financial ones. He took over the machinery of falsification and put it to work for the benefit of the people. Can you possibly imagine what would have come if this had infected a number of other states?” (Henry Makow, “Hitler Did Not Want War,” www.savethemales.com March 21, 2004).

Economist Henry C K Liu writes of Germany’s remarkable transformation:

“The Nazis came to power in 1933 when the German economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.” (Henry C. K. Liu, “Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Asia Times (May 24, 2005).

In Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People (1984), Sheldon Emry commented:

“Germany issued debt-free and interest-free money from 1935 on, which accounts for Germany’s startling rise from the depression to a world power in five years. The German government financed its entire operations from 1935 to 1945 without gold, and without debt. It took the entire Capitalist and Communist world to destroy the German revolution, and bring Europe back under the heel of the Bankers.”

These facts do not appear in any textbooks today, since Jews own most publishing companies. What does appear is the disastrous runaway inflation suffered in 1923 by the Weimar Republic, which governed Germany from 1919 to 1933. Today’s textbooks use this inflation to twist truth into its opposite. They cite the radical devaluation of the German mark as an example of what goes wrong when governments print their own money, rather than borrow it from private cartels.

In reality, the Weimar financial crisis began with the impossible reparations payments imposed at the Treaty of Versailles. Hjalmar Schacht – the Rothschild agent who was currency commissioner for the Republic — opposed letting the German government print its own money… “The Treaty of Versailles is a model of ingenious measures for the economic destruction of Germany.  Germany could not find any way of holding its head above the water, other than by the inflationary expedient of printing bank notes.”

Schacht echoes the textbook lie that Weimar inflation was caused when the German government printed its own money.  However, in his 1967 book The Magic of Money, Schacht let the cat out of the bag by revealing that it was the PRIVATELY-OWNED Reichsbank, not the German government, that was pumping new currency into the economy.  Thus, the PRIVATE BANK caused the Weimar hyper-inflation.

Like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reichsbank was overseen by appointed government officials, but was operated for private gain. What drove the wartime inflation into hyperinflation was speculation by foreign investors, who sold the mark short, betting on its decreasing value. In the manipulative device known as the short sale, speculators borrow something they don’t own, sell it, and then “cover” by buying it back at the lower price.

Speculation in the German mark was made possible because the PRIVATELY OWNED Reichsbank (not yet under Nazi control) made massive amounts of currency available for borrowing.  This currency, like U.S. currency today, was created with accounting entries on the bank’s books. Then the funny-money was lent at compound interest. When the Reichsbank could not keep up with the voracious demand for marks, other private banks were allowed to create marks out of nothing, and to lend them at interest. The result was runaway debt and inflation.

Thus, according to Schacht himself, the German government did not cause the Weimar hyperinflation.  On the contrary, the government (under the National Socialists) got hyperinflation under control. The National Socialists put the Reichsbank under strict government regulation, and took prompt corrective measures to eliminate foreign speculation. One of those measures was to eliminate easy access to funny-money loans from private banks. Then Hitler got Germany back on its feet by having the public government issue Treasury Certificates.

Schacht , the Rothschild agent, disapproved of this government fiat money, and wound up getting fired as head of the Reichsbank when he refused to issue it.  Nonetheless, he acknowledged in his later memoirs that allowing the government to issue the money it needed did not produce the price inflation predicted by classical economic theory, which says that currency must be borrowed from private cartels.

What causes hyper-inflation is uncontrolled speculation. When speculation is coupled with debt (owed to private banking cartels) the result is disaster. On the other hand, when a government issues currency in carefully measured ways, it causes supply and demand to increase together, leaving prices unaffected. Hence there is no inflation, no debt, no unemployment, and no need for income taxes.

Naturally this terrifies the bankers, since it eliminates their powers. It also terrifies Jews, since their control of banking allows them to buy the media, the government, and everything else.

Therefore, to those who delight in saying “Jews financed Hitler,” I ask that they please look at all the facts.

———-

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2012/04/30/christianity-around-world-under-assault-not-from-muslims.html

Christianity around the World Is under Assault, but not from Muslims

by Wayne MADSEN

The neo-conservative cabal entwined in Western governments and media is fond of stating that “Judeo-Christianity,” itself a loaded term, is under assault from “Islamo-fascists” around the world. The record, however, is clear.

From Moscow to Cairo and Damascus to east Jerusalem, Christianity is under assault, not from main stream Islam but from a nexus of Jewish and “Christian” Zionists allied with the disruptive forces of non-governmental organizations financed by global troublemaker George Soros, alias Gyorgy Schwartz.

In Moscow, a feminist rock band called “Pussy Riot” has used trademark Soros disruption tactics against the Russian Orthodox Church.  Prior to the recent Russian presidential election, Pussy Rioters staged a sacrilegious, intolerant, and insensitive “concert” during worship services at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. After they were imprisoned for hooliganism, the Pussy Riot punkers instantly received support from all the usual suspects that kow-tow to the anti-Gentile line of the Zionists and their deep-pocketed Soros allies: The Washington Post, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Bloomberg News, and Forbes magazine.

Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/British+Columbians+have+least+confidence+their+police+among+Canadians/6518515/story.html
British Columbians have least confidence in their police among Canadians: poll

Just 27 per cent of British Columbians have faith in the RCMP

By PETER O’NEIL, Vancouver Sun April 26, 2012

OTTAWA — Canadians’ faith in their police has plunged by more than half in the past 15 years, and British Columbians have by far the least confidence among Canadians in local and provincial policing, according to a new poll.

The survey of just over 1,000 Canadians done in late March by Angus Reid Public Opinion found that roughly four of 10 Canadians have confidence in the RCMP, municipal forces, and the provincial police forces in Ontario and Quebec.

That compares to more than 80 per cent of Canadians who expressed confidence in police in 1997 when pollster Angus Reid first posed the question.

The national figures have been dragged down by respondents in B.C., where the Mounties have experienced a string of public relations disasters in recent years.

Just 27 per cent of British Columbians have faith in the RCMP, while only 28 per cent have confidence in their municipal police forces. Both figures are the lowest in the country.

Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd cited a string of RCMP failures in B.C. - the bungling over several years of the Robert Pickton serial murder investigation, the accidental Tasering death in 2007 of Robert Dziekanski, and more recent sexual harassment allegations by female Mounties against their male counterparts - for the collapse in public faith in police.

Read the rest of this entry »

Who the hell is Regina and why is she keeping Harry James Townsend in jail without a trial?

by Arthur Topham
Radical Press reporter

May 1st, 2012

On Wednesday, April 25th, 2012 I attended a SUPREME TRIAL DIVISION “APN-REVIEW BAIL” hearing in Courtroom 1 at the Kelowna Law Courts in Kelowna, B.C. presided over by MR. JUSTICE BETTON. The Supreme Court List stated that it was “R.V TOWNSEND”. Reading that bold and ominous phrase was the beginning of yet another unraveling tale of judicial incompetence and outright criminal activity on the part of what is considered to be the Canadian Justice System.

My initial thought was, “Who the hell is ‘R’ and why is ‘R’ trying to keep Jim Townsend in jail for months and not allowing him out on bail?”

Well, I decided to go to the lawyer’s bible, better known as Black’s Law Dictionary, to find out who “R” was. I figured that seeing as how “R” was doing their damnedest to keep Jim Townsend incarcerated since last February 16th without giving him his legal right to a day in court, (which, coincidentally, by Canadian ‘law’ ought to have taken place within 72 hours of his arrest) they must be a pretty powerful and influential Canadian.

Well lo and behold if I didn’t discover that “R” is but an abbreviation for the Latin word, “Regina” which, when translated into the English language, means “The queen”!

The queen? What queen? Did I miss something along the way? The queen? Not a queen with a capital Q even, just “the queen”. Now I had heard of a former rock band called “Queen” but for some reason I couldn’t conceive of them as having the ability to persuade the Canadian courts to arrest and jail a man who in his 56th year of life and having absolutely no previous criminal record was suddenly deemed to be such a dire threat to the Canadian public that he had to be torn away from his family and friends and placed in a jail cell without the Canadian court system first proving that he had actually done anything wrong. Of course I quickly came to the realization that it couldn’t have been those raunchy rockers called Queen because they weren’t even Canadians and how in God’s name would they therefore be able to commandeer the services of our supreme court?

My next logical conclusion was that it must be the city of Regina, Saskatchewan who was after Jim for some major traffic violation or something of that nature but again it just didn’t make sense that a city would go to such inordinate lengths to keep an innocent man in jail for failing to pay his traffic tickets.

Finally the light broke through and it dawned on me that it was in fact the Queen of that foreign nation known as England who was responsible for keeping Harry James Townsend in jail. The frickin’ Queen of England?!! What in hell has she got to do with my independent and sovereign nation called Canada? I thought we got rid of her and her crown jewels back during the heady days of the early 1980’s when former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals brought the Canadian “Constitution” home along with our independence. Apparently not. It appears that the “Crown” is still in control of Canada and by extension all of the people who live here and that if we don’t abide by the law then “the queen” will see to it that we are severely punished.

Why this is so of course is extremely pertinent to the case of “REGINA VERSUS TOWNSEND” and it is my personal contention that “the queen” is pissed big time with Harry James Townsend because Mr. Townsend, many years ago, also came to the realization that something was sorely amiss with Canada’s justice system and had set out to educate the Canadian public about what a supremely farcical foundation our whole judiciary is based upon.

“Why does the Canadian Court refer to itself as ‘R’ and not the Canadian Supreme Court?” and “Why is this ‘R’ being used at all when it comes to Canada’s justice system?” were the thoughts running through my mind as I proceeded to walk up the stairs to the second floor of the Kelowna Law Courts to where Jim’s bail hearing was to take place.

In the foyer outside Court Room One I met up with Jim Townsend’s wife Judith and members of her family who were there for the hearing. Seated next to Judith was Jim’s lawyer, Doug Christie, who had flown up from Victoria in the morning to attend the bail hearing. Doug was going over his papers while we waited for the 2 p.m. session to commence. Doug asked about the presiding judge and I jokingly remarked that given his name he wasn’t likely someone we could “bet on” to release Jim on bail.

Jim of course was not present for his bail hearing for he was still being held in the lower mainland at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Coquitlam but it was expected that he would be virtually in attendance via video from his jail cell which in fact did happen after some preliminary hassles with connecting up.

Mr. Justice Betton, a relatively young man who appeared to be in his early 40s and sporting a Leninesque goatee which, coincidentally befitted both his character and his later actions, presided over the court.

Doug Christie began his presentation to Justice Betton while “The queen’s” prosecutor, Crown council Wong from Kamloops, stood next to him. Mr. Christie proceeded to outline the facts surrounding Jim’s case in an attempt to provide the court with valid reasons for why Jim had been forced to breach one of his bail conditions which was the basis for him being incarcerated back in February of 2012. The breach of bail was a result of the extreme machinations on the part of courts themselves which literally broke the laws of Canada as they are contained in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by making it a crime for Jim to use the internet for personal communications or to post any YouTubes online. Given the fact that Jim and his wife Judith lived miles away from Vernon out in the wilderness of the Monashee Mountains east of the city where they had no telephone service or other means of normal communication they were being forced into complete isolation while at the same time the Ministry of Social Services was continually withholding both of their disability cheques and forcing them into circumstances that were not only untenable but extreme to the point of being sadistic in nature. And as if all of that were not enough the Townsends were also being continually harassed by Canada Revenue Services and any monies they were able to earn were immediately garnisheed by that other agency of “The queen”.

On top of this was an onerous curfew placed on Jim which basically disallowed him enough time to travel into Vernon to work on his defense and then make it back to his home before the severe time limit expired.

On top of these arguments for why Jim had posted a YouTube online in order to draw attention to the valid and horrendous injustice of the courts and the government ministries as they pertained to their stolen pension cheques Doug Christie also brought up the fact that Jim Townsend was a peaceful man who throughout his 56 years of living in Canada had not been convicted of any criminal offenses and therefore the court should not be concerned that he was a threat in any way to the public. He further went on to state to the judge that apart from the moral and legitimate reasons for why Jim had been forced to post an appeal to the public via the use of YouTube Mr. Townsend had already served more than enough time in jail to suffice for whatever possible consequences might occur for having committed such an infraction, this on top of the fact that he was a peaceful man who never advocated violence as a means of resolving problems.

It must be pointed out here that throughout Mr. Christie’s presentation to Justice Betton the judge continually reverted to arguing with Christie over practically each and every point that was brought up. As I observed his behaviour my first thoughts were that this supposed judge was not being impartial in the least and, in fact, was behaving more like what one would expect from the crown council Mr. Wong who, throughout the whole of the proceedings which extended for close to an hour and a half, hardly opened his mouth at all and only did so when prompted by justice Betton. What I witnessed was this young commissar of the court attempting an ego battle with the famed free speech lawyer Doug Christie and trying at every turn to challenge him, a job I presume which ought to have been left to the crown prosecutor. It quickly became apparent that Justice Betton was, in truth, not the judge to ‘bet on’ as I had humorously foretold out in the foyer.

When Doug Christie brought up the fact that Jim was a peaceful,  non-violent man with no criminal record Justice Betton immediately pounced on excerpts from the document that obviously were cherry picked out of context by the crown prosecutor in order to justify their own false charges laid against Mr. Townsend. These out of context excerpts were extracted from the formal complaint which Jim had submitted to BC Ombudsman wherein he had outlined all the crimes against both himself and his wife, including an attempted murder case which the RCMP refused to investigate thoroughly which had prompted him to eventually file the complaint in the first place. In that Complaint to the Ombudsman Jim had laid out all the facts surrounding the endless harassment and persecution that he and his family had undergone since 1996 when he first got involved with the RCMP while trying to assist them in tracking online purveyors of child pornography. At one point in the lengthy complaint Jim outlined what had happened to him physically when, because of the machinations of the Ministry of Social Services, he ended up having to vacate a rental property and because he had no truck was forced to move his family belongings with a tractor. In the course of doing so an accident occurred that could easily have proven fatal. Jim described in the Complaint and elsewhere all of the assorted crushing consequences that occurred to his body when the tractor came down upon him and then later in the document he voiced his abject disapproval for Pat Clemens and the Ministry of Social Service’s behaviour toward himself and his wife Judith by stating that he would like to see Clemens suffer the same fate and  then possibly he would understand why Jim felt so strongly about the way he and his family were being treated.

Throughout all this repartee back and forth between Christie and Betton the justice continually insisted that Christie was not providing him with enough evidence to counter the dislocated comments that he himself was offering to the debate; one which he continually initiated whenever Doug would make a point in Jim’s favour. And where was Prosecutor Wong throughout all of this? Standing there, mute like, as if he had been silenced in advance. It was clear to all of those present in the court room observing the charade that Betton was abusing not only his position as an impartial arbitrator of the case but also obviously overlooking the overall context within which the whole of fallacious his side of the argument was skewed.

Then, to add additional insult to injury, just prior to taking a break midway through the session, Justice Betton suddenly produced a whole new document presumably containing additional evidence that Jim Townsend presented a clear and present danger to society and thus should remain incarcerated until such time as a trial was set. Lawyer Doug Christie objected to the fact that this sudden appearance of an unseen document midway through the arguments was not kosher but consented to attempting to review it during his break.

As the 4 p.m. deadline approached it was clear that all of Betton’s obfuscating and inappropriate, abstruse argumentation, mainly on behalf of the prosecutor from Kamloops, had produced the desired effect of curtailing the possibility of any impartial judgment and the case had to be rescheduled for a later date. A decision as to precisely when the hearing would continue was adjourned until May 7th at which time a new date would be set.

And so this is how Regina treats her subjects I reflected to myself

As I wended my way homeward to the Cariboo I reflected upon what had gone down in that red brick fortress in Kelowna owned and operated by Regina. It harkened me back to my own legal battles with Canadian Human Rights Commission and its attendant CHR Tribunal over the Section 13 “hate crimes” complaint that B’nai Brith Canada had laid against me and my website back in 2007. Just how different this supposed ‘Canadian supreme’ court room scenario differed from the Stalinist style Bolshevik structure of these ‘Human Rights’ tribunals was beginning to grow less and less discernible and I again was forced to entertain the growing realization that Canada is not really a sovereign and independent country with a real constitution but actually a closet-style fascist dictatorship wherein the courts and the media and the institutions of the nation are all, in one form or another, still controlled by Regina and her corporate banksters.

Jim Townsend is in jail because of this reality. He symbolizes for all of us what the fascist state will do when you question its authority.

Will I be next? Will you?

———–

Arthur Topham can be reached at radical@radicalpress.com Feedback is always welcome.

Psychopaths in Power: The Fight for Democracy in Canada

by Robin Mathews

April 22nd, 2012

It may not be ‘poetic license’ or science fiction to say the core group in the Stephen Harper cabinet is made up of psychopaths.

Lisa Raitt can argue with passion that destroying the democratic bargaining rights of employees in Canada is an act of virtue.  She seems to have convinced herself that by making it possible for twenty-year olds to fly to a Florida beach in Spring Break she is up-holding the most basic freedom of Canadians – which must come before all else. She seems to be showing us, also, that the lies of psychopaths know no limits.

And she is showing, as well, that the Harper Conservatives will appeal to the sleaziest self-interest of Canadians in order to erode the rule of law in the country …  and move it towards the condition of a police state.

Whatever else, we must realize the total strategy of the Harper government is a strategy of lies … as I shall attempt to show. Members of cabinet don’t just use a lie here and there to cover a blunder here and there.  Rather, the goals sought are governed by an over-arching policy of lies – planned, prepared, and executed. Policy is followed to invalidate Canadian freedom, to see it as obstructive of efficiency, and, ultimately, to repress any Canadian resistance to what is in fact a growing fascist state.   Such a state unites private corporations and a governing elite into a ruling class supported by police and military forces ready and eager to erase violently any public resistance to elite policy.

Increasingly that kind of structure is multi-national.  The sell-out of the democracy of Canadians is pursued on behalf of so-called “global” interests. The Harper forces assist in the destruction of Canadian industrial operations like Stelco and Electro Motive Diesel to serve U.S. masters.  And the Conservative Party employs – more and more – U.S. masters of deceit to assist in its determination to win elections by any kind of dishonesty, fraud, or malpractice.

The Conservative Party strategy of lies is supported with depressing consistency by the Mainstream Press and Media which actively supports it or overlooks it as a silly fault of a government trying to do its best for Canadians.

Read the rest of this entry »

Internationally recognized Free Speech Lawyer Doug Christie of Victoria, BC.

_____________________________________________________________________

In an email received today, Thursday, April 12, 2012 from Doug Christie he informed Radical Press of the latest developments in Jim’s case.

Dear Arthur,

RE:      R. v. Harry James Townsend
Bail Review Application

I am pleased to report that legal aid has agreed to fund our bail review application, and will pay for all necessary transcripts, meaning that the funds currently in trust can be reserved for travel and accommodation expenses.

We have obtained the transcripts of the bail hearings themselves, but continue to await the reasons for judgement, which must be approved by the judge who denied bail. Once this has been received, we will be in a position to file a bail review application in Supreme Court.

I will keep you informed.

Yours truly,
Douglas H. Christie
Barrister, Solicitor and Notary Public
PO Box 24052
4420 West Saanich Road
Victoria, BC V8Z 7E7
Tel 250.590.2979
Cell 250.888.3410
Fax 250.479.3294

——————–

I also spoke with Jim this evening around 7:30 pm from his prison in Coquitlam on the lower mainland. Jim’s been doing a lot of research in the law library regarding the methods used by the RCMP and the judicial system to incarcerate him without so much as a trial based upon unsubstantiated allegations and methods that are contrary to the rights and freedoms contained in Canada’s Charter. He read out a four page letter describing how he was basically framed and asked that it be typed up and put up on the net so others might not fall into similar traps. Jim was referring mainly to activists who are at much greater risk of being targeted by the police and the courts for speaking out and exposing the criminal activities that are occurring on a regular basis but which most people are totally unaware of. He also asked me to post a very BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has been playing a part in helping to get him freed from jail and back with his loving wife Judith and their family. Just knowing that there are folks out there working hard to gain his freedom has been a great boon to Jim’s spirit of resistance. He’s feeling strong and hopeful and very grateful for all that’s been happening.

For Peace & Justice,

Arthur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tlAwoYHxHs&feature=youtu.be

Dear Radical Reader,

Jim Townsend is still being held in the North Fraser Pretrial Center down on the lower mainland.

Lawyer Doug Christie is working on Jim’s case and is doing all he can to get Jim out on bail. In Doug’s first attempt to reason with those who are hell-bent on keeping Jim imprisoned he wrote a letter on April 2nd, 2012 to Mike Wong, Kamloops Crown Counsel. According to Jim, Wong has been less than impartial in his treatment of Jim’s case. In his letter Mr. Christie writes:

“I visited Mr. Townsend on Saturday the 31st of March at the North Fraser detention centre in Coquitlam. As you may know, he is a disabled individual who suffered serious injuries in a tractor accident, the injuries he described in his allegedly offending letters. It may, of course, be known to you that the alleged threats and defamation and alleged illegal speech was communicated in two complaints, one to his disability worker and one to the RCMP complaints commission.

In addition, I believe on February 16 he was incarcerated due to breach of his bail conditions in that he posted an item on YouTube proclaiming his suffering as a result of being cut off his disability pension.

I am writing to you in view of the fact that Mr. Townsend has been in custody since February 16, a period of 46 days. Posting an item on YouTube which was in breach of a bail condition would in all likelihood result in a sentence far less than the time he has already served. He is well-aware that he must abide strictly by all bail conditions and will do so in future in view of the experience in the last period of incarceration.

I am therefore asking if you would be reasonable enough to consent to his release at this time on the same conditions as previous. I can, of course, commence an action in Supreme Court to review the bail, which will take a considerable amount of time, effort, and expenditure, but I would respectfully suggest to you that the period of incarceration so far indicated above is certainly sufficient to bring home to him, and indeed to punish him if need be, for the alleged breach of his bail condition. I would ask you therefore to give me an indication of whether you would be willing to consent to have the matter of bail revisited in the Provincial Court, and reinstituted according to its existing terms.

I have, of course, numerous commitments that prevent me from dealing with these matters on the dates that have been set, and will be needing adjournments, which would result in further incarceration unless bail can be reestablished, so I am hopeful that you will be reasonable in this regard.

Yours truly,

Douglas H. Christie”

Apparently Mr. Christie’s letter failed to move Wong to do what’s right (free Jim) and so now Doug is arranging to get Jim’s transcripts and will be taking the case to the Supreme Court to have a bail review and get bail established and Jim out of prison.

In an email I received from Mr. Christie today he told RadicalPress that he appeared via telephone before Judge Burdette in Vernon to confirm the trial date of May 17th in the case of Jim’s alleged breach of recognizance (court file no.: 46776-4-A). Mr. Christie is currently out in Ontario handling another case and was unable to be there in person.

So while these efforts are taking place we will continue to try and publicize Jim’s case further and further afield so more Canadians become aware of this travesty of so-called “justice” that is trying to pass itself off on the public as lawful and dignified.

Everyone can help in one way or another. Sending Elijah’s video to friends and media and writing letters to government officials, editors of the msm, etc. all help to raise awareness.

Jim of course would like to hear from you while he is being held prisoner and also if you can spare a buck or two so he can buy stationary, calling cards, stamps, etc. that also helps tremendously. Please, if you are going to send Jim funds do so by sending a Canadian Postal Money Order to “Jim Townsend” and also register your letter if you can. He can be reached at the following address:

Jim Towsend c/o
Ministry of Justice
North Fraser Pretrial Center
1451 Kingsway Avenue
Port Coquitlam, B.C.
V3C 1S2

Shine your Light for Love, Peace & Justice for All,

Arthur Topham
Publisher/Editor
The Radical Press
Canada’s Radical News Network
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com

—————————-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tlAwoYHxHs&feature=youtu.be

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1158811–oilpatch-activist-wiebo-ludwig-dead-at-age-70

Wiebo Ludwig claimed the oil wells near his Alberta home were poisoning his family and farm, and blamed them for his daughter’s miscarriage and the deaths of livestock.

DAN RIEDLHUBER/The Canadian Press file photo
The Canadian Press

Oilpatch activist Wiebo Ludwig dead at age 70
Monday, April 9th, 2012

HYTHE, ALTA.—Wiebo Ludwig, eco-warrior to some, terrorist to others, died Monday at the age of 70 after a battle with esophageal cancer.
Ludwig’s son Josh confirmed his father’s death in a news release, saying he died at home surrounded by loves ones.

“We will miss him as one who steadfastly and selflessly upheld the hope of the Gospel of Christ, as a loving husband, father and grandfather,” said the release.

“He was not a man of small prayers and often spoke of a conviction that all people will participate in that hope.”

Ludwig waged war against the energy industry from his family compound at Trickle Creek, hidden away in the bush near Hythe, Alta. He claimed the wells were poisoning his family and farm, and blamed them for his daughter’s miscarriage and the deaths of livestock.

Looking like an Old Testament prophet with his full grey beard, swept-back flowing hair and bushy brows, the barrel-chested patriarch said he was first spurred to action by growing sour gas development around his sprawling Christian commune.

On paper, at least, Ludwig appeared a man of peace. He met his wife, Mamie Lou, at an Iowa Christian college in the late 1960s, earned a theology doctorate from an American seminary, then moved to Thunder Bay, Ont., where he was a pastor at a Christian Reformed Church.

He moved to Goderich, Ont., where he took over the Trinity congregation, but he clashed with his flock when he demanded women be barefoot, pregnant and subservient to husbands.

“Half the congregation felt he was out of line and was becoming way too aggressive,” said Andrew Nikiforuk, a journalist and author of the 2002 book, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Big Oil.

“His personality split the congregation.”

In the 1980s, the Ludwig clan and that of his friend Richard Boonstra headed to northwestern Alberta near the British Columbia boundary.

Life was good at Trickle Creek with family members — 11 children and 23 grandchildren — living on 185 hectares of land. The children were home-schooled and power was generated by windmill. The family grew their own vegetables and raised goats, sheep, cows and chickens.

At first there were just a few sour gas wells, but by 1991 they were mushrooming around his property.

Then, according to Ludwig, farm animals began to die and family members started getting sick. He’d had enough.

Between 1996 and 1998, there were at least 160 incidents at oil and gas facilities in northwestern Alberta. They ranged from nails strewn along lease roads to shootings and bombings.

In April 2000 Ludwig was convicted of bombing a Suncor well site near his home. He was also found guilty of encasing a Norcen Energy well in concrete and counseling an RCMP informant to possess explosives. He served 19 months in jail.

Many suspected that Ludwig was behind a spate of pipeline bombings in British Columbia that started in 2008. In September 2009 Ludwig wrote an open letter to the bomber supporting the cause but encouraging the perpetrator to abandon the bombings. The RCMP eventually raided his property, but no charges were laid.

There was also the death of 16-year-old Karman Willis, a girl who was shot while she and friends were joyriding on Ludwig’s property in pickup trucks early one morning in June 1999.

Ludwig’s children were sleeping in a tent outside when the trucks entered the yard. It was Ludwig who called 911 after shots rang out. Police weren’t able to determine conclusively who pulled the trigger and no charges were laid.

The shooting was a turning point for Ludwig, who enraged many in the community with his self-righteous dismissal of the girl’s death. He told reporters he was “sad” for Karman’s parents, but suggested they needed to reflect on why their daughter had been out so late at night with “wild young teenagers.”

“If anyone pulled the trigger, it was the oil industry that started this controversy and the government which refused to delve into it before it got out of hand,” he told McLean’s magazine.

Between the girl’s death and the fact many of his neighbours made their livings in the oil industry, Ludwig became a pariah in the community. When he returned to Trickle Creek after his sentence, resident Brian Petersen likened the climate to 9-11.

Fear is fear and terror is terror, and Wiebo has done it very well,” he said. “The rest of the country now understands what terrorism is.”

Ludwig had his supporters, too. Just a year ago, he was joined by 60 people in a protest near a sour gas well site two kilometres from his home.

And he became a cultural figure. In 2002, his crusade was chronicled in an Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival play titled “An Eye for an Eye.” In 2004, there was a made-for-TV movie and last year saw the premiere of a documentary called “Wiebo’s War” by Toronto filmmaker David York.

Throughout his life, Ludwig remained unwavering in his defiant opposition to the oil industry and steadfast in his determination to stay on his land.

“We’re going to try to outlast them here,” he said not long after his release from prison. “Jail hasn’t slowed me down in terms of addressing these problems. It’s only deepened my resolve that this needs to be dealt with.”

Nikiforuk once said Ludwig came by that conviction honestly.

“You have to understand (Ludwig’s) father was an active member of the Resistance in northern Holland. His father was arrested nearly five times by the Gestapo and nearly executed once,” he said.

“He’s a man who really thrives in an atmosphere of conflict. Theologically speaking, he even feels that’s a very important aspect of one’s life — that you’re spiritually dead to the world if you’re not engaged in some form of moral combat.”

His son said Monday in the news release that the family would not be granting interview requests, though he said that was not the result of any ill will toward the media.

“We have, especially more recently, appreciated a more balanced coverage by the media of a difficult struggle against the insidious effects of mankind’s assault on our environment, a struggle which is shared by men and women everywhere.”

———-

120404 The Very Secret Plan Show - Mission: Free Jim Towsend
www.youtube.com

Dear Reader,

Jim Townsend is still being held in jail down in the Fraser Valley. A video has been produced for FaceBook that explains Jim’s situation and it is hoped that viewers will pass this along to their friends and associates to help increase public awareness of Jim’s plight. Please click on the link above to view it.

The screen shots below taken from the video show the mailing address for Jim if you wish to send him a letter or even a donation to help him defray costs for writing materials, etc.

If you have a FaceBook account I would also like to encourage you to join the Free Jim Townsend group that has been set up to help Jim. Ideas and suggestions of any type are always welcome.

Also if you are living in the lower mainland and would like to pay a visit to Jim please note the phone number also listed below.

Many thanks to Elijah Ignatieff for producing this fine message of freedom!

Peace, Love & Justice.

FREE JIM TOWNSEND - CANADIAN POLITICAL PRISONER!

Arthur Topham
Pub/Ed
RadicalPress.com

Law And The New Fascism In Canada

by Robin Mathews

April 4, 2012

“The soiled and disgraceful history of the Ministry of the Attorney General of B.C. since 2001 is a faithful representation of the assault on the rule of law and on the integrity of democratic government in Canada in the first 12 years of the century.”

~ Robin Mathews

Many people in Canada have never heard of Shirley Bond, B.C.’s Solicitor General, Minister of Public Safety, and Attorney General of the province. Nevertheless, she fits snugly into the new role of legislators – to block any acts of responsibility to the electorate, to cover up violations of trust by government, to sham the relation between large corporations and the legislators “owned” by the corporations.

She is presently insisting that her attempt to block the Auditor General from investigating all the circumstances of the “unconventional” $6 million pay-out to Defence Counsel in the Basi, Virk, and Basi (BC Rail Scandal) case is a demonstration of her full and willing cooperation with the Auditor General.  Ms. Bond was Deputy Premier when the “deal” was made to chop the (unfinished) trial in order to prevent cross-examination of top politicos and corporate actors … and to pay the costs of the convicted men – Dave Basi and Bobby Virk.

The Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark/Shirley Bond Liberal government will never get to the 2013 provincial election if the full story of the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR is told. Thus (I believe), we see Ms. Bond’s game of smoke and mirrors with law and with the integrity of the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The move in Canada – and globally, to destroy the rule of law, to assail rights of collective bargaining, to kidnap ownership of nationally-owned resources by multi-national elites, to turn police forces into “palace armies”, to debase the democratic election process, to hand governing to private interests, and to sell off and ship out the sources of worthwhile employment (the industrial base) – has a number of names.

After the March 29th federal budget the Globe and Mail chose to call the move in Canada: “Harper’s modest revolution”. If the matter wasn’t so serious, the Globe’s characterization would be laughable.  The Harper government (Air Canada, Postal Workers) has set about wrecking collective bargaining in Canada.  The Harper forces admitted guilt to an attempted rig of the 2006 election (which should have caused major criminal charges, and has not).

The Harper government has been a party to the highly dubious sell-off of STELCO to U.S. interests, and the closing down of ELECTRO-MOTIVE DIESEL by recently new owner CATERPILLAR – after insulting the employees by offering them a 50% wage cut.  And shortly before sale, a $5 million tax grant went to the Corporation from the Harper government. [With what behind-the-scenes agreements??]  Expect more of the same under the Harper regime.

In the calculated and highly organized (alleged) Harper Party attempt to wreck the 2011 election through Robocall electronic tactics, another major attack was made upon the legitimacy of the election process in Canada.  All indications point to the Conservative Party and its supporters as the major, overwhelmingly involved force engaged in election-wrecking.  That must be said repeatedly. The bully-boy tactics of the people with organizations involved and by spokespeople for the Harper force in Parliament are intended, I believe, to stop Canadians from saying just that: every indication points to the Conservative Party and its supporters as creators of the latest attack upon the legitimacy of the election process in Canada.

In addition, using its proxy power in the Enbridge Corporation, the Harper forces are attacking freedom of assembly in Canada.  In the North yesterday, the Northern Gateway hearing was closed down because, apparently, Enbridge representatives were offended by a school teacher and pupils showing signs opposed to the Gateway development. Enbridge was trying to say that they will not engage with the population democratically.  They want militarized agreement with their corporate decisions.

Proof that the Harper government was in on the mini-blow against democracy is given by its complete silence in the face of the Enbridge action.

That is not nearly all. With this column, I am sending information that has come to me from Kelly Marie Richard.  In short, she was (as she and I believe firmly) corruptly prevented from carrying out an action for Dental Malpractice by CGI (Information Technology firm with other widening interests), the RCMP, some of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench judiciary, and others.  Her allegation (extending from that experience) in what is attached with this column is, in short, that Stephen Harper is cutting budget and employees at Department of National Defense and Public Safety and is replacing with employees from CGI.  Privatizing, secretly, operations of federal government.

Kelly Marie Richard has investigated CGI for some years and has recorded hundreds of CGI employees in Federal Government Departments and Crown Corporations WORKING FOR CGI.

We should not fail to recognize that since the taking of government in B.C. by what is fairly called the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark forces (2001) ALL of the same kinds of moves have been visible in British Columbia – except, so far, proof of election rigging.

The breaches of trust, the violations of the rule of law, the contracts entered into (at least partly) in secrecy, the sell-out of wealth owned by the people of the province, the dirty cronyism, the cover-up of (perhaps) criminal activity within government, and much, much, much more are too vast and extensive to deal with here.

Here, I will deal with a centre devoted to the wreckage of the rule of law in British Columbia – by which I mean the Ministry of the Attorney General.  Since the arrival of the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark government it may be said that NOT ONE Attorney General has served without at least one (discovered) ugly, unprincipled action destroying the credibility of the Office. How many other violations of trust the Attorneys General have engaged in may come out in future investigations.

It has been said that the Attorney General preceding Shirley Bond resigned because he was pushed  (apparently to act politically) by premier Christy Clark, and – perhaps – because he could read the writing on the wall … that the Liberals have no chance in the next election (2013).  That may be so.  But before going, he was charged with fiddling and delaying the HST referendum.  And there is more ….

Not one … not one Attorney General since the arrival of the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark government, I allege, has conducted himself or herself without reason on the part of the electorate strongly to suspect his/her actions.

Since Attorneys General hold a special and important place in relation to the rule of law, their unbroken failure since 2001 in B.C. is a symbol of the betrayal of democratic process in the country.  Attorneys General have a key role.  They are responsible for the courts and justice, and they are responsible for advising the cabinet on all matters of law in relation to any cabinet action.  They sit both as cabinet members and – at the same time - must have the integrity to insist upon fully lawful practice by cabinet.

It is a tough role that calls for integrity, principle, and calm.

Let us look at the record.

In 2003, Geoff Plant, Attorney General (2001-2005), and Allan Seckel, Deputy Attorney General, flagrantly violated the legislation governing the appointment of Special Prosecutors and appointed to the BC Rail Scandal Basi, Virk, and Basi case a man with whom they had both been partners and colleagues for years. As a result, nothing William Berardino did as Special (Crown) Prosecutor can be accepted.  Any British Columbian who believes Mr. Berardino worked for the political ends of the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark governments may fairly hold that belief.

Geoff Plant’s successor, Wally Oppal (2005-09), besmirched his reputation and position in at least two major ways. He did everything he could as Attorney General in the legislature and outside of it under questioning to insist every matter concerning the BC Rail Scandal was “sub judice” – that is to say in active consideration by the Courts.  That was simply not true.

Wally Oppal - a gem of an Attorney General

But as telling, in an attempt to get an action in process against the alleged Bountiful bigamists, he also violated the procedure to appoint Special (Crown) Prosecutors. He went “Special Prosecutor shopping”, which means he was determined to start a case whether experts believed a case was legitimate or not.

The first two “distinguished” lawyers he approached said no case could be taken until a higher court ruled whether religious bigamy was permissible under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Mr. Oppal should have followed the advice of the first Special Prosecutor appointed.  Instead, he went from Special Prosecutor to Special Prosecutor until he could get what he wanted – a trial (I believe, for purely political reasons).

When Mr. Oppal’s game was exposed in the first hours of the trial, the Supreme court judge stopped the action, then and there and, in effect, threw it out.  A case conducted by the accused against Wally Oppal upheld the action to throw the case out of court and the decision that he had acted wrongfully.

As a result Wally Oppal was appointed to the lucrative post as Commissioner to head the Inquiry into the matters concerning the Vancouver Downtown Eastside women murdered at the Pickton Farm.  Many believe it is a sham procedure in which Mr. Oppal prevents questions being asked about matters that would be embarrassing to police or government.

When Wally Oppal was defeated at the polls, he was succeeded as Attorney General by Michael de Jong (2009-10).

Clearly, people inside government were becoming aware that the British Columbia public were concerned the Special Crown Prosecutor process was being used for political ends by the Gordon Campbell government.

Related - as suspected corruption - but not as a link to the BC Rail Scandal, the new Solicitor General Kash Heed was alleged to have been involved in election irregularities.  The Special Prosecutor appointed to look into his actions – Terrence Robertson - was found to be in conflict of interest and was replaced by Special Prosecutor Peter Wilson.

Attorney General Michael de Jong decided to conduct a review of  the Special Prosecutor appointment process.  To do so, he went to a vice president of UBC.  That was imprudent, since UBC is in a master/servant relation with the B.C. government which can – at any time – do harm to the operations of the university. A reviewer of government behaviour from UBC can be suspected of prejudice in his/her work. Stephen Owen’s Report did nothing to allay that suspicion.

Michael de Jong appointed Stephen Owen to do the review in May of 2010.  Mr. Owen is a vice president in charge of relations with governments – a role that might well restrain him from making a judgement against the B.C. government.

I wrote Mr. Owen a formal letter on the matter of the wrongful appointment of William Berardino as Special Prosecutor in the Basi, Virk, and Basi case.  Mr. Owen did not acknowledge my letter.  He did not mention the Berardino matter in his review.  He interviewed, however, Janet Winteringham who was a part of the Berardino prosecution team.  And he interviewed Michael de Jong.

His report in July of 2010 recorded that “there is pride and confidence in the special prosecutor system”.  He said the process of appointment is appropriate.  And he reported that “the special prosecutor system in British Columbia works well in the public interest”.

When Michael de Jong left the Attorney General position, it was filled by Barry Penner from 2010 to 2011.  News stories and commentary on the short time Barry Penner was Attorney General give the impression he was pushed by premier Christy Clark to act politically in the position. Mr. Penner is said to have pushed back, and then to have resigned from the legislature.

Nevertheless, seeking an opinion on the money paid for legal costs to employees of government who are convicted or who plead guilty to crimes, Attorney General Penner sought expert advice on that non-question.  A school child could answer it.

He should not have sought a review from the President and Vice Chancellor of the University of British Columbia for the same reason Michael de Jong should not have sought advice from a Vice President of UBC.  UBC is supported by the ever-changing budget of governments in power.  UBC agents may be accused of   conflict of interest when they provide advice to B.C. government. They may be accused of toadying and seeking favour.

President and Vice Chancellor Stephen Toope should  - for the same reason – have refused.  He should have told Attorney General Penner that there are nearly 11,000 lawyers at work in B.C., thousands of whom have no connection whatever to B.C. government. President Toope should have said ‘ “use one of those lawyers”.  He didn’t.  He accepted the request.  His acceptance, as I see it, was uneasy.  For he wrote at the beginning of his report that he was “Professor Stephen Toope”, and he wrote that he was responding “in my personal capacity” – which he probably knew was so much rhetorical nonsense.  He could not – at will – cease to be the President and Vice Chancellor of UBC.  Period.

He appears to me to have done in his review more gently what Stephen Owen did in his –  that is, okay  government behaviour.  Observe what he writes:

“the Ministry of Attorney General officials have worked diligently to respond to requests for indemnification that require the exercise of discretion.  Using firmly established common law method, the officials charged with exercising discretion have justified their decisions by drawing out principles present in existing cases and analogizing those principles to new circumstances.  [My capital letters.] AS FAR AS I CAN TELL FROM THE DOCUMENTS TO WHICH I HAVE HAD ACCESS, THE RESULTS TO DATE HAVE BEEN PRINCIPLED….” (p. 29)

A wise Attorney General would have accepted that document and been very content with it.  But Barry Penner had resigned.  Shirley Bond had become the new Attorney General and received the report from President and Vice Chancellor of UBC, Stephen Toope.  She decided to push the matter a little further, not content with the victory won.

She wrote a letter to Stephen Toope after receiving the Report.  And she asked him a question which he publishes. President Toope should have included the whole letter from Shirley Bond, but he only included the question.

Her question, in short, asked if government employees are convicted or plead guilty, should government require that the employees pay back, (the term used is to provide “reimbursement” of) the money paid for their costs during the case?

President and Vice Chancellor Stephen Toope replies in no uncertain terms: the convicted should pay back.  In his letter to Attorney General Shirley Bond on November 8, 2010 he writes the following:

“…my view is that for criminal indemnities, conviction (including the case of a guilty plea) should trigger a claim for full reimbursement.  Guilt in a criminal case necessarily means that a public servant was not acting in the scope of his or her duties or in the course of employment.  No BC government employment duty can require the commission of a criminal offence.  No valid purpose articulated in any report would be served by allowing indemnification in such cases, because there is no public interest in protecting the public servant from the full consequences (including financial consequences) of criminal liability.

It follows that the requirement of reimbursement in the case of criminal conviction should be mandatory and not the subject of the exercise of discretion.”

That has placed Attorney General Shirley Bond in a tough position, for her government has decided to engage in “the exercise of discretion” and to pay the $6 million costs of the two men who pled guilty to criminal offences.  The statements of the President and Vice Chancellor of UBC, in addition, add power to the requests of the Auditor General of B.C. for all information leading to the payment of that sum.

But Shirley Bond knows, I think, that the payment – as it stands – cannot be defended, for it was, in effect – many, many British Columbians believe – a payment of hush money, a payment to get the accused out of the courtroom, and the trial ended, before other, higher placed government and corporate officials became involved in charges of wrongdoing.  The “exercise of discretion” in that case was used to protect the powerful wrongdoers in the BC Rail Scandal. It was undertaken to block and prevent the fair administration of justice. And so Shirley Bond, under the protestation of giving every help possible to the Auditor General, appears to be blocking every access to information about the process of agreeing to the payment.

She is the last (and the present) Attorney General since 2001.  And she appears to be hip-deep in abuse of the powers of the Ministry of the Attorney General. She is keeping the foul reputation of the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark Ministry of the Attorney General alive … and flourishing.

Since the beginning of the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark Liberal government in B.C., it has been perfectly in accord with the ideology and practice of the Stephen Harper neoliberals in Ottawa.  That is why Gordon Campbell was made Canadian High Commissioner in London after he was forced out of the premiership in B.C.

That is why Christy Clark has hired Harper aides to be her closest advisors and why she exults in photo-ops with Stephen Harper.

The soiled and disgraceful history of the Ministry of the Attorney General of B.C. since 2001 is a faithful representation of the assault on the rule of law and on the integrity of democratic government in Canada in the first 12 years of the century.  Unless the direction is reversed, the country may expect deeply troubled times marked by violence and increasing class conflict.
——-

Robin can be reached at: rmathews@telus.net

[Editor’s Note: Due to the fact that Jim is writing from jail in Kamloops, B.C. and sending his letters off via snail mail it takes about three days to get them. This is the last letter that I received from Jim thus far. It also contained a number of other hand written articles and documents. As Jim writes in his letter he is awaiting a visit from his wife Judith. A visit that never took place. I spoke with Jim via telephone on the evening of Thursday, March 22nd and he was expecting to see his wife Friday. Friday morning I received an email from an associate informing me that during the night Jim had been removed from the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre and taken to North Fraser Corrections in Maple Ridge on the lower mainland, ostensibly due to overcrowding.

It sounds damn suspicious and will remain so until some reasonable explanation supplants such an assumption on my part. Later I got a phone call from Judith Townsend who found out about the sudden move when she received a message on her cell phone while traveling up to Kamloops to see Jim.

These sorts of sleezy, underhanded tactics designed to exacerbate all the injustices, stress and worry that Jim and his family have been subjected to for years now are quite frankly getting a little boring and repetitive and only serve to bring the justice system further into disrepute.

The final word thus far, as Judith told me, was that Jim might be brought back up to Kamloops in a few days. The only drawback being that he will once again miss seeing his wife.

But, as every cloud has a silver lining this post also has one too. I was informed via email from the Law offices of Barrister & Solicitor Douglas Christie of Victoria, B.C. that Mr. Christie had looked at some of the preliminary circumstances surrounding Jim’s case and told Radical Press that he would be willing to help out. At that point he was awaiting information on the specific nature of the charges laid against Mr. Townsend which since have been sent to Mr. Christie’s office.

I will be relating more on this story as it unfolds. Here then is Jim’s third letter sent on March 21st.]

Letter #3 from Jim Townsend to Radical Press
Kamloops Regional Correctional Center
March 21th, 2012

Dear Arthur,

Thank you again my friend for all of your efforts. Here is a little poem I wrote while I was sitting here overwhelmed. Judith is coming into town today so I can tell her the main points for my bail review but we are locked down because a few morons  had a fight with each other.

On top of taking weeks to get or send a letter, one hour a week for access to the law library and the inability to get my Disclosures or Transcripts the conspiracy to pervert justice continues. The cops that tried to murder us have charged me with their crimes and I am locked up without trial or conviction under sec. 515 (10) (c) which is extremely rare and violates my presumption of innocence.

Who am I to appeal to when the courts, government and the Attorney General are behind it? My only hope is my fellow country men banding together and demanding justice.

Please thank everyone for me. Without each other we remain divided and conquered.

I have included my random notes since I have no way to put them all together.

Much love to you all,

Jimi

A Violation of my Life and Rights

An 8 x 12 concrete toilet
with a welded metal bed
Is where I spend most my day
and nightly lay my head

The window doesn’t open
on this frozen little cell
Outside it is a police state
and inside its just like hell

If you write of the corruption
in our courts and government
Then you also can join me
another Canadian dissident

The powers that be don’t like it
when you complain about their crime
For they just blindfold justice
then steal all of your time

Like a child playing peek a boo
with a hand held over their eyes
They think that no one sees them
and that none of us are wise

But some of us are patient
and we love our fellow country man
So we work diligently for freedom
knowing the Golden Rule will save our land

~ Jimi Townsend

http://shpearson.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/subversion/

S. H. Pearson
RIDING THE SHOCKWAVE

Subversion

How do you subvert a great and Godly nation?  Dr. Zaid Hamid recently sent me a lecture that triggered the following spray of bullets:

Sleaze-up music in the Bible Belt.  Get country music stars to sing about wet tee-shirt contests, backseat conquests and how it’s all okay.  Have them glorify saloons, bars and taverns.

Make the pulpit an organ of propaganda.  Pit Christian denominations against each other.  Bash Catholics and smear the Muslims.  Preach hate and division.  Cultivate paranoia.

Get female country music stars to tart themselves up and sing the praises of whoredom.  Make recreational sex chic and “in style.”  The pitfalls of which is the aim of subversion.  Pitfalls like demoralized women ridden by abortion guilt.

Push alcohol at every opportunity.  Make it chic and “in style.”  Encourage alcohol to the young and especially to nubile women.

Raise taxes.  Charge high interest on loans to the poor.  Push credit cards.  Encourage frivolous spending.  Out-source industry.  Manufacture stupid, superfluous gadgets and charge high prices for them.  Hang them conveniently by entryways and grocery shelves.

Raise the price of seed and lower the value of a farmer’s yield.  Then raise the price of groceries.  Raise the price of gasoline.  For those who still have a job – render them wage-slaves.  Tax their purchases.  Tax their land.  Tax their vehicles.  Tax what they receive as financial gifts.  Tax communication services (landlines, cell phones, television, Internet).  Tax what is left by the dead to the living.

Dumb-down the curriculum in public schools.  Take God out of all awareness.  Advance the hot air of existentialism.  Tell the kids there is no difference between right and wrong.  And that the universe is a random coincidence.  Tell them we come from monkeys and that Adolf Hitler killed six million jews.  Tell them Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a noble hero and that a German immigrant murdered the Lindbergh baby.  Push female novelists but suppress Elizabeth Dilling and Margaret Mitchell.  Do not discuss Civil War history in our books – only anti-Confederate propaganda.  Never mention who owned the slaver fleets.  Blame the crime of black slavery on American Confederate planters.  Omit any mention of Bolshevik crimes.  Focus WWI and WWII “history” on the fabricated crimes of Germany instead.

Devise new words for the dictionary, but be sure to leave out thesaurus entries for them.  New words that nobody can define, like fascism, hate speech, bigotry, chauvinist and passive-aggressive.

Laud feminism and mulattos as the wave of the future.  Never compare Princess Diana to a thoroughbred and discuss why both are valued.   Never list the benefits of the traditional role of womanhood.  Instead  belittle and smear it.  Make women ashamed of being Godly wives and mothers.  Push “single working mother” status because no woman can keep that many balls in the air.  Hence, the family and home life are destroyed.

Starch the spines of impressionable young women and tell them that they are equal with men.  Give them bogus goals and false hopes.  Send them on a goose-chase in search of themselves.  Put them on a “mail buoy” watch.  Advance lesbianism and abortion.

Push synthetic hormones and anti-depressants, sedatives and sleep aids.  Push drugs for anything and everything.  But muffle the obvious of oxygen, exercise and wholesome food.

Cultivate anorexia in women.  It will give them something to chew on while they starve to death.  Design clothes that make women look like whores and show their bellies.  Design clothes that foster eating disorders.  Design shoes that punish feet and cause women to trip and break their ankles.  Design cheerleader uniforms that pimp girls to dirty old men in bleachers.  And ones who work in the basements of funeral homes.  Design jeans with spandex and rhinestone pockets.  Put words like “pink” and “juicy” across the backsides of girls’ dorm pants and active wear.

Write Marxist lyrics to catchy rock songs.  Extol Hollywood and all her trollop trappings.

And there you have it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2GrPYhwd7M

Letter #2 from Jim Towsend to Radical Press

Kamloops Regional Correctional Center

March 11th, 2012

Dear Arthur,

It’s funny that one of the places they say I am to appeal the public misfeasance of the JP, Crown Prosecutor and Court Clerk is the Ombudsman’s office. That did not seem to work out too well for me in the first place. Odd that the Ombudsman said before he would accept my complaint I would have to see MHSD [Ministry of Housing and Social Development. Ed.] about it first. We tried to set up a hearing at MHSD with Pat’s [Pat Clemens. Ed.] Supervisor but it went unheard. Pat, on the other hand, never had to address the Ombudsman complaint. He simply had the cop he was colluding with lay charges. These are our servants?

One finds many pieces of the puzzle lying around. Henry Makow’s site for instance, www.savethemales.ca gives some interesting facts about the British Crown of Israel and their Jewish Oligarchs. Ever watch the Rev. Ted Pike’s videos on the Talmud? After thirty years of badgering his wife committed suicide last Christmas. The hidden evil attacks constantly and hisses satanically when such as you or I shine the bright white of day on it. Henry Makow is Jewish and he speaks openly of how Jews are used as scapegoats by the powers from BIS [Bank of International Settlements.Ed.] According to him they are not a minority at all but remain hidden as they did while they tore Germany apart from inside.

Have you seen the YouTube videos on Jewish militias operating in North America? I fear all those religions have been designed to operate hand in glove and we victims remain divided and conquered by BIS.

I’m up in the middle of night. This place constitutes cruel and unusual punishment for me. Most are merely detained but for someone as badly disabled as me it is a torture chamber. My arthritis leaves my hands feeling as if they are being crushed. I can’t have an extra mattress, pillow or blankets. It is tough but how do you complain when you can’t even get the forms for the BC or Canadian Human Rights Commission? It’s like complaining to the Attorney General when they are leading the attack in the first place. Ask Judith about the Attorney General. They helped seize my mining claim. I am playing into a stacked deck and they want 20 years and the maximum I could get is 40!

I am housed in maximum security with murderers and violent offenders. How do you defend yourself locked in a cell with access to the law library one hour a week? Not sure what that stuff is that passes for food and can’t afford the canteen. It costs three times as much as things do on the street for food from stores yet they buy it all in bulk. If I want mouthwash, Buckley’s, cough drops or noodles, Kraft Dinner, hot chocolate, etc., I need to pay for it. What the crown provides is bare minimal.

Now they have tossed a sick person that doesn’t wash into my cell with me. I’m desperately gargling with salt to try to keep it at bay but I can feel myself getting sick. The guy eats all over my court papers leaving crumbs on them and doesn’t wash; the table or himself. He wants to fight with me and screams at me if I say anything. It’s all I need to get put into the hole if I end up having to try to defend myself.

Phoney charges laid. No opportunity to make a full defense. Excess of jurisdiction. Vexatious and adversarial prosecution and many other errors in the prosecution as well as the inability to get the forms I need mean I am likely going to serve a long time. I watch people with serious drug and firearm violations make bail every day. They have the proceeds of drugs and crime to buy their way out. The two lawyers I have had have tried as hard as the crown to sink me. I have yet to be tried or convicted and yet have been under house arrest or incarcerated since early November 2011. Nearly three months in maximum security. Bit harsh for a man that is 55, disabled and has no criminal record.

My next two appearances are by video court. Haven’t got the details yet. There was no reason to incarcerate me. I was arrested when I showed up for court so they cannot say I didn’t show up although that is their claim and I think the reason they pulled the stunt of posting my first trial in the docket and telling me the Crown wasn’t proceeding. The judge that denied me bail said the charges were serious and I was going to do a long time so she ordered me incarcerated. In maximum security with no trial or conviction, it looks like the future is predictable.

My granddaughter was born the day after they arrested me when I showed up for court. She will be my daughter’s age by the time I get to hug her but I don’t think my punctured lungs and crushed heart are going to last that long. I will be 75 by then.

Freedom of Speech? I can’t even write a letter of complaint to the Ombudsman. So much for the right to petition government for redress. Fair trial? Locked in a cell trying to prepare with paper and pen? Not much more I can write before this is out of ink.

Jude is broke too and has no vehicle to get into town to even help me. She is dependent on catching a ride in and walking when she gets there. And yet she desperately tries to do what she can. Thirty three years we spent together and raised our children to adulthood while we couldn’t even work with CRA seizing our cheques and targeting us the whole time. All we ever wanted to do was honour their hidden ex parte court order and yet I am in jail for making a video about the federal government unlawfully seizing my cheque. Why was my Charter right to free speech suspended without trial in the first place? To stop me posting their criminal behaviour?

I do hope you can get the trial dates from Jude and pack the courts. They wanted $1200.00 for just one bail hearing transcript. At least with someone there people can see what goes on. Kind of late for me I guess but people should understand the nature of the beast that attacks them.

Trying to write this by the light of the tv. I hate food commercials. Guts are growling. Weekends are only two meals so you go from 4pm to 10 am the next day – 18 hours. They give you 3 extra slices of bread to make it through. No wonder there are so many fights in here.

Some people are pure ignorance. The guy they tossed in here is called Frenchy. In here for beating his wife. Gets up and turns on the tv and wakes me up then goes back to bed and tells me to turn down the sound. Can hardly hear it sitting in front of it cuz I turned it down when he went back to bed. Tells me he’s sick and can’t sleep because he takes methadone. Whatever that is it must make a person full tilt retarded. Guess I’ll finish this off and meditate the rest of the night. Hard to calm the mind while I grit my teeth. That’s another thing. Not allowed Jude’s herbal remedies in here. We have kept the pain from my broken teeth that I incurred during the tractor accident to a minimum with clove and myrrh oil. God damned things ache like a bastard and I have been told that they are going to take a round out of me if I don’t do something about it because I have bad breath as a result. All they do here is pull teeth though so I am likely to end up toothless on top of everything else. Ask Jude about the tooth debacle. After the accident they told me I had $30,000.00 worth of damage to my teeth and jaw but they were not going to fix it unless I did my income tax. We did our income tax and the ex-CRA employees estimated they owed us $28,000.00. But instead the disallowed the deductions and estimated we owed them $78,000.00. The Crown just turns everything around at their whim. Like my complaining about the RCMP publishing a defamatory libel, harassing us and trying to kill us. There were five points to our complaint against the police and now I have five charges against me for the same things after the RCMP criminals investigated themselves.

You may want to to call **** and ****. They can tell you what it was like growing up with the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Do you know **** or ****? Hoping I can contact them to get court paperwork. Funny how people you try to help abandon you when you are in need. Hate to bitch Arthur but I have always believed looking the other way just allows evil to reign unbridled. Don’t want you to think there is no hope only because I feel that way at the moment.

My head is aching and I am freezing in this chair. Thank everyone for their help Arthur.

Much love to you all,

Jimi

Prison Writings: Letters to RadicalPress from Jim Townsend
Kamloops Regional Correctional Center

March 10th, 2012

Hello Arthur,

Was nice to talk to you on the phone and hear you are trying to do so much for me. I am a man of words and yet feel at a loss to find any to express how truly thankful for your efforts I am. Thank you Arthur. Please convey my respect and love and appreciation to those who are also standing up to help us. The belief that a nation divided is a nation conquered has motivated me to stand up for the freedom of my country and I know it has motivated your won efforts.

It grieves me that the system is still attacking my wife Judith. They cut off her cheque again saying they did not have our address and yet we have mail from them. Anything to cause hardship and tear at my heart. The malice that lies in the hearts of “our servants” is incomprehensible to me. She is also disabled from scoliosis and an accident that I now think was an attempt to kill her years ago. What manner of soulless creature is so depraved as to attack a little grandmother less than 5’ tall and 100 lbs soaking wet when they know she is disabled and stuck in four feet of snow in the middle of nowhere and is dependent on them for the very basic necessities of life?

Damn. My hand is swollen and my ribs feel like they are being crushed and my arms are numb. I am supposed to be detained not tortured. There are no disabled facilities in here. This is cruel and unusual punishment. I am told to suck it up; this is jail and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t deserve it. Morals, ethics, empathy, compassion, honour, integrity and justice are not in the vocabulary of our justice department.

I have included the 7 page statement I read at my last bail hearing. The prosecutor talked about both cases in his adversarial presentation while I sat chained like a dog in a box. I was not able to make answer to anything he said and got less than ten minutes to present my statement. The judge ordered me detained saying that I was likely going to do jail for a long time. So much for the presumption of innocence.

The very fact they arrested me when I showed up for court shows I am not at risk to not show. I have sent the 13 page statement that I was not allowed to read at my arraignment. These trials that make a mockery of justice are for show to say I have had a day in court. I hope you can get copies of all my transcripts to post online. Perhaps you can ask around ans see if you can help Jude get a little car so she is not stuck out there and can get in to Vernon to get forms and paperwork for me.

I am reminded of Robert Service’s line in “the Quitter”:

“And though you come out of each grueling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try – it’s dead easy to die,
It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.”

Much love to you Arthur,

Jimi

March 15, 2012

Hon. Shirley Bond
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
Room 232
Parliament Buildings
Victoria, B.C.
V8V 1X4

Dear Shirley,

There is a great amount of irony plus an unwholesome portion of pathos mixed within my having to write to you once again on the extremely urgent matter that concerns a fellow B.C. resident and Canadian citizen who is presently being held in maximum security at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Center.

Of course, if you personally have received any of my previous letters in this regard, you will be well aware that I am referring here to Mr. Harry James (Jim) Townsend.

Prior to penning this latest letter to you Shirley I took the time to go on to your online constituency office website to try and glean a better picture of you as a human being. Thanks to the 119 pages of photo ops that you have posted there I must say that I did get a rather general overview of your efforts on behalf of your constituents in the northern reaches of central B.C. You appear in many ways to be a decent, hard-working and socially conscience individual who has put a lot of work into serving your local community over the years that you’ve been in politics.

Especially laudable are your apparent commitments to helping promote awareness of groups and organizations connected with heath problems such as those relating to cancer, Alzheimer’s, MS, the Blind, Disabled and others.

As well, your commitment to learning and supporting industrial initiatives in your region are also very positive endeavors; ones that bespeak a genuine interest in the area of the province that you serve in such a dedicated way.

I noted as well (via a Wikipedia search rather than finding this information on your website) that you’ve worked extremely hard over the years to acquire yourself an arts and sciences diploma from the College of New Caledonia. Being a former student of Simon Fraser University and having been involved in the teaching profession here in B.C. over the years I can attest to the determination that’s required in order to pursue further educational initiatives while at the same time raising a family and working and being involved in political activities as well.

I also see that you’ve lived in the Prince George - Valemont region of the province a long while and that you took the reins over from Lois Boone back in 2001 and then after persevering and serving a 10 year apprenticeship within government finally reached the pinnacle of judicial power in this province on August 18th, 2011 when you assumed the high office of Attorney General of British Columbia. Hardly a shabby performance Shirley given the fact that you weren’t a lower mainland or Victoria resident nor were you a lawyer.

I would only add here that I too have been a resident of central interior of B.C. for the past 42 years and live in the riding directly south of you known as Cariboo North and that I am well versed in both the political and the physical climates in which we dwell having been involved myself in politics over this period of time.

I also know, as you surely do as well, that our region of the province has been rocked again and again by scandals involving both court officials and examples of RCMP abuse of power. In particular I would draw your attention to the as yet unresolved case of Mr. Lonnie Landrud of Quesnel who was witness to a police crime of such horrendous proportions that all the forces of ‘justice’ and the ‘media’ conspired to cover it up. It’s yet another example of the types of criminal activity by our so-called “peace officers” that remains uninvestigated and unresolved at this time.

Now I don’t wish to waste any of your valuable time (God only knows how much of my own I’ve had to expend thus far in trying to alert you to this matter!) but it appears that either due to your own lack of legal expertise or more likely a result of the machinations of those within your ministry who act as your advisors, both you and your office of Attorney General are, for unknown reasons, adamantly refusing to acknowledge both the seriousness of and the plainly nonsensical, twisted and misguided direction in which the case of Jim Townsend has been treated.

Much, of course, of Jim Townsend’s case has been already sent to you but as the days go by and more revelations are brought forth, even, I might add, while he is being held illegally without trial in the maximum security section of the Kamloops Regional Correctional Center along with murderers and other violent offenders for the heinous crime of having exercises his Charter rights to file official complaints to the RCMP Complaints Commission and the BC Ombudsman, it becomes increasingly imperative to keep communicating to you the urgency of his cry for justice. This of course in light of the fact that such complaints as Jim’s; ones which were inverted and then turned against him with a vengeance that still remains inexplicable, are actually happening in real time while both you and Premier Christy Clark and Richard Rosenthal, the new head of the civilian office recently set up in order to, as the sign above reads, provide “Increasing Accountability” when it comes to complaints by citizens directed against the policing organizations here in the province, are attempting to give the general public the impression that your office is truly serious about making some fundamental changes to the way in which the administration of justice in this province is being carried out.

While Jim Townsend is being held without trial and refused bail and, given his physical health, treated in a manner virtually criminal and bordering on torture, your office Shirley is behaving in a way that is diametrically opposite to what you are professing its duties to be. Why is this happening Shirley?

Allow me to depict one striking example that might, God willing, drive home the audacity and the absurdity and the great sadness which typifies this case. I noted in your many publicity photo ops that you were holding one of your grandchildren in your arms. You obviously were enjoying the experience and proud of it (and so you should be).

I too have seven lovely grandchildren and I know how it feels to hold them close to my heart.

But in Jim’s case, thanks to the gross miscarriage of justice that he and his wife Judith have been forced to endure for many years now, his first grandchild was born only days after Jim was lured by court officials in Vernon, B.C. into attending what he was told would be a trial to address his grievances only to find that he had been deceived and then arrested and thrown in jail for crimes he never committed. He never got the chance to see and hold his first grandchild Shirley. All Jim got was the full force of a corrupt and deeply criminal justice system that is out of control both here in B.C. and across our nation.

This, Shirley, is the state of affairs that I was alluding to at the start of my letter when I said that it would be a letter filled with both irony and pathos. It is but one in a long string of grievances committed against Jim Townsend.  Having a diploma in the Arts I trust that you will understand my meaning here.

In closing I wish to draw your attention to yet another recent document written by Jim Townsend; one in which he further attempts to explain why he has ended up in the situation that he has. For the sake of his failing health, his loving wife and family and his first grandchild I fervently hope that you will personally take a hand in this case and show the people of British Columbia that you truly do mean what you said when you assured us that your office would bring B.C. residents “Increasing Accountability” and justice.

Sincerely,

Arthur Topham
Publisher/Editor
The Radical Press
Canada’s Radical News Network
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com

———-

Supreme Court Bail Review Errors in Judgement and Extenuating Circumstances

by Jim Townsend

March 13th, 2012

File # 4971;  45063-1; 46776-1; 46776-4-A

I would like the court to honour their own court orders.  For years we have had two federal court judgements hanging over our heads to seize our belongings for debts owed to her Majesty.  On many occasions we have offered everything we have.  They refuse to honour their own court orders and yet they expect me to honour the court when they are without honour.

We did not know about the ex parté federal court orders from CRA until we got our files back under the Freedom of Information ACT.  FOIA files show with Revenue Canada’s own documentation that they hid the fact that they rubber stamped a federal court order to seize our belongings.  When we found the hidden court orders we tried to give the courts all of our belongings, and have tried to do so on many occasions.

Only weeks after we gave CRA all of our money that we had, $4500.00, they arrived at our house to see if we had any belongings.  We were sleeping on the floor with only blankets and had no food in the house.  We offered the CRA Crown Agent everything we had and he said they did not work like that.  They asked for our bank account number and we gave it to them, they seized our last $3.21 with two lawyers from the bank and three from CRA.  They have twice seized our damage deposits to make us homeless, which is illegal.  We had to move our family over a dozen times as CRA bugged our landlords and seized our cheques.

Unable to work, we moved our family to the middle of nowhere.  Still CRA pursued us and went around asking all of our neighbours where we were and they never came to see us.  It was an effort to defame our character and leave us unable to work.  The many times we have asked CRA to honour their ex parté federal court order, they have refused saying they would rather have our money and will wait until we have something worth seizing to do so.  We gave up trying to find work years ago since our cheque’s just got seized.

The crown has no problem laying phoney charges against us after trying to murder our family.  I have never been convicted of anything and yet I am incarcerated.

When I was let out on bail, the crown CRA unlawfully seized our disability cheque and left us without even the basic necessities of life.  When I told the judge CRA had seized our cheque illegally, she thought nothing of the fact that the crown took all of our disability cheque and left us to freeze and starve in the middle of nowhere in three feet of snow.  I sat chained like a dog in a cage and could not have access to my files or notes.

The Crown went over both cases for an hour and a half and he read a sentence from one letter and a sentence from another letter and did so until he pieced together a total lie.  So much for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or the presumption of innocence.

My wife was not even able to assist me by handing me my notes and yet the Crown Prosecutor did not stick to my bail question as I was required to.  He got over an hour and a half to talk and I was not allowed to address anything he said and got less than ten minutes to present my case.

This pretence of holding a trial to say I have had a day in court is to aid and abet the attempt to murder my family and cover it up.  We have the right to petition government for redress.  Justice is deaf when I tell the judge the injuries I list in my complaint to the ombudsman are what happened to me when I was crushed by a tractor.  Horrendous injuries are they not?

I am supposed to be presumed innocent and yet I sit untried and unconvicted in a jail cell while the people who tried to murder me investigate and exonerate themselves.

When I again petitioned government for redress and made a complaint to the RCMP Complaints Commission, the RCMP were allowed to investigate themselves and then charged me with the very things that they committed against me.

I did show up for court for my trial and the lady criminal court clerk said that I was not scheduled and that the Crown was not proceeding.  I have the docket that shows I was not listed and it is signed by my six witnesses who were at court as well.  The clerk who was supposed to put my name on the list turned around and testified in court (he was the court clerk that day) that he told me to come to court and lied outright.  He told us that I was not scheduled as well.  Why was the fellow who was supposed to be recording the proceedings allowed to turn around and testify to the judge?  Balance of probabilities says he was likely covering up his own omissions.

But what of the fact that the benefit of the doubt is supposed to accrue to the accused?  It is over two years since I was charged and this delay violates my right to a trial in a reasonable amount of time.

The judge does not allow me to call the people who initiated the charges in the crowns information disclosure and yet accepts their allegations.  Surely this is another error in judgement.  It is a violation of my charter right to cross examine witnesses and a violation of the allegation rule as posited in Black’s Law Dictionary.

In his own statement Pat Clemens says he was not threatened by the letter (complaint to the ombudsman that the crown is using as evidence).  He only made a complaint after the RCMP had already arrested me and charged me.  Then the RCMP put an alarm system in his house and scared him into going along with their charges.  Since I predicate the statement with “I feel like” it is obvious that my complaint to the ombudsman was an effort to tell a man that is supposed to be my disability worker how I feel.  To cut off my disability cheque a few days after the attempt to murder us saying he was investigating the drive by shooting was entirely lacking in empathy or compassion.  Someone tries to murder us and he cuts off our funds is callous in the extreme.

That the Crown wrote in the information “I am going to” and purposely changed what I wrote makes it evident that they do know the difference between someone saying they are going to do something and someone trying to convey their feelings.  I state in plain English what my intent is in listing my horrendous injuries.  Does the Crown seriously think I am going to park a tractor on Pat Clemens head as happened to me?  Where do they think a disabled man with no money is going to get a tractor?  Or drive it into town undetected?  This is preposterous in the extreme.  Surely the fact that I state what my intent is in listing my injuries casts a reasonable doubt on the Prosecutor’s contention.

I sent out 50,000 copies of this complaint to the ombudsman in desperation to have an independent body investigate the attempt to murder us and yet crown prosecutor Wong told the judge that Cst. Goodyear had road out and seized the letter.  This was a ludicrous lie and shows Wong grasps at any straws to defame my character and cast aspersion on me.

Crown CRA files we obtained under FOIA show the ex parte order was stamped by a minor bureaucrat.  It is heinous to do such things to law abiding people.  The files show we were asking for our day in court and also show they purposely hid the fact that they had already rubber stamped a court judgement against us.  CRA’s federal court judgement shows that we did not have a chance to enter a plea, that we did not have a day in court and that we did not have a chance to state our case, show documents or cross examine any witnesses.

My lawyer excused himself as my representative citing irreconcilable differences.  I understand why.  He is a good man but is unaware my view of the courts is based upon this criminal activity of CRA federal courts and the decade and a half of stress and destruction of my business and family with malice of forethought.  I rather like the fellow and am much distressed with this outcome.

Since the Crown Prosecutor never reads my letter that he submits in its entirety, it is obvious the evidence he produces is not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  The judge never read the whole letter offered as evidence, nor did she read the entire paragraph that is in question, either.  Crown prosecutor Wong reads one sentence from a letter here and another from a letter there and pieces together an absolute lie.  I have to sit silently chained in a box and am not allowed to address what he said.

When we went to see the Crown Prosecutor in Calgary to Crown CRA agents, he said he would not charge them as they worked for him.  He told us income tax was a scam run by the Justice department and we were never going to win.  We only wanted to honour their unlawful judgement and get our lives back.

The RCMP said the book I wrote as President of the Alberta Party was racist and promoted violence and yet the book states the exact opposite.  The planks in my platform illustrate the fact it is our wish to live in a lawful jural society.  We printed 25,000 copies of the book and the first recipients went to all the MP’s and MLA’s in Canada.  Joe Clark and Stockwell Day both wrote back letters of thanks and we were invited to lunch, in his office by Joe Clark.

Since public records show that the CRA federal courts inflict judgements without our day in court, without entering a plea and without presenting our case, which is not only a gross error in judgement and a violation of our charter rights, I do not see that they can not do the same with these charges.  I do not see that I need to enter in a plea or be forced to sit silent, chained in a box, unable to take notes or to refer to my own files or object to the Prosecutor’s presentation when it is blatantly obvious what the outcome of such unethical and immoral actions are going to be.  The Crown wants tighter control of the internet and takes down my websites only because atrocities such as these are legion and there are now thousands of websites containing such atrocities by Crown Agents.

I do not wish to enter a plea or attempt to defend myself in such ludicrous circumstances.  This whole charade amply illustrates my contention that the government and courts have a significant corrupt element within them that defames the honest people that also staff our public service.  Please spare me the stress and the Crown the expense of these proceedings, when the outcome is obvious to tens of thousands of people who watch my videos.  If you need so badly to beat up on two disabled people to make the point that your despotism is complete and without any recourse of appeal, you may take it that we understand.

Can you sentence me now without the charade so you can have your revenge for me exercising my charter right to freedom of speech?  The sooner I am sentenced, the sooner I can do my time and get this over with.  Since the differences between us and the British Crown are irreconcilable, we are going to appeal for political asylum and leave our country to their despotic rule.

Jim Townsend

Maximum Security Prison

Kamloops Regional Correctional Center

—————————————————-

Charter Violations Committed Against Jim Townsend:

2(b) - Freedom of Speech

7 -  Right to security of person – attempted murder, Ombudsman, RCMP Complaints

Criminal procedure – right to make full answer

Abuse of Process – right to stay proceedings

10 – arrest or detention – to be informed of details promptly

11 – Proceeding on criminal offence

a)     right to be informed of details

b)    to be tried within reasonable time

d)    to be presumed innocent

Stay of proceedings since it is beyond a reasonable time

e)     right to trial by jury

12 – Right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

15 – Equality Rights – right to equal protection and benefit of law.

Dear Radical Reader,

I have known the Ludwig’s and their Christian Community known as Trickle Creek for a long period of time having covered their adventures and misadventures with the Alberta oil & gas industry since the turn of century in my former newspaper, The Radical.  Wiebo’s life, like the lives of all those present-day warriors who fight for truth and justice and ecological sanity in a world gone mad from greed, power and a lack of spiritual direction, is one that will assuredly carry on to inspire the newer generations of young people who will undoubtedly be receptive to the lessons and the inspiration that this group of dedicated people have given to the world.

RadicalPress.com is appreciative of the fact that Byron Christopher has sent his articles for publication here. I have worked with Byron in the past as well and his efforts to present an unbiased and fair appraisal of what the people of Trickle Creek have been doing over the years is most laudable.

 Wiebo’s Final Battle

By Byron Christopher

March 12, 2012

Hythe, Alberta — It’s not if, but when. Eco-warrior Wiebo Ludwig is preparing for death. With his weight now under 150 pounds, he predicts he’ll be gone in just weeks, a victim of cancer of the esophagus. Ludwig has battled the disease for the past year.

The Dutch-born patriarch of a Christian clan “living off the land” in Alberta’s Peace River country is in palliative care.

Ludwig, who turned 70 in December, takes pain medication to get through the night. “I’m trying to stay off pain killers as much as possible,” he reveals. To reduce their father’s pain, Charity, Salome and Mamie ‘Junior’ apply medical herbs wrapped in heated cloths to his chest and legs, now noticeably thin.

Ludwig’s sons recently built him a sauna. Their hope is that the wet heat will help him.

In January, surgeons in Grande Prairie placed a stent in Ludwig’s throat so he could swallow. Two weeks ago, Ludwig was rushed to hospital to have the stent lengthened after food became lodged in his throat.

For decades, Ludwig has stood as an outspoken, implacable, media-savvy foe of the oil and gas industry, as evidence by Toronto filmmaker David York’s 2011 National Film Board documentary, Wiebo’s War.

Instead of battling energy companies, Ludwig plans to spend his final days with his family. “I feel there’s a time when you have to sign off,” he says, “you have to stop at some point.”

Ludwig’s eyes still penetrate, but he sounds exhausted.

Reverend Ludwig says he’s looking forward to ‘crossing over.’ “[Death] doesn’t bother me,” he says. “It is apparent to everyone there is an afterlife, even though we repress that in our anxieties. I am eager for redemption, eager to see what’s there. I just hope I die without too much pain …”

“I’m quite grateful about my life, in many ways a concentrated series of battles. I enjoyed the battles. They were difficult times, but meaningful. I was seldom bored, put it that way.”

Ludwig, described by his many foes as an eco-terrorist, says, “I have been somewhat persistent. I guess that’s been my one quality that’s been admired, not to give in and compromise with the BS … not to complain all day long either but to work at something that is commendable, a solution to some of our problems, hopefully.”

A carpenter and drywaller by trade, last month Ludwig completed his final project: his coffin. The simple wooden casket now rests on two metal stands in one of the modern chalet-type homes, part of a sprawling complex of industrial shops and barns known as Trickle Creek Farm.

His casket will be placed in a concrete crypt, above ground, in woods close by.

The outspoken critic of the oil and gas industry initially joked the government may go after him if he goes underground, then rationalizes why the crypt should be above ground: “in case we have to move again.”

“It’s not normal for people to build their own coffin,” I offered. Ludwig shot back,

“what is normal out there, tell me?”

According to family members, their leader’s funeral will be a private affair, not open to the public or reporters. Ludwig says he wants his people to ‘retreat’ for a while after his death and “not engage much with the public.” “Not so much to mourn my dying,” he says, “but to give them some time to work their way through it.”

“I’m glad this is a bit of a process,” he offers, “I can spend time saying goodbye to the family and give them some direction on different issues. Everybody has a chance to face it … rather than ‘boom, he’s gone.’ We’ve had some beautiful conversations about the reality of us having to give up mortality,” he adds.

Ludwig spends a lot of time resting. He’s either in bed, lying on the couch or sitting in a recliner chair near a wood-burning stove. He says he’ll die at his log cabin, not in a hospital.

When he’s up to it, Ludwig and his wife of 43-years, Mamie, walk arm-in-arm on paths in the forest.

Ludwig reflected on his move to northwestern Alberta in the mid-1980s. “Many people thought I was nuts taking a family out here in the boondocks,” he says. “It wasn’t easy, but I sensed it was worth it. The alternatives looked disastrous … tasted them myself as a young man.”

“I found in the gospel a sense of realism,” he says, steering the topic to religion.

“I know people fuss with that, but I found the gospel more realistic than anything else. Today it’s almost frightening to say you’re a Christian because there’s so much bullshit attached to it, in the public’s mind. Fortunately, I’ve had some very beautiful insights into the Word of God.”

The Trickle Creek Farm, home to nearly 60 people, many of them children and teenagers, is centerpiece of a 324-hectare parcel of land northwest of Hythe.

“I’ve seen men and women here really taking hold of this vision. They’ve come through. Many talks, many plans … they’ve come to see the beauty of withdrawing from all the riff-raft the world wants you to chase. They’ve pursued something quite steadily that has some character; has some sense again when it comes to practical issues, like raising your own food. That is almost critical.”

Son Josh Ludwig estimates they’re nearly 80 percent self-sufficient. With the addition of a windmill and solar panels, residents can now generate their own power. A large computer-controlled boiler creates heat for the houses.

As it turned out, the farm was smack in the middle of a large oil and gas field.

The people of Trickle Creek discovered that more than water trickled through their property. Sour gas leaks were followed by allegations of poisoned water, stillbirths and dead animals. “We didn’t want to be known for being environmentalists,” Ludwig says.

“We didn’t want to piss around with all their games. We wanted a place to live where they wouldn’t be puking on us … just let us be and allow us to live our lives.”

The Ludwigs complained to the authorities about the toxic leaks. After police did nothing, they say, they took matters into their own hands. Wiebo Ludwig ended up eating prison food for a year and a half after an Edmonton judge found him guilty of using explosives to destroy and vandalize oilfield equipment.

“This started with the industry ‘fumigating‘ us,” Ludwig says of the conflict that vaulted him to national media attention. “How can you vilify people who object to that, and holler to authorities who don’t do anything to help them?”

It’s surprising perhaps, but Wiebo Ludwig does not blame his terminal disease on sour gas emissions. “It’s often hard to trace,” he says of his esophageal cancer, “because it’s everywhere — polluting waters, dirt and food. The oil and gas industry certainly caused a lot of trouble — including cancerous troubles — but who’s to know where we got cancer from?”

The public remains angry about the death of 16-year-old Karman Willis, a local shot in June 1999 while a passenger in a pick-up truck tearing around Trickle Creek in the middle of the night. According to police, the bullet that struck the teen ricocheted off the frame of the truck. Officers couldn’t find the shooter or his or her weapon.

People at Trickle Creek say the intruders sped around, doing doughnuts and throwing empty beer cans out the window. They point out that one of the trucks came to within a meter of running down four girls sleeping in a tent. One described it as “sheer terror” as a pick-up roared by them in the dark.

No one was charged with the shooting. Neither was anyone charged with trespassing at night, causing a disturbance or impaired or dangerous driving.

In January 2010, the RCMP swooped down on Trickle Creek, telling reporters that Wiebo Ludwig was responsible for pipeline bombings in the Tom’s Lake, BC area. Ludwig was held for a day but never charged.

Ludwig shared his thoughts about the news media. “I see the media as much the same shape as the public is in,” he offers. “Despite all of their writings and their efforts to tell us the truth, they can’t do it … they’re caught in a net of all kinds of pressures. The media is about making money and they’re scrambling to keep some clout, sacrificing all kinds of principles.”

In what may be his final advice to the oil and gas industry, Ludwig says, “get rid of this stuff and replace it as soon as possible with alternatives, and stop being so stubborn and stupid about it. My advice is, why don’t you just go for it? — do the right thing.”

“You can tell the oil and gas industry,” Ludwig says, “we knew we were right all along,” adding, “but I’ve come to see they also knew that.”

“In the end,” the reverend predicts, “good will win out over evil.”

Who takes over after Wiebo Ludwig is gone? Ludwig reveals that one of his younger sons — he refused to provide a name — has already been chosen to take the reigns. “He has a good rapport with the next generation,” Ludwig says. “He has shown wonderful qualities and an excellent commitment.”

On his hope for society, Ludwig doesn’t pull any punches. “I hope it ends very soon,” he says. “I yearn for the age to come … I have for many years. I think society is definitely on a suicidal trip.” “It’s been prophesied,” he says, “the end of times are clearly with us today. Just when it all ends, is another question …”

“It’s gone that wild out there. Our social life is in shambles … family, marital … all these things are just busted up. Individualism has wrecked us terribly, made us lonely and isolated.”

Richard Boonstra, Ludwig’s right-hand man, says he’s inspired by how his old friend is handling death. “We’ve made death such a terrible thing in our society,” he says. “We’re scared to death of it, so to speak,” adding, “death has lost its sting, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a sadness around it.”

The last word goes to the dying eco-activist: “I feel very reconciled,” Ludwig says.

“My life has had some sordid chapters, especially my youthful life. But I feel a peace with the Lord and with man in terms of having dealt with those things in my soul, my spirit.”

“I’m not a person who has had small prayers,” Ludwig concludes. “I’ve asked for major things to change my life and the lives of those I’m with. I’m not disappointed.”

——-

Originally published:
http://vegobserver.com/wordpressmu/blog/2012/03/12/weibos-final-battle/

*Editor’s note:  Journalist Byron Christopher, best known for his award-winning investigative journalism with CBC, is the only journalist Ludwig would speak to in his final days. Christopher was called to the compound near Hythe to do an interview with Ludwig, and upon completing the story he allowed it to break within the pages of the Toronto Star.  He has selected the Vegreville Observer to run the follow-up article, with information he did not release to the Star in the previous draft of his most recent encounter with Ludwig. This is not the first time Christopher has been the only reporter that a man in crisis would contact. His previous exclusive interviews with infamous public figures – whether they be infamous because of their actions or due to mishandled reporting on the part of mainstream media – include David Milgaard, Colin Thatcher, Michael White and Richard Lee McNair.  At present, Christopher is completing a book on McNair based on personal interviews and letters from the US fugitive who escaped several prisons over a period of years before being captured in Canada. The publisher is Coastal West Publishing Inc. of Vancouver.

Alberta’s Wiebo Ludwig, with wife Mamie at the family compound in Alberta, is fighting his final battle.
____________________________________________________________________

BYRON CHRISTOPHER

HYTHE, ALTA.—Eco-warrior Wiebo Ludwig is fighting his final battle. It’s a question of when, not if. Diagnosed last year with cancer of the esophagus, Ludwig, 70, is in palliative care and preparing for death.

Ludwig was rushed to hospital in nearby Grande Prairie last Monday after food became lodged in his throat. Doctors enlarged the stent they first inserted in his esophagus in late January.

The patriarch of a Christian clan returned to the compound of his roughly 60 followers and family near here at Trickle Creek Farm, the 324-hectare parcel of nearly self-sufficient land in northwest Alberta’s Peace River country. The Dutch-born enemy of the oil industry — eco-terrorist, his many foes would label him — has lost 30 pounds in the past month alone.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Ludwig said of his impending death, during a Trickle Creek interview last week. “I’m quite grateful about my life, in many ways a concentrated series of battles. I enjoyed the battles. They were difficult times, but meaningful. I was seldom bored, put it that way.”

Boring is definitely not a word to associate with Wiebo Ludwig.

Ever since he moved here in the mid-1980s, his name has been a lightning rod for deep, bitter controversy over the good and bad things about life in the oilpatch.

For those who espouse green living and turning our collective backs on uncontrolled oil and gas drilling and development, Ludwig is something of a messianic folk hero. For decades he has stood as an outspoken, implacable, media-savvy foe of the oil and gas industry, as evidenced by Toronto filmmaker David York’s 2011 National Film Board-backed documentary, Wiebo’s War.

That history, however, also carries a murky, lawless side that includes a 28-month prison sentence for oilfield equipment destruction and vandalism (he served 19 months, released in 2001), other arrests, most recently in January of 2010, multiple armed RCMP raids of the Trickle Creek compound, and the unproven suspicions of involvement in numerous other bombings and oilpatch vandalism across northern Alberta and B.C.

Most tragic was the still unsolved death of a 16-year-old local girl, Karman Willis, shot while roaring around the Trickle Creek compound with other teens in pickup trucks early one morning in June, 1999.

Instead of battling oil and gas companies, Ludwig will spend his final days with his family. “I feel there’s a time when you have to sign off,” he says. “You have to stop at some point.”

He plans to die in his log cabin at the farm he founded nearly three decades ago, now a sprawling complex of modern chalet-type homes, industrial shops, barns, a gazebo, greenhouse, power-producing solar panels and a windmill.

Ludwig spends a lot of time resting in bed, lying down on the couch or sitting in a recliner chair near a wood-burning stove. His eyes still penetrate, but he sounds exhausted. When he’s up to it, Ludwig and his wife of 43 years, Mamie, walk hand-in-hand along paths that cut through nearby woods.

He maintains he’s looking forward to “crossing over.”

“It is apparent to everyone there is an afterlife, even though we repress that in our anxieties,” he says. “In some ways, I am eager for redemption, eager to see what’s there. I just hope I die without too much pain.”

Ludwig, a carpenter, has completed his final construction project: a wooden casket. Last month his daughters finished the lining — a cream-coloured satin that covers a layer of soft foam and straw. The simple casket rests on two metal stands in one of the compound’s main houses.

In months, perhaps weeks or even days — his pain-ridden voice could barely be heard on the phone three days ago — Ludwig will die. That coffin will be placed in a concrete crypt above ground in the family cemetery in the nearby woods. Ludwig at first jokes that the government might go after him if he went underground, but later says the reason for having the crypt above ground is for “possible future restlessness … in case we have to move again.”

He expresses no regrets about the infamy of his life at Trickle Creek.

“I feel very reconciled,” he says. “My life has had some sordid chapters, especially my youthful life. But I feel a peace with the Lord and with man in terms of having dealt with those things in my soul, my spirit.

“I’m not a person who has had small prayers. I’ve asked for major things to change my life and the lives of those I’m with. I’m not disappointed.”

“I have been somewhat persistent — I guess that’s been my one quality that’s been admired, not to give in and compromise with the BS … not to complain all day long either but to work at something that is commendable, a solution to some of our problems, hopefully.”

According to family members, their leader’s funeral will be a private affair, not open to the public or to the news media. Ludwig says he wants the people of Trickle Creek to “retreat” for a while after his death.

“Not so much to mourn my dying,” he says, “but to give them some time to work their way through it.”

“I’m glad this is a bit of a process. I can spend time saying goodbye to the family and give them some direction on different issues. Everybody has a chance to face it … rather than ‘boom, he’s gone.’”

“We’ve had some beautiful conversations about the reality of us having to give up mortality,” he adds. “We’ve worked out some good things together.”

Ludwig won’t miss much about the broader world outside the compound, the one he led his family away from so many years ago.

“It’s gone that wild out there,” he says. “Our social life is in shambles … family, marital … all these things are just busted up. Individualism has wrecked us terribly, made us lonely and isolated.”

In musing about his accomplishments, he doesn’t dwell on his infamous battles with the oil and gas industry, but on what his family and followers have built at Trickle Creek.

“I’ve seen men and women here really taking hold of this vision. They’ve come through. Many talks, many plans … They’ve come to see the beauty of withdrawing from all the riff-raff the world wants you to chase.

“They’ve pursued something quite steadily that has some character, that has some sense again when it comes to practical issues, like raising your own food. That is almost critical.”

He can’t resist some perhaps final advice to the oil and gas industry:

“Get rid of this stuff and replace it as soon as possible with alternatives, and stop being so stubborn and stupid about it. My advice is, why don’t you just go for it? Do the right thing.

“You can tell the oil and gas industry that we knew we were right all along, but I’ve come to see they also knew that.”

“In the end,” he predicts, “good will win out over evil.

————–

To:

March 9, 2012

Dear Anonymous Policing and Security Programs Branch person,

Re: The Unjust Incarceration of Mr. Harry James Townsend - 477948

Thank you for responding to my email of Feb. 27, 2012 to the Honourable Shirley Bond, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, regarding Mr. Harry James Townsend.

I found both the lack of substance as well as the form-letter style approach of your letter pathetic and disdainful given the seriousness of this offense; one not only committed against Mr. Townsend but, by extrapolation, every free and sovereign citizen of our democratic country.

Why is it that you cannot append your name to what you write? Are you fearful that you might have to take some personal responsibility for the lack of accountability that’s fast becoming a rampant feature of Canada’s erroneously named “Policing and Security” branches of government?

You write, “Police agencies conduct individual investigations at arm’s length from government, and we cannot interfere with or direct police in particular investigations or interfere in the police complaint process.” Why didn’t you just say in plain English, “The Police agencies do whatever they damn well feel like and we can’t (won’t) interfere, not in their practices or motivations nor in their self-styled and arrogant pronouncements of somehow being capable of policing their own actions?” It behooves you to do much more than merely pass on to me what is already a foregone conclusion Anonymous.

The public, Anonymous, is becoming well aware of the intent and purpose of that erroneously misnamed ruse that you and the Honourable Shirley Bond, Minister of Justice and Attorney General would have citizens believe is, in truth, an actual “Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.” Numerous examples abound that attest to its intent and its malfeasant nature; one’s that I won’t, for lack of space, go into at this point.

Allow me to cut to the chase though and remind you that it is but a bureaucratic soporific designed to placate the mass of Canadian citizens who as yet, for whatever reasons, have not been on the receiving end of Canada’s purported “policing and justice system”.

I take little comfort and great umbrage, and I’m certain that Mr. Townsend, who presently sits rotting away in a jail cell in Kamloops awaiting his share of your perceived “adequate and effective levels of policing,” does as well, in reading the hollow rhetoric that you are passing off to me here in your letter. You apparently forget (or intentionally overlook) the fact that Mr. Harry James Townsend has been wrongfully incarcerated by the RCMP on trumped up charges that they knowingly and in full culpability with the Ministry of Social Development staff, colluded in fabricating so that they could wrongfully place Mr. Townsend in jail without first giving him his legal right to a trial. And now that he has been wrongfully jailed and torn away from home and family you have the blatant and overbearing conceit to add further insult to all of his other injuries by telling me (and, by extension, Mr. Townsend) that he has the “option” of filing a “complaint” against those who have maliciously and with full intent, conspired to destroy his life and reputation along with that of his family!

Surely, Anonymous, you jest?

I will of course be sending my reply to you to other agencies and media and government sources in order to expose further not only this outrageous act of injustice perpetrated against Mr. Townsend but also your own ineptitude when it comes to dealing with alleged criminal actions on the part of the RCMP and BC government ministries. As well, I would ask that you once again forward this letter to Superintendent Yves Lacasse in Kamloops and Chief Superintendent Wayne Rideout.

Mr. Harry James Townsend is an innocent man Anonymous and he is being attacked and punished by agencies of the Crown, not for having committed any criminal act but simply for having taken his God-given and Charter rights to freedom of thought and speech and opinion to heart and expressing them in hardcopy writing and on the Internet. This fact, by default, makes those responsible for his incarceration the guilty party in the travesty you would call the “police complaint process.”

This court ordained farce Anonymous has been ongoing now for over two years. Mr. Townsend is being held illegally and consistently denied a bail review. The Crown wants to keep him locked in jail until a tentative trial date of May 17th, 2012 and then held further until June 14th when the first of his alleged ‘crimes’ is eventually heard in a court of law. This is absolutely preposterous! Have you by chance heard of habeas corpus Anonymous?

FREE JIM TOWNSEND still remains the rallying cry Anonymous.

Sincerely,

Arthur Topham
Publisher/Editor
The Radical Press
Canada’s Radical News Network
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com
——————————–

From:     SGPSPB@gov.bc.ca
Subject:     Mr. Harry James Townsend - 477948
Date:     March 6, 2012 1:51:39 PM PST (CA)
To:     radical@radicalpress.com

Mr. Arthur Topham
E-mail:  radical@radicalpress.com

Dear Mr. Topham:

Your February 27, 2012 e-mail addressed to the Honourable Shirley Bond, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, regarding Mr. Harry James Townsend has been forwarded to the Policing and Security Programs Branch for reply.

The provincial government provides overall direction respecting police services in the province and ensures there are adequate and effective levels of policing.  Police agencies conduct individual investigations at arm’s length from government, and we cannot interfere with or direct police in particular investigations or interfere in the police complaint process.

We have taken the liberty of forwarding your concerns to Superintendent Yves Lacasse, Detachment Commander of the Kamloops RCMP Detachment for his review.

You may be interested to know, Mr. Townsend has the option of filing a complaint with the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.  The Commission is an independent agency established by the Parliament of Canada to ensure that public complaints against members of the RCMP are examined impartially.  More information on the public complaint process is available on the Commission’s web site at:  www.cpc-cpp.gc.ca.

Thank you for writing.

Policing and Security Programs Branch
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 9285, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria BC  V8W 9J7
477948

pc:       Superintendent Yves Lacasse
Chief Superintendent Wayne Rideout

From: “Bond.MLA, Shirley LASS:EX” Shirley.Bond.MLA@leg.bc.ca
Date: February 27, 2012 4:42:29 PM PST (CA)
To: “Minister, JAG JAG:EX” JAG.Minister@gov.bc.ca
Subject: FW: The Unjust Incarceration of Harry James Townsend in Kamloops, B.C.

For your response,
dorothy

——————–

http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=1355

Talking About Adrian Dix, B.C. NDP Leader
Will the NDP Become Government Again in B.C. in 2013??

By
Robin Mathews

Adrian Dix, leader of the B.C NDP, follows the disastrous seven-year leadership of Carol James.  Her major policy, it seems, was to teach that victims of rape should show good manners before, during, and after violation.  Above all, good manners.  Above all, soft voices in the legislature.

The Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark Liberals – are, I believe, in league with a continental looting organization.  They have done (and are doing) to British Columbia what reasonable people would call “rape”.  The ability of Carol James to stand by and not notice, or ignore, or discount drove members of her caucus … at last … to demand change.  They got change (or did they?)  They got Adrian Dix as leader after Carol James stepped down in 2011.

British Columbia has been and is being raped.  The NDP has looked the other way … and continues to look the other way. The NDP should be hiring halls across the province to tell all.  The NDP should be enraged and fighting, should be dropping flyers into every B.C. mailbox ….

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Hon. Stephanie Cadieux,

Without prejudice:

I wish, in all earnestness, to bring to your attention the plight of B.C. resident Jim Townsend who, I firmly believe, has been mistreated to the maximum by your ministry over the past three years or longer.

Mr. Townsend, because of the machinations of your department and in alleged collusion with the Vernon detachment of the RCMP, is now incarcerated in a jail in Kamloops, B.C. charged with a criminal offense (?) yet, to date, has never received a trial to adjudicate and determine his unjust treatment by government agencies of the Crown.

As a physically challenged person yourself one would hope that once you have been made aware of Jim Townsend’s physical condition and the circumstances surrounding his ‘accident’ that you would do the right and honourable thing and look into this glaring case of injustice and abuse.

I, and my publishing company RadicalPress.com, have undertaken to initiate an online campaign to FREE JIM TOWNSEND which you and those responsible for this situation will ultimately be held accountable for should no just redress be forthcoming.

I would ask that you give your utmost care and consideration to Mr. Townsend’s illegal incarceration and do something to change this deplorable situation. I look forward to hearing from you regarding this matter at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Arthur Topham
Pub/Ed
RadicalPress.com
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com
_____________________

http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=1365

Response to MSD’s Pat Clemens and Complaint to Ombudsman from Jim Townsend

[Editor’s Note:
The document below is extensive. When read and comprehended it will be evident why it was necessary to extend it the length that it has been. It is also one of the most damning documents that I have ever come across in terms of being an explicit, reasonable and common sense explanation for why our social safety net is so tattered and torn.
For years, if not decades, the Ministry of Social Services [now, “Development” Ed.] (better known to the general public as “Welfare”) has been under the gun for it’s antiquated and draconian methods of dealing with Canadian citizens who are legitimately in dire need of financial assistance. For reasons too numerous to recount it seems that those within government who are charged with supplying this service to that portion of our population who, for whatever reasons, have encountered misfortune or accident in their lives have taken the stance that everyone is already a crook out to defraud the government and that those in need should be treated more as suspects in this overall evil, conspiracy to steal money from the government rather than looking at them and treating them judiciously and with a degree of compassion.

Jim and Judith Townsend’s account of their personal experiences in dealing with this Ministry and with its designated representative, Pat Clemens, stands out as the epitome of this overall mindset of government toward legitimate grievances by affected citizens. To the shame of both government and the people of Canada this document deserves to be entered into every branch of government as a salient, vivid example of the type of malfeasance that embeds itself into government ministries when integrity, honesty, truth and justice are sacrificed upon the alter of greed and profit at the expense of the people bringing with it both dishonour and a train of abuse that inevitably exacerbates the problem.

Please, for your sake as well as to fully comprehend the magnitude of what is taking place in this case with Jim Townsend, take the time to read this document through to the end. And yes, you will find within it, places where the language shifts to the sort of vernacular common to television and the movies but try to keep things in perspective and in context when reading the raw descriptions of a reality that still is being forced upon an innocent victim Jim Townsend as he now rots away in a prison cell awaiting further abuse by the state.

I can’t think of a single Canadian who would want to endure what Jim Townsend has been subjected to since suffering from an accident that was in great measure caused by the unethical and unjust machinations meted out to him by a government agency whose mandate is to help those in need rather than to taunt and torture them beforehand and then after they’ve suffered a major mishap.

And for all of Jim and Judith’s efforts at redress what have they achieved thus far?  The RCMP, in cahoots with the Ministry of Social Development, have ganged up against these two innocent people and forged criminal charges against Jim and without even so much as a “show” trial even, kidnapped him and stuck him in a jail cell. And we call this Canadian justice? Arthur Topham - Editor]

__________________________

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Re: GA00374770    Response to Pat Clemens and Complaint to Ombudsman

Mr. Pat Clemens;

I am in receipt of your letter dated January 25, 2010. Before I make commentary on the odd manner in which you cook your books, first I would like to contend with the two lies you have made up here in your submissions; that I did not attend the November 12, 2009 meeting and that we did not inform you that we were moving from Dutch’s [Trailer Park, Ed.].

Read the rest of this entry »