The Nanaimo Three - Political Prisoners in Canada

[notorial dissent]

Merits??? I think the only thing Alex has going for him at this point is pathos and the vane hope that the judge is feeling really lenient, as otherwise, thanks in large part to his "friends" he is as they say officially toast, or at the very least the sacrificial idiot.

[Burnaby49]

All done and I'll write a full report later but I'll do the Coles Notes version (Cliff Notes for you Americans) now. I have an evening of pubbing planned to celebrate the final end of the Nanaimo Three trials so I may not get around to it until tomorrow. I've earned it.

Ream found guilty as charged. No surprise there. As for the harshness of the sentence inposed on our arch-criminal I can do no better than quote the comment made by the judge to Alex after the Crown had made their sentencing recommendations;

"Mr. Ream you are the luckiest man in the world because you have the most generous prosecutor I've seen in 39 year."

Crown recommended conditional discharge after successful completion of nine months of unsupervised probation. No jail time. The only terms of probation were that Ream not contact his fellow defendants and that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour. No victim surcharge. The judge noted this was the second most lenient sentence it was within his power to impose.

And Ream tried to screw it up.

On October 10, 2013 Mowe and Clovenhoof had this interchange;

Ah, but Mr. Mowe, if you've been following the pages of Mr. Ream and his friends, whom I collectively call Bozo ofthefamily Clown, you'd know that the condition "keep the peace and be of good behaviour" in and of itself makes him a Peace Officer. 'Cause, you know, they're required by law to keep the peace. And it's a law they've contracted to and everything, signature on a peace of paper.

Urggghhhhh...

Damnit, I think that actually is consistent with Ream's pseudolegal beliefs. Clovenhoof, all I can say in response is that I desperately hope that we have so offended him here on Quatloos that he does not return and incorporate this breakthrough into his "Paperwork".

"This false De Facto court of a bankrupt corporation has already recognized and even ORDERED me to be a Peace Officer via these bail conditions! I accept your offer to contract and demand you cease your illegal policy enforcement officer persecution of me and my colleagues - by the very authority you have granted me - Nunc Pro Tunc!"

LordEd: I am certain Mr. Ream will find solace from the trials and tribulations that flow from his research via his medicinal cannabis oils, suited for internal and external application.

(Damn that sounds icky.)

(Or Icke.)

SMS Möwe

This is exactly what happened. When the judge imposed AS VIRTUALLY THE ONLY PROBATION CONDITION that Ream keep the peace Ream popped up with the interjection that "But wouldn't that make me a peace officer since I am keeping the peace?" Everybody sort of looked away like it was drunken uncle Arthur acting the fool at Christmas dinner and it's best just to ignore him.

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

Hoist a couple pints for me, Burnaby49! And thank you once more for your time, efforts, and always wry wit.

I bet there's a technical term for the kind of humour that is caused by the painful and stereotypic repetition of a certain motif.

If so, our friends the Freemen are masters of it.

SMS Möwe

[LaVidaRoja]

"a technical term for the kind of humor that is caused by the painful and stereotypic repetition of a certain motif"

A new Quatloos contest!!

[grixit]

reliturgitation.

[notorial dissent]

No fair Grixit, no fair, and damn that's good.

[Lambkin]

reliturgitation.

I guess that makes the guru a prestigiliturgitator.

[LordEd]

So, after getting Mr. Ream into perfect position to "railroad him", they opt for a minimal sentence. That's going to confuse his sense of the evil corporate government.

Considering that Mr. Ream is actually a victim (although a willing one), its a reasonable sentence. The bigger players got a little bit of time. "Going the distance" didn't really affect his outcome that much, other than prolonging it.

Go in peace Mr Ream, should you continue to read here. I hope you don't become of interest to this board again.

[Burnaby49]

Back from having two Old Man Amber Ales (well named!) at the Great Bear pub and one Keith's Amber Ale at the Firefighters Club and I have a bottle of wine beside me so I'm good to go on reporting the day's events. Again, as with my prior Ream trial report long day (almost 1AM) and long posting so I'm not giving this my usual nitpicking proofreading.

Initially it looked like Alex's plea for supporters went unheeded. Before trial it was just me, Alex, and the same two women who were at the last session. No Gregor or Mrs. Burnaby49. One of the women was, or appeared to be late teens early twenties, the other older (I'll call her Blondie, no disrespect intended but I have to refer to her by something later!). Blondie seemed to be government. Social services perhaps. She was coaching Alex from time to time and seemed to know the court staff.

Then, just before court started, a group of five young adults and an older guy trooped in and sat down. Reinforcements! Turned out to be five law students and their instructor and they were there to observe a trial, any trial. They had no clue what was going on in our hearing. So the instructor asked Crown Counsel where things stood. A continuance from a prior hearing, only defendant's closing statement to go. "Great" he said, "this should take ten minutes unless the defendant is long-winded". A little tactless I thought since he was standing right beside Alex. Blondie said "He's long winded".

Alex picked up more supporters during the course of the hearing. I sat right at the front and I didn't want to rubberneck behind me but I could hear a fair amount of coming and going. About the 2/3 point I took a washroom break and checked it out. Perhaps an additional half dozen including Gregor Fpic Jahn and a guy in the back who I think was Rory "who the heck is Regina" Daniel Hawes.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=9980

Anyhow Alex's closing statement went a lot better than expected because he was actually prepared! He read from a printed statement and tried not to go off script. Not much (at least in my opinion) to point but focused. I got the impression he hadn't prepared it. He seemed somewhat unfamiliar with the overall contents and stumbled over some of the words. Had particular trouble with "aggravated". Maybe Gregor had a hand in the document? Alex apologized because he said English was his third language after Cambodian and French. Fair enough, I'm totally useless in any language except English. Apart from English my wife speaks Gujarati, Swahili, and some Hindi and French. Makes me feel totally inadequate. Women!

Alex started by telling how his troubles first started when he started passing around "nutritional flyers" at grocery stores and ended up committed for 30 days under the mental Health Act. He then read out a definition of "impersonation" from some Carswell publication, I didn't catch which. At this point he seemed to go off script because he started to badger Crown counsel with questions. He was advised by Crown that "We don't have a conversation in front of the judge" during closing statements.

Ream brought up the point that one of the sheriffs that testified did not have an oath document so how could he be guilty of impersonating a peace officer if no document was required? He lost me on that one. He returned to the issue of sincerity and how he had been authorized to be a peace officer by the bible. He said that "nobody knows what is in my heart but me and god".

At this point he made what seemed to be his primary defense. It seemed, at least to me, to be totally counter-productive because he still didn't really seem to comprehend the charge against him. He was charged with impersonating (falsely represents) a peace officer under 130(1)(a) of the Criminal Code of Canada which, as I've previously reported reads;

130. (1) Everyone commits an offence who

(a) falsely represents himself to be a peace officer or a public officer; or

(b) not being a peace officer or public officer, uses a badge or article of uniform or equipment in a manner that is likely to cause persons to believe that he is a peace officer or a public officer, as the case may be.

Punishment
(2) Everyone who commits an offence under subsection (1)

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years; or

(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

However Alex couldn't be convicted of falsely representing himself to be a peace officer without a definition of what the law considered a real peace officer to be. So "Peace Officer" is defined in Section 2 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

“peace officer”
« agent de la paix »
“peace officer” includes
· (a) a mayor, warden, reeve, sheriff, deputy sheriff, sheriff’s officer and justice of the peace,
· (b) a member of the Correctional Service of Canada who is designated as a peace officer pursuant to Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and a warden, deputy warden, instructor, keeper, jailer, guard and any other officer or permanent employee of a prison other than a penitentiary as defined in Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act,
· (c) a police officer, police constable, bailiff, constable, or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace or for the service or execution of civil process,
· (c.1) a designated officer as defined in section 2 of the Integrated Cross-border Law Enforcement Operations Act, when
o (i) participating in an integrated cross-border operation, as defined in section 2 of that Act, or
o (ii) engaging in an activity incidental to such an operation, including travel for the purpose of participating in the operation and appearances in court arising from the operation,
· (d) an officer within the meaning of the Customs Act, the Excise Act or the Excise Act, 2001, or a person having the powers of such an officer, when performing any duty in the administration of any of those Acts,
· (d.1) an officer authorized under subsection 138(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,
· (e) a person designated as a fishery guardian under the Fisheries Act when performing any duties or functions under that Act and a person designated as a fishery officer under the Fisheries Act when performing any duties or functions under that Act or the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act,
· (f) the pilot in command of an aircraft
o (i) registered in Canada under regulations made under the Aeronautics Act, or
o (ii) leased without crew and operated by a person who is qualified under regulations made under the Aeronautics Act to be registered as owner of an aircraft registered in Canada under those regulations,
while the aircraft is in flight, and
· (g) officers and non-commissioned members of the Canadian Forces who are
o (i) appointed for the purposes of section 156 of the National Defence Act, or
o (ii) employed on duties that the Governor in Council, in regulations made under the National Defence Act for the purposes of this paragraph, has prescribed to be of such a kind as to necessitate that the officers and non-commissioned members performing them have the powers of peace officers;

So if Alex fit into any of the above categories he was a legitimate peace officer and innocent of impersonation. But he argued the opposite position, that he was innocent of impersonation because, while he was a peace officer, he did not fit into any of the above categories! This was exactly the Crown's case against him. He didn't fit into the section 2 definition therefore, by claiming to be a peace officer, he was falsely representing himself to be a section 2 peace officer since, under the Criminal Code, there is no other kind of peace officer . So, as I understood the situation Alex, by freely admitting he'd claimed to be a peace officer but agreeing that he was not a Section 2 definition peace officer, was actually pleading guilty to the charge while he seemed to think his position absolved him.

He then went back to the badge issue and focused on this part of Section 130

130. (1) Everyone commits an offence who

(a) falsely represents himself to be a peace officer or a public officer; or

(b) not being a peace officer or public officer, uses a badge or article of uniform or equipment in a manner that is likely to cause persons to believe that he is a peace officer or a public officer, as the case may be.

He claimed he did not use a badge and had nothing to do with the attempted manufacturing of badges. He didn't seem to realize that the Crown was going after him under 130(1)(a) not 130(1)(b). He stuck with this position through the remainder of the trial making life a lot easier for Crown Counsel. Not often you have a defendant doing your heavy lifting for you!

However he did agree that calling himself a peace officer might not have been the best idea he'd ever had. In the future he'd change the term to negotiator or something else that didn't bring the wrath of the law down on him.

When he finished he wanted to ask the Crown a batch of questions. Can the Crown prove I had knowledge of falsely representing myself?

He went back to his Tremeear's Criminal Code commentary argument that an individual must be proven to knowingly falsely claim to be a peace officer before it becomes an offence and he, Alex, did not try and knowingly make a false claim. The Crown noted (as I understood it) that this commentary related only to an individual impersonating another specific person to gain an advantage, not to impersonating peace officers in general. The Tremeer's commentary related to offenses that included "aggravating circumstances". The judge stated that the section 130 offenses did not require "aggravating circumstances" so Tremeer's comments not applicable.

So Ream fell back on his argument that he did not claim to be a peace officer statutorily authorized by section 2 of the Criminal code (my wording) but instead was a peace officer authorized by god and therefore outside of the code. The judge said that he didn't have the authority to administer the laws of god but had to decide the case under the authority of the laws of Canada as expressed by parliament. In other words that pesky Criminal Code of Canada Section 130 statutory law.

At this point, after about 45 minutes, Ream was more or less done. He had some other fussing around. For instance he demanded that the Crown or judge cough up specific caselaw where someone else had been found guilty of exactly the same charge.

Judge's turn. Had some boilerplate how the fact that the other defendants pleaded guilty wouldn't affect his decision in this case and how branding Ream a "Freeman" was irrelevant and he would decide only on the technical aspects of the law. Then he went into a long review of all the evidence presented at trial. This is where I took my washroom break and checked out the spectators.

Judge started giving his decision stating how Ream had placed great emphasis on how sincerely he held his position then Ream suddenly cut in. He'd just realized he'd left out a page of his closing statement and wanted to read it. Fine, go ahead. Ream said he really really didn't want a criminal record because this would affect his employability for years to come. While he had been told that ignorance of the law was no excuse he couldn't buy that because there were so many laws. Natural law, ecclesiastic law, statute law, the law of gravity (yes, he actually said that), etc. How could anyone be expected to know them all? Judge said this led to mens rea. Section 130 was not about "impersonating" a peace officer, it was about falsely representing oneself to be a peace officer. So did Ream falsely represent himself to be a peace officer? Judge read the Section 2 definition given above and Ream clearly didn't fit into any of them. Then he brought up the use of the British Columbia coat of arms on Ream's oath document. Judge said that Ream couldn't convince him that he wasn't trying to falsely represent himself as a peace officer when he counterfeited an official government seal on the claimed oath making him a peace officer.

Judge said he was satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt that Ream was not a peace officer as defined in Section 2 of the Criminal Code so he was falsely holding himself out to be a peace officer. Judge also said that the Crown's evidence showed that Ream had falsely held himself to be a peace officer in the Victoria and New Westminster courthouses. The fact that he honestly believed that god had authorized him to be a peace officer was a mistake in law that did not serve as a legal defense. So, guilty as charged.

Time for sentencing and the judge asked the Crown for recommendations on that. Covered in my prior post so I won't repeat it except to say that the judge commented that he was agreeing because he gave respect and deference to Crown's knowledge of the case and the appropriateness of their recommendation. One Crown recommendation the judge would not agree to was the stipulation in the probation terms that Ream not pass himself off as a peace officer again. Judge said you are asking me to order him not to break the law. I can't put that in as a probation term. If he pretends to be a peace officer again he'll be back here and not treated so leniently.

Then, in closing, judge, after saying Ream's sentence was "beyond fair" asked Ream if he had any further questions. Mr. Kamikaze replied "Yes, l have a lot of questions!". Blondie (remember Blondie?) audibly groaned "Oh,no!" However the judge hastily closed proceedings and it was over.

[notorial dissent]

Poor Alex, dumb as a rock to the very end.

Good report, good report, and a well deserved night on the town.

[Jeffrey]

Ream said he really really didn't want a criminal record because this would affect his employability for years to come. While he had been told that ignorance of the law was no excuse he couldn't buy that because there were so many laws. Natural law, ecclesiastic law, statute law, the law of gravity (yes, he actually said that), etc. How could anyone be expected to know them all?

Does that mean Ream at least read my post?

[LordEd]

Ignorance of the laws of gravity definitely don't exempt one from their consequences.

[arayder]

In an appeal to the slow readers in their cult the new ploy of freemen is to whine that they can't be expected to follow a particular law because the statute is lengthy and there are so many other statutes!

This ruse is often followed by asking what freemen think is a debate winning question, asking if one knows every page of the tax code or the motor vehicle statutes.

To no effect Ream pulls the trick in court, Clifford does it at his website and Menard did it during his Facebook spat with is sisters (https://www.facebook.com/robert.menard. ... 7177911698)

How very disingenuous. The Nanaimo Three and Menard proudly claim they developed their peace officer fantasies after extensive study of the statute. How can Ream say he doesn't know what's in the statute?

Furthermore what sort of twit can honestly say he doesn't know that impersonating a cop is a crime?

[notorial dissent]

Or common sense, anymore than pretending you are a doctor and making that public claim would bee allowable. I know, I know, common sense, something they are in short to no supply of.

If they had read the statute, they'd know they weren't "peace officers", and if they hadn't, then they are lying yet again, so hard to determine which....Not really!!

The only problem as I see it, is that none of them seem to possess a reading comprehension level sufficient to get out of grade school, at least not where I went, and more importantly the intelligence to go with it. Sorry Alex, you really are dumbern' a box of rocks. I'm really not sure where I would peg their reading comprehension levels, but I'm beginning to believe Dick and Jane would be a bit challenging for them at this juncture.

[Jeffrey]

If they had read the statute, they'd know they weren't "peace officers", and if they hadn't, then they are lying yet again, so hard to determine which....Not really!!

I strongly suspect that Menard, who, lest we forget, came up with this shit, never actually read the statute.

If you look at the Criminal Code of Canada a Peace Officer is anyone hired to maintain and preserve the public peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkEDOuH8fzg

Not to mention Menard explicitly endorsed the use of fake badges which is clearly an offense under 130(1)(b) as Burnaby points out.

Edit: Actually, I think I get where Menard's confusion comes from:

or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace or for the service or execution of civil process

The language seems to allow for anyone employed in maintaining public peace to be classified as a peace officer; so why isn't Menard's liberal interpretation correct; ie; that if I hire say a private security guard then that makes him a peace officer since he's "employed in maintaining the public peace"?

The definition seems to only imply that it only applies to government agents since the 4 jobs listed before "or", " a police officer, police constable, bailiff, constable" are clearly government police officers but the "or other person" seems to leave it wide open.

p.s. Apologies if this has been answered already.

[notorial dissent]

Oh, I don't deny that I expect Bobby read, I am quite sure in fact, that he did, and interpreted the statute to suit himself, as he has on numerous other occasions, that is entirely in keeping with his bargain basement Svengali imitation.

I just said that I didn't think our collection of Roadscholars ever did or could have understood it if they had. They can't seem to read and follow simple court filing requirements so I'm quite sure, even plainly worded statute law is well beyond them.

[Fmotlgroupie]

If they had read the statute, they'd know they weren't "peace officers", and if they hadn't, then they are lying yet again, so hard to determine which....Not really!!

I strongly suspect that Menard, who, lest we forget, came up with this shit, never actually read the statute.

If you look at the Criminal Code of Canada a Peace Officer is anyone hired to maintain and preserve the public peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkEDOuH8fzg

Not to mention Menard explicitly endorsed the use of fake badges which is clearly an offense under 130(1)(b) as Burnaby points out.

Edit: Actually, I think I get where Menard's confusion comes from:

or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace or for the service or execution of civil process

The language seems to allow for anyone employed in maintaining public peace to be classified as a peace officer; so why isn't Menard's liberal interpretation correct; ie; that if I hire say a private security guard then that makes him a peace officer since he's "employed in maintaining the public peace"?

The definition seems to only imply that it only applies to government agents since the 4 jobs listed before "or", " a police officer, police constable, bailiff, constable" are clearly government police officers but the "or other person" seems to leave it wide open.

p.s. Apologies if this has been answered already.

I think that if the caselaw had evolved based on cases like this then it might have been interpreted like this, since judges tend to give the accused e benefit of the doubt. As it is, I think that the relevant decisions are all on charges of obstructing, assaulting etc. and so those judgements err on the side of a restrictive definition of who a peace officer is (e.g. not a security guard). Just a thought.

Ps - ankhs again to Burnaby49 for following this epic all the way to the end. It would have been a classic of Freeman reporting, even without the personal drama of reporting while wounded!

[Bill Lumbergh]

My time tonight is limited so I could only do some cursory research. I'll look into this some more a bit later. Nevertheless I came up with this:

R v. Parsons, 2001 ABQB 42 : http://canlii.ca/t/5mhr

The case deals with whether special constables (bylaw enforcement) were obliged to inform the defendant of his right to counsel after stopping him for riding a snowmobile while drunk (How Canadian!)

Part of the reasoning examined whether these 'Special Constables' were peace officers within the meaning of s.2. Here's what the court said (emphasis added):

[13] S. 555(1) of the Municipal Government Act S.A. 1994, c. M-26.1 states that bylaw enforcement officers are, in the execution of enforcement duties, responsible for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace. S. 42(9) of the Police Act S.A. 1995 c. P-12.01 states that: “A person who is appointed a special constable is, while carrying out his duties as a special constable, a peace officer.”

[14] Given that the Municipal Government Act defines a bylaw enforcement officer as someone who is to preserve and maintain the public peace and that the Police Act states that special constables are peace officers, it is likely that these Special Constables fall withing the definition of peace officer in the Code. However, that alone does not determine the status or capacity of a person to enforce the criminal law. In R. v. Laramee (1972), 9 C.C.C. (2d) 433 (N.W.T. Mag. Ct.) the Court held that a municipal bylaw enforcement officer was not a “peace officer” for the purposes of issuing a demand to take a Breathalyzer test. The Court stated at p. 443:

Even if, therefore, by-law enforcement does, in a general sense, encompass (for restricted municipal purposes) the “preservation and maintenance of the public peace”, such enforcement does not extend to preservation and maintenance of the public peace in reference to Criminal Code offences, or offences under other federal statutes.

[15] The Alberta Court of Appeal in Harvey v. The Queen (1979) 5 M.V.R. 41 (Alta. C.A.) reached a similar conclusion with respect to a military police officer who made a Breathalyzer demand on a civilian outside of a military base. The Court held at p. 46 that while there are several categories of persons referred to as peace officers in s. 2 of the Criminal Code, those persons are only peace officers when acting within the scope of their duties as defined in the legislation applicable to them. In other words the definition in s. 2 of the Criminal Code does not itself confer the authority to enforce the criminal law. [ See also: Nolan v. The Queen 1987 CanLII 66 (SCC), (1987), 34 C.C.C. (3d) 289 (S.C.C.)]

So people can "employ each other" to be peace officers all they want. They have no authority to enforce criminal law unless given that authority through legislation.

I would imagine that the same reasoning applies to security guards. In fact, if memory serves, there is also case law distinguishing private security guards as only maintaining the peace on private property and thus not really fitting into the definition of maintaining the "public peace".

[Clovenhoof]

Burnaby49, great job reporting on the case. It can be incredibly tedious trying to just follow along with court proceedings, never mind trying to accurately record what's going on. Many thanks.

Alex's closing argument was very close to what the ultimate issue in the case was. What should have been put to the judge was, for the accused to be convicted, must he:
a) merely represent himself (falsely, that part not seriously in dispute) to be a "peace officer", or,
b) represent himself (falsely) to be one of the specific kinds of peace officers enumerated in the Code.

If the answer to that was (b), then Alex would be acquitted, since the document he presented clearly identified himself as being a Peace Officer of the Land of the Seriously Befuddled, and not anything else, regardless of the presence or absence of the Coat of Arms. It (the argument would be) is of little more significance than if Alex had handed the sheriff a Chinese take-out menu, since the sheriff acknowledged that he instantly recognized his papers to not be genuine.

The argument isn't without merit, and I expect that a healthy minority of judges would have accepted it and acquitted Alex, given that there isn't any prior precedent on the specific issue.

As to his condition, keep the peace and be of good behaviour, alas, it is a statutory requirement of a probation order: section 732.1(2)(a).

[notorial dissent]

However, the fact that they wanted badges, which means they would have gone around flashing badges, would have led some people to have believed they were genuine, and could have caused some problems, since they weren't real peace officers of any kind or stripe.

I think the statute could be worded considerably better and clearer, and should spell it out better, but the intent is there if the clarity is not.