John is discussed in various places in Quatloos but mainly here;
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=10996
John is a freeman guru who is very big on the concept of freeloading. His primary scheme has been promoting the idea that you can force the government (in this case Canadian) to supply you with an "adequate" living. Adequate is a very flexible word depending on what you feel your own needs are. Wally Dove, who tried out a scheme somewhat akin to Spirit's teachings in the Federal Court of Canada, thought that $100,000,000 would do nicely;
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=9418&start=20#p211002
But Wally's arguments differed from Spirit's enough that they could be disowned when he lost.
John gives the basis of his theories in this video;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGNcb6NvocY
And he's willing to sell you all of this, the fruits of years of research and analysis, for the meager sum of $1,000. Seems more than fair since it guarantees you a lifetime of government dole. Free housing! An adequate living! All with no effort on your part, you don't even have to do any work for it;
The key to all this is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights;So a natural right that we see expressed in the covenants is that a man or a woman has the right to have an adequate living. It doesn't say you have to earn it, it doesn't say you have to pursue after it, it doesn't say you have to create this adequate living on your own."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal ... man_Rights
Specifically Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights which says;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... ral_RightsRight to an adequate standard of living
Article 11 recognizes the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living. This includes, but is not limited to, the right to adequate food, clothing, housing, and "the continuous improvement of living conditions".[40] It also creates an obligation on parties to work together to eliminate world hunger.
The right to adequate food, also referred to as the right to food, is interpreted as requiring "the availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances, and acceptable within a given culture".[41] This must be accessible to all, implying an obligation to provide special programmes for the vulnerable.[42] This must also ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need, taking into account the problems of food-importing and food-exporting countries.[43] The right to adequate food also implies a right to water.[44]
The right to adequate housing, also referred to as the right to housing, is "the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity".[45] It requires "adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, adequate lighting and ventilation, adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location with regard to work and basic facilities – all at a reasonable cost".[45] Parties must ensure security of tenure and that access is free of discrimination, and progressively work to eliminate homelessness. Forced evictions, defined as "the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection", are a prima facie violation of the Covenant.[46]
The right to adequate clothing, also referred to as the right to clothing, has not been authoritatively defined and has received little in the way of academic commentary or international discussion. What is considered "adequate" has only been discussed in specific contexts, such as refugees, the disabled, the elderly, or workers.[47]
You can take that to the bank! And John has, selling his interpretation of it to anyone who wants a guaranteed life of freeloading courtesy of the United Nations.
But my comment on this theory was;
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=10492&start=1420#p219106But in parting I'll point out the one fatal flaw in all of his aspirations and dreams. None of the United Nations agreements John is banking on are legally binding on Canada. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not an international treaty, it is a feel-good declaration without any legal effect. So it is not law that a Canadian judge will have to consider if John ever stands in front of him yammering away demanding that his mortgage be paid off and a new Maserati tossed in because the United nations says so.
But who listens to me? Dreamers gotta dream and that's what Spirit and his followers have been doing. Until harsh reality hit them on the head with a club wielded by the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, the lair of the dreaded Judge Rooke. And it was Steve Pomerleau, the individual in the title of this discussion, who was the plaintiff who got his ass handed to him as a result of trying Spirit's methods.
Pomerleau v Canada (Revenue Agency)
2017 ABQB 123
http://canlii.ca/t/gxnsd
However Zeus himself did not deign to personally descend from Olympus to blast this upstart with Hephaestus's thunderbolts. This task was instead passed down to one of the lowest of his minions, a Master, essentially a gatekeeper assigned to keep the judicial detritus away from the Queen's Bench judges. But you wouldn't know that from the decision which is essentially a mini-Meads v Meads, 56 pages of analysis to stomp on a lawsuit that could probably been dismissed in a quarter that length.
The starting gun was a Statement of Claim Pomerleau filed in November 2015 which, while not very enlightening as to the cause of action, was at least notable for its brevity;
Possibly feeling that this wasn't sufficient to sway the court in January 2016 he filed another;Statement of facts relied on
1. Canada Revenue Agency is in possession of my property & so far, after approximately 152 days and many attempts sent by registered mail to Canada Revenue Agency officials, demanding the return of my property to its rightful owner, me, Canada Revenue Agency never returned my property nor replied to any of my letters.
Remedy sought
2. Four Hundred Seventy Five Thousand Six Hundred Forty One 22/100 CAD ($475,641.22) as of November 5, 2015
+
All daily compounded interest of 25% and 10% late penalty fees that are still in effect until the full payment of my property is paid and there are no outstanding balance due.
+
The fee of Twenty Five (25) troy ounces of .999 pure gold or its equivalent in CAD at the time/date of any and every of Steve Pomerleau court appearance(s) in order to recover his property.
It all started with this;Statement of facts relied on:
1. The Defendant is unlawfully in possession of the Plaintiff’s property which was fraudulently collected for the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009.
2. The Plaintiff tried at multiple occasions to settle this dispute out of court but the Defendant ignored the Plaintiff’s request to have his property returned.
Remedy sought
3. One Million One Hundred Ninety Two Thousand Seven Hundred Forty Nine 14/100/CAD ($1,192,749.14).
+
All daily compounded interest of 25% and 10% late penalty fee which will be added every 90 days and until the full repayment of my property plus interest (is applicable) and late penalty fee(s) (if applicable) is paid and there are no outstanding balance due
* The 25% daily compounded interest will be recalculated on February 5, 2016
** The next late payment fee will be added (if applicable) on March 14, 2016.
+
The fee of Twenty Five (25) troy ounces of .999 pure gold or its equivalent in CAD at the time and date of any and every of Steve Pomerleau Court appearance(s) (if applicable) in order to recover his property with interest and penalties.
4. The Fee of Four Hundred Fifty CAD ($450.00) per hour for my physical and mental labors preparing this case in order to recover my property as stated in this Statement of Claim sections 1, 2 & 3. An Affidavit will be submitted as evidence of labors in order to recover these fees.
I'm familiar with what happened here, my wife had the same thing happen to her except it was in respect to free parking provided by her employer. The CRA often does projects where they check out an industry or an employer for a specific item. I'm not certain exactly what specific item was involved with Pomerleau, some kind of payment either the employer or the employees figured was non-taxable but the CRA disagreed.[27] Mr. Pomerleau also explained more about the history of this dispute. In 2014, he received a $42,534.69 CRA reassessment. The CRA classified a living allowance as income. He then received a further reassessment for about $29,000 for his 2011 tax year, a year he had not filed a tax return. The total debt claimed was $71,286.45. Mr. Pomerleau was also laid off from his employment around this period.
[28] Mr. Pomerleau explained he was not the only person affected by this CRA action, which he called bullying. About 40 other employees of the same company were also reassessed in a parallel manner. This had caused personal and marital distress. Mr. Pomerleau at this point began to research law, and then discovered “great deceptions pertinent to Statutory creatures of the state et al as of: the ‘person’, ‘legal person’, ‘fictional person’”. He advanced these ideas in correspondence to the CRA, and demanded refund of amounts his employer had deducted for 2011-2014. Mr. Pomerleau also wrote a book that explained his ideas and his litigation. That book was then distributed to government officials and legal counsel for the CRA. I note Mr. Pomerleau’s book was not entered into evidence in this matter.
This statement;
Has a back story related to Pomerleau's squabble with the CRA.Mr. Pomerleau was also laid off from his employment around this period.
I'm guessing that Pomerleau lost a well-paying job because he tried to drag his employer into his tax dispute. The Income Tax Act requires Canadian employers to deduct taxes from gross wages (source deductions) before the net wages are distributed to employees. I assume that either Pomerleau demanded that Clearstream stop deducting taxes from his paycheque, a violation of federal law, or that he had his salary garnisheed after refusing to pay the assessment and he demanded that Clearstream not honour the garnishee. Either way he got the boot and he unsuccessfully sued his employer. Clearstream is in the oil sector which is facing a major recession in Alberta with many very qualified individuals looking for work. So good luck to Pomerleau in finding another job in the sector after suing his prior employer for refusing to help him avoid paying his taxes.[29] Mr. Pomerleau’s conflict with the CRA spilled over into his employment relationship, and Mr. Pomerleau in February, 2016 was terminated from his employment with the ClearWater Energy Services LP business. Mr. Pomerleau explained he was well paid, making about $250,000.00 per year. He filed two lawsuits against his employer (Pomerleau v Clearstream Energy Holdings, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Docket No 1613 00126; Pomerleau v Clearstream Energy Holdings, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Docket No 1613 00127), but both these actions were struck out by Master Smart on April 19, 2016.
Russell Porisky, the "mastermind" behind the Paradigm tax evasion scheme, was an advocate of relentlessly harassing your employer to stop making source deductions from your pay until the problem solved itself by getting yourself fired. His big selling point was that Canadians can make themselves non-taxable by essentially just saying that they don't want to pay tax anymore. But Porisky knew that the Canada Revenue Agency wouldn't buy this argument so if you declared your income but didn't pay tax on it they would come after you even though you didn't owe it. So Russ's big solution was to not tell them. This turned tax avoidance (filing your returns but not paying the tax) into tax evasion and criminal convictions for most of Russ's followers. If you were an employee Russ had a lesson in his very comprehensive series of courses on how to get your employer to stop taking the illegal taxes from your pay and giving them to the government. Threaten to sue them! The Porisky harassment method is described here.
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10271
Russ did note that there was a possibility that you'd be fired for threatening to sue your employer for following the law but his philosophy was nothing ventured, nothing gained. That worked about as well as you'd expect for Porisky's followers and, I assume, Pomerleau. So, now unemployed and with a pile of illegally taken back taxes owed to him, Pomerleau went to Queen's Bench. Essentially he wanted the court to force the CRA to return all of his previous years' taxes.
The first order of business at trial was a Crown argument that Queen's Bench had no jurisdiction to hear the case since disputes of income tax assessments are the responsibility of the Tax Court of Canada. However Queen's Bench decided that this wasn't about the actual assessments but about a number of different issues all of which fell within the court's jurisdiction;[3] In short, Mr. Pomerleau claims that the CRA has improperly received paycheque income tax deductions made by Mr. Pomerleau’s employers. His lawsuits are for the return of those funds, and various penalties.
Based on this Queen's Bench decided that it had the jurisdiction to beat the crap out of Pomerleau. However the key position taken by the Crown was in paragraph 45;[40] Mr. Pomerleau’s lawsuits can be framed in a number of ways. They could be called a tort lawsuit, an equitable claim that Canada is unjustly enriched by operation of an unlawful scheme, a lawsuit for conversion of stolen property, or an application for reimbursement of moneys collected under ultra vires legislation. But in each of these cases, Mr. Pomerleau is not challenging his tax assessments themselves, but rather an ‘upstream’ basis for the operation of income tax legislation.
A problem that Pomerleau faced was that Queen's Bench isn't kind to OPCA litigants.[45] I therefore move to the second basis on which the CRA argues Mr. Pomerleau’s lawsuits are fatally flawed: his claim that he is outside the income tax apparatus as a whole is wrong in law, without merit, and an OPCA scheme.
And one thing you don't do, ever, at Queen's Bench is crap on their landmark case, Meads v. Meads;V. Mr. Pomerleau’s Lawsuits are OPCA Litigation
[46] The basis on which I strike out Mr. Pomerleau’s litigation is that his arguments are legally false. He has no legal basis to seek return of amounts collected by his employers per the Income Tax Act and other related legislation. I will therefore trace through Mr. Pomerleau’s argument, as I understand it, and indicate where that scheme encounters issues.
[47] I subsequently also identify other problematic aspects to his litigation conduct to date. This has less to do with whether Mr. Pomerleau’s lawsuits have a legal basis but instead relates to him being potentially subject to other court responses, such as increased costs, and court access restrictions. Some of these supplementary findings are also intended to assist Mr. Pomerleau in understanding how certain points he has raised are false.
Pomerleau's main argument was that he was a special snowflake who couldn't be taxed. The court summarized this as;A. Preliminary Issue - Status of Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571 (CanLII)
[48] Mr. Pomerleau in his written filings at various points criticizes the Meads v Meads decision of Associate Chief Justice Rooke of this Court. For example, in his April 18, 2016 filings Mr. Pomerleau says this decision is irrelevant to his litigation. He “object and REBUT” the Meads v Meads judgment. Mr. Pomerleau’s arguments and evidence are valid. He states that relying on Meads v Meads is “frivolous, improper, irrelevant and would constitute an abuse of process”, and is “PRIMA FACIE evidence that there is NO MERIT” to the CRA’s defence.
[49] More drastically, Mr. Pomerleau’s March 23, 2016 Application in Pomerleau v CRA #1 states that the Meads v Meads judgment is invalid. It is a fraud designed to deceive and injure humanity:
The FACT that a court Judgment (i.e Meads v. Meads) and/or Court cases (i.e. Meads v. Meads) and/or any/every documents/CONTRACTS (i.e Meads v. Meads) which are/is/was/were INTENTIONALLY made with the INTENT to DECEIVE/ AID and ABET humanity into FRAUD via ignorance of these CONTRACT FACTS are NULL and VOID, ab initio, nunc pro tune, ad infinitum. Any/all FRAUDS by virtue of its INTENT and CREATION remain as such, any/all FRAUDS exposed, all CONTRACTS are NULL and VOID upon its discovery where a FRAUD revealed is, in FACT, NULL and VOID, ab initio, nunc pro tune, ad infinitum.
[50] As a decision of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, the Meads v Meads judgment is a binding authority for a Master of this Court. I inquired during the hearing on Mr. Pomerleau’s position concerning that decision. He confirmed he had read it. Mr. Pomerleau was at this point more circumspect. He restated his respect for the Court and its decisions, but nevertheless indicated he believed the Meads v Meads judgment was engineered with the intent of concealing from Canadians their true rights, particularly when they did not use the exact correct terminology and/or language.
[51] Meads v Meads is binding case law on a Master and relates to many elements of Mr. Pomerleau’s litigation. In Crossroads-DMD Mortgage Investment Corporation v Gauthier, 2015 ABQB 703 (CanLII) at paras 32-46 I reviewed how the Meads v Meads decision is not merely a binding authority in this Court, but has been broadly endorsed by courts in Canada and the Commonwealth. I therefore reject Mr. Pomerleau’s argument that I cannot rely on this decision, or that it is “in FACT, NULL and VOID, ab initio, nunc pro tunc, ad infinitum.” Meads v Meads is instead a correct statement of Canadian law on this subject.
The first leg that the court kicked out from under Pomerleau was his argument that he wasn't a person as defined in the Income Tax Act because the Act defines "person" as;B. The Tax Immunity Argument
[52] I interpret Mr. Pomerleau’s argument to have the following steps:
1. The Income Tax Act, s 248(1) definitions of “person” and “taxpayer” means that only corporations may be subject to income tax.
2. Human beings in Canada are misled into acting in concert with a government-owned artificial entity or corporation, a “fictional person”, “legal person”, “person/corporation”, “death fictional entity” [a.k.a. the “Strawman”], and/or being an employee thereof;
3. This makes human beings officers of the “Strawman”, and subject to income tax.
4. International human rights treaties are binding authorities that govern how the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be interpreted, particularly Charter, s 7.
5. International treaties recognize that human beings have certain innate rights that they possess as a consequence of being human beings.
6. These inherent rights are also a reflection of common law and/or natural law principles.
7. The Charter, s 7 right to “life, liberty, and security of the person” must be interpreted so that it captures the rights enumerated in international human rights treaties.
8. One of the protected rights under Charter, s 7 is that a human being can be “a person before the law”.
9. A right is a privilege. A human being can reject any right, including being “a person before the law”. That is a right to refuse or reject being linked to the “Strawman”.
10. A second protected right is a right to property. A human being has an absolute right to their property.
11. A third protected right is the right to work, and to engage in economic activities without restriction.
12. Any restriction on rights identified in international treaties makes a human being a slave.
13. A human being who has rejected being “a person before the law” cannot be taxed because that human being is not a taxpayer, per Income Tax Act, s 248(1). The human being’s right to their property is absolute, therefore any employment contract payment deductions made by an employer are theft on behalf of the CRA, which receives those funds.
and, under Pomerleaus understanding of "includes", this means that only corporations are persons. At virtually every freeman court hearing I've attended, all of the Poriskyites, Bernie Yankson, Charles Holmes, the sovereigns involved have used this argument and lost. A fact that the court was crass enough to bring up;"person", or any word or expression descriptive of a person, includes any corporation, and any entity exempt, because of subsection 149(1), from tax under Part I on all or part of the entity's taxable income and the heirs, executors, administrators or other legal representatives of such a person, according to the law of that part of Canada to which the context extend
In support of it's rejection of Pomerleau's arguments the court cited R v Klundert, Kennedy v Canada, R v David Lindsay, and Canada v Stanchfield.[61] Third, Mr. Pomerleau is wrong because the meaning of the “person” definition in the Income Tax Act has been repeatedly evaluated in Canadian case law, with a single consistent result. This is because the idea that a “person” is only a corporation and not a human being is one of the oldest Detaxer OPCA motifs. In every case, Canadian courts have said the same thing. Human beings are persons according to the Income Tax Act, s 248(1) definition. Here are a few examples.
Then on to the Freeman staple, the Strawman. The court noted that Pomerleau did not actually use the word "Strawman" but that was the argument he was making, that we are two people, generally the corporeal legal person and the physical natural person.
Queen's Bench, not being much interested in metaphysics, dismissed Pomerleau's arguments with the terse comment;[75] Mr. Pomerleau’s approach clearly has evolved from what was initially a classic “Strawman” with two parts, one physical, the other non-corporeal, linked by a birth certificate, and where the non-physical aspect of the doppelganger provides the basis for state authority. As I have indicated, this concept has been globally rejected by Canadian courts.
[76] However, Mr. Pomerleau’s written submissions for the January 30, 2017 hearing display a somewhat different approach. Like the classic “Strawman”, he objects to being a “person”, or a “legal person”, or an “employee of a corporation”, or an “officer of a corporation”, because those are different and less than his ‘physical’ half, which he in his written argument calls “a Human Being in Full Legal Capacity”. Mr. Pomerleau says he does not have to be “any class of person”.
But Master Schulz decided to make sure that the argument was totally stomped by adding;[78] None of these phrases, including “Human Being in Full Legal Capacity”, is found in any reported Canadian case. Frankly, they are just magic spell language. It does not matter how Mr. Pomerleau describes his human-ness.[1] In law, he is a person. This “Human Being in Full Legal Capacity” is called a “natural person”. And a natural person is a taxpayer, as I have previously explained.
Tarted up in a new dress? Hardly judicial language from a court named after HRH Elizabeth II! Next the court will be talking about back alley quickies.[79] But there another, deeper problem with Mr. Pomerleau’s scheme. His mechanism for getting rid of the “Strawman” takes a somewhat different path. The traditional version attacks a contract between the human and the “Strawman”, or the effect of a birth certificate.
[80] Mr. Pomerleau’s version works this way. He cites two international treaties:
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 16:
Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 6:
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
[Emphasis added.]
[81] Then Mr. Pomerleau says something unexpected. “A right does not produce an obligation.” “[R]ecognition everywhere as a person before the law” is a “right”. Ergo, Mr. Pomerleau can reject being “a person before the law”:
I have a right to recognition as a person, a legal person, a designated class of persons before the law and, my right does not obligated me to take recognition as of such designated class of persons ...
[82] And that is what Mr. Pomerleau says he has done. He has repeatedly told the CRA and other government actors that he is not “a person”, under a wide variety of labels.
[83] This is nothing but the “Strawman” tarted up in a new dress. In Canada a human being is also a legal person, “a person before the law”. You cannot reject that, or opt out of it. To try to do so is simply nonsense. To use the language of Mr. Pomerleau, a “Human Being in Full Legal Capacity” is also and always “a person”. They are one and the same. They have exactly the same rights. They have exactly the same obligations under Canadian law.
One point in this is worth a comment. Where have we heard “A right does not produce an obligation.” before? From my John Spirit quote at the beginning of this post;
Spirit based this on Part 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights cited by Pomerleau;So a natural right that we see expressed in the covenants is that a man or a woman has the right to have an adequate living. It doesn't say you have to earn it, it doesn't say you have to pursue after it, it doesn't say you have to create this adequate living on your own."
We've all seen how well these rights work in real life like, say, in Somalia.25. FOOD AND SHELTER FOR ALL
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
An unfortunate point for John Spirit is that if the court crapped on Pomerleau's United Nations treaties based arguments because they have no binding legal authority in Canada it meant that it also crapped on John Spirit's main selling point in all of his videos and free money schemes. And crap away it did;
Which leaves John Spirit twisting in the wind right alongside Steve Pomerleau. This analysis would have been enough to torpedo both John and Steve but Queen's Bench decided to pile it on. Paragraphs 106 to 125 explore the general topic of;a. International Treaties are Not Binding Supra-Constitutional Authorities
[99] Mr. Pomerleau’s first fundamental error is that he claims international treaties are binding on Canada. This is wrong. International treaties, themselves, have no legal effect on governments or persons in Canada. A treaty is an agreement between states that is political in nature: A.G. for Ontario v Scott, 1955 CanLII 16 (SCC), [1956] SCR 137 at 142, 1 DLR (2d) 433. The only way in which an international treaty has any force and effect inside this country is by government order or if the treaty’s provisions are enacted as Canadian legislation: Capital Cities Communications Inc. v Canadian Radio-Television Commission, 1977 CanLII 12 (SCC), [1978] 2 SCR 141 at 188, 81 DLR (3d) 609. Canadian governments may ignore international treaty and law, and even legislate in conflict and default on their international obligations, provided that is done in an explicit manner: R v Hape, 2007 SCC 26 (CanLII) at paras 53-54, [2007] 2 SCR 292.
[100] Mr. Pomerleau has cited a number of Supreme Court of Canada judgments that discuss the role international treaties play in the interpretation of Canadian legislation. For example, he quotes R v Hape, at para 53:
[101] It is important to note that this quote from paragraph 53 omits an important concluding sentence: “Parliamentary sovereignty requires courts to give effect to a statute that demonstrates an unequivocal legislative intent to default on an international obligation.” Canadian law trumps anything in international treaties. What the passage quoted by Mr. Pomerleau means is that where there are alternative ways to interpret legislation, and one form is consistent with an international treaty, then that is the correct alternative interpretation.It is a well-established principle of statutory interpretation that legislation will be presumed to conform to international law. The presumption of conformity is based on the rule of judicial policy that, as a matter of law, courts will strive to avoid constructions of domestic law pursuant to which the state would be in violation of its international obligations, unless the wording of the statute clearly compels that result. ... the legislature is presumed to act in compliance with Canada’s obligations as a signatory of international treaties and as a member of the international community. In deciding between possible interpretations, courts will avoid a construction that would place Canada in breach of those obligations ...
[104] Another passage cited by Pomerleau states this principle in a clear and explicit manner. In Németh v Canada (Justice), 2010 SCC 56 (CanLII) at paras 34-35, [2010] 3 SCR 281 Cromwell J explains how international treaties serve as an interpretative tool, but do not dictate Canadian law:
[105] Justice Cromwell here is very clear. R v Hape stands for the principle that when one is unsure how to interpret a statute, one presumes that statute is consistent with the international treaties to which Canada is a party. However, if legislation does not implement a treaty, then that ends the matter. The treaty is irrelevant.[34] I also accept, of course, that, where possible, statutes should be interpreted in a way which makes their provisions consistent with Canada’s international treaty obligations and principles of international law. As LeBel J. noted in R. v. Hape ... it is presumed that the legislature acts in compliance with Canada’s obligations as a signatory of international treaties and as a member of the international community as well as in conformity with the values and principles of customary and conventional international law ...
[35] The presumption that legislation implements Canada’s international obligations is rebuttable. If the provisions are unambiguous, they must be given effect ... [Citations omitted.]
b. International Treaties are (sic) Do Not Invalidate Canadian Income Tax Legislation
And arrived at this conclusion;
And then Queen's Bench got giddy and went off on an unnecessary frolic;d. Conclusion
[126] This shows how international treaties simply do not work the way Mr. Pomerleau says they do. Treaties are not ‘superior law’. Instead, a treaty is a political statement, and has no direct relevance or binding effect on Canadians and Canadian governments, unless the government takes the positive step of creating a domestic law that matches an international treaty. Even then the international treaties do not control the operation of that domestic law. Treaties are, at most, an interpretive tool.
Pomerleau had sent the Crown a fee schedule of what it would have to pay him to have him get involved in the lawsuit he'd instigated. The schedule is included as an appendix to the decision and included items like this.VI. Other OPCA-Related Issues
[128] Though I have disposed of Mr. Pomerleau’s lawsuit on multiple bases as an attempt to implement legally incorrect OPCAs, there are other issues that arise in his materials that I wish to deal with, again as much for his benefit as for those litigants who follow this line of argument.
In other words the Master just decided, perhaps on a whim, to keep going even though Pomerleau was already dead and buried. First that old chestnut, a favorite of Chief Rock Sinl General and his followers, tacit agreement;
[129] Mr. Pomerleau in his written argument indicates on many occasions that he had sent documents to the CRA and other government officials. They did not reply or rebut the contents of those documents. That creates “tacit assent”. I asked Mr. Pomerleau in court what he meant by that, and he explained that silence means agreement. When I asked him whether he had Canadian court cases which indicate that is a rule of law, he said he had found that concept via “Google”, and on the Internet there are many mentions of this rule. He therefore accepted the principle must be correct.
[130] I pause at this point to note that the “Google” search engine is an unwise choice for legal research. In Canada the law is defined by legislation and the common law, which are the judgments given by Canadian courts. These can be accessed using the CanLII database, which is free and an extremely well designed and powerful legal research tool.
[131] In any case, Mr. Pomerleau’s belief that silence can mean agreement is wrong, and again this is a subject which is addressed in detail in the Meads v Meads decision at paras 447-528. Mr. Pomerleau says he has read this decision, which is binding on me. He should have understood that “tacit assent” does not apply here, and that the government actors had no obligation to reply to any of his documents, except two.
[132] Mr. Pomerleau on March 23, 2016 filed two “Notice to Admit Facts” documents. Rule 6.37 makes it a legal rule that a party to a lawsuit who receives a “Notice to Admit” is presumed to agree with an alleged fact in that “Notice”, unless it denies the fact, or objects to that fact. Here, silence does mean agreement, but this is a law put in place by the Alberta Legislature, and not a principle of common law. The CRA disputed Mr. Pomerleau’s Notices, and I agree with its position that the proposed admissions were irrelevant, improper and unnecessary, and nonsensical.
There is one section I particularly liked.(A) Correspondences
A) Ten (10) troy ounces of .999 pure gold (or its equivalent in CAD at the time/date of the initiated correspondence) will be pay up front for any future correspondence by any public servants of Canada Revenue Agency, Government of Canada, the Crown or any other Canadian agencies private or public, Federal or Provincial including their affiliates, requiring a written reply, regardless of the nature of the request or the content of the reply. The followings must be taken in consideration;
1. Since phone conversation could be left open to interpretation therefore assumption, all correspondences will be done by register mail.
2. If section A) 1 is not meet, the correspondence(s) will be ignored without any consideration or acknowledgment of its content and included fee(s) (if applicable) will be non-refundable. The correspondence(s) will be kept for the record.
3. The fee is/are payable up front and must be included in the request at the time of the correspondence & at the rate mentioned in section A).
4. Once receive, the fee listed in section A) will be non-refundable.
B) Court appearance from any legal action(s) taken against or by Steve Pomerleau or for any general appearance requested.
B} Twenty Five (25) troy ounces of .999 pure gold (or its equivalent in CAD at the time/date of the initiated correspondence) will be pay up front for any request made by any public servants/Government employees/Canadian Citizens/taxpayers, to appear in any of the Canada's Court system regardless if it was subpoena and regardless of the nature of the request.
So, as I interpret this, Pomerleau could skip out to Mexico for a month without telling anyone. While he's basking on the beach the fifteen day limit expires triggering 4(a). Since they don't know where he is 4(b) triggers (F) and Pomerleau, presumed dead, is owed 100,000 troy ounces of gold. If he comes back at the end of the month 4(d) still means that he is entitled to a pile of money. I'm not going to go through the fee schedule and figure the amount out because Queen's Bench told him, politely, where to shove his fee schedule. He got ticked off over this and asked why the government can impose fee schedules but he can't. Simple;4. In the event of the unlikely disappearance of Steve Pomerleau;
a) If Steve Pomerleau goes missing for more than Fifteen (15) consecutive days, tangible proof of life e.g. verbal & physical contacts is requires with his direct family members (if alive) or trusted relatives.
b) In the event of section D) 4 a. is not witnessed, ANY of Steve Pomerleau' successors will be authorized to initiate section F) of this document, regardless of any laws or jurisdiction's which they believe could apply, since he will be presumed death.
c) If Steve Pomerleau reappears within the Fifteen (15) days period mentioned above and was unlawfully detained against his will, Legal action{s) will then be applicable to anyone directly or indirectly involved. All fees in regard of such legal action(s) will be applicable. *Refer to this entire document for all applicable fees.
d) If Steve Pomerleau reappears after section D) 4 b. is initiated, Legal action(s) will then be applicable to anyone directly or indirectly involved. All fees in regard of such legal action(s) will then be applicable. *Refer to this entire document for all applicable fees.
(F) In the event of the physical death of Steve Pomerleau due to any sections of this document, One hundred thousand (100, 000) troy ounces of .999 pure gold (or its equivalent in CAD at the time of death) will apply to anyone on planet Earth, found liable Including; the Government of Canada or any other representatives of any foreign countries or their Governments, if political influences (but not limited to) were use/utilized by any public servants of the Government of Canada or foreign Governments or anyone, to deliberately and intentionally inflict injuries/harms to Steve Pomerleau for which resulted in the physical death of Steve Pomerleau.
Then a threat. Allen Boisjoli has been charged with what theAmericans call "paper terrorism" for swamping Queen's Bench with bullshit documents esentially similar to those that Pomerleau is so free with. So the Master said;[134] Mr. Pomerleau at the January 30, 2017 hearing asked why government actors can impose fines, like he did via his fee schedule. The answer to that is simple. Those fines and penalties ultimately flow from legislation authorized by democratically elected governments. They are law, and may be enforced without an individual’s agreement or consent. Mr. Pomerleau has no equivalent authority to impose analogous penalties.
And then there was another possible criminal offense that Pomerleau may have committed through his filings;[136] I strongly recommend Mr. Pomerleau read the Re Boisjoli decision with care. In that decision Rooke ACJ concluded that Allen Nelson Boisjoli had prima facie committed the Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, s 423.1 offence of intimidation of a justice system participant when Boisjoli attempted to enforce a fee schedule claim via the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. Boisjoli was subsequently charged with that offence and is facing trial.
Paragraphs 144 to 149 dismiss other trivial OPCA brick a brac that Pomerleau threw in the mix. After all this the Master struck out Pomerleau's lawsuits and gave him some constructive advice. If he's unhappy living in the dystopian hellhole that we other Canadians somehow tolerate he can bugger off and find somewhere else more amenable to his desires for a freeloading lifestyle.B. Criminal Interest Rates
[139] Mr. Pomerleau in his Statements of Claim demands “daily compounded interest of 25%” for the amounts he alleges are owed by the CRA. Criminal Code, s 347 makes excessive interest charges a criminal offence:
347(1) Despite any other Act of Parliament, everyone who enters into an agreement or arrangement to receive interest at a criminal rate, or receives a payment or partial payment of interest at a criminal rate, is
(a) guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or
(b) guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to a fine not exceeding $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.
[140] “Criminal rate” is defined in s 347(2) as:
...an effective annual rate of interest calculated in accordance with generally accepted actuarial practices and principles that exceeds sixty per cent on the credit advanced under an agreement or arrangement;
[141] Mr. Pomerleau via this lawsuit is obviously attempting to charge and enforce a criminal rate of interest.
[142] While Mr. Pomerleau’s attempts to foist these interest obligations on the CRA are legally ineffective, Criminal Code, ss 24(1), 463 also make an attempt to commit an offence such as charging a criminal interest rate a basis for criminal prosecution and sanction.
[143] I will not belabour this point, other than to note to Mr. Pomerleau that he puts himself at risk when he advances claims of this kind. Further, attempts to co-opt the Court to enforce this kind of illegal activity is a basis to restrict future court access (Re Boisjoli, at paras 98-103), as well as other sanctions such as unfavorable and/or elevated costs.
This line lingers;VIII. Conclusion
[154] Mr. Pomerleau’s two lawsuits are struck out. Costs are ordered against him as indicated above.
[155] Mr. Pomerleau’s argument that he has a valid action against the CRA is clearly composed of old OPCA motifs, somewhat rearranged and rejiggered in what I perceive is an attempt to work around Canadian jurisprudence, such as that reviewed in Meads v Meads. It won’t work. Mr. Pomerleau in his oral submissions insinuated in a very polite manner that Canadian judges, government officials, and lawyers are attempting to conceal a way to the golden prize - life in Canada with all the benefits but none of the obligations. There simply is no way to do that.
[156] This does not, however, mean that Mr. Pomerleau has no choices. If he does not want to be subject to Canadian law, including a potential obligation to pay income tax, then he has an alternative. Leave. As the Supreme Court of Canada explained in R v Hape, Canada is sovereign and has the same independent and separate authority within its territorial boundaries as that of any nation-state. The corollary is that, with limited exceptions, Canada cannot reach out and impose its laws on those outside its land and controlled waters. There is nothing to stop Mr. Pomerleau from leaving Canada. Charter, s 6(1) gives him that right. However, if Mr. Pomerleau chooses to remain in Canada, and chooses to engage in activities such as working at a job that generates income, then Mr. Pomerleau is potentially subject to an obligation to pay income tax per Canadian legislation, including the Income Tax Act.
[157] It is as simple as that.
Who else promotes that idea as part of his for sale package of OPCA advice? Hi John!Mr. Pomerleau in his oral submissions insinuated in a very polite manner that Canadian judges, government officials, and lawyers are attempting to conceal a way to the golden prize - life in Canada with all the benefits but none of the obligations. There simply is no way to do that.
And there is this;
YouTube videos of Men scribbling on Whiteboards? Hi again John![160] I hope in the future Mr. Pomerleau will seek better sources for information than “YouTube videos of men scribbling on whiteboards”: Crossroads-DMD Mortgage Investment Corporation v Gauthier, at paragraph 103. It is unlikely this or other courts will consider him a “fair dealer” if he continues down his current path.
And John Spirit's response to his life's work being gutted?
He didn't like it.
It's a little subtle, but if you look at this Facebook thread;
https://www.facebook.com/eternallyaware ... 6583968319
and go to the end of it, there's a post by Eiricki Ragnarok which tells a whole lot, and is followed by over 100 replies:
It's pretty clear that "Zack" posted a reference to Pomerleau and that got deleted, along with the following replies. Spirit knows he's fucked, and is getting all worked up about it.Christian Gauthier John Spirit, although it may be difficult and time consuming, I'm going to do a response video to the judgement that zack tried to share. The guy made a whole pile of fatal errors which showed he didn't understand what he was doing, as well, Sandra made a mess of things by intentionally misrepresenting some of his submissions and twisting them up into what Im sure she though was a piece of art. We shouldn't hide or delete those comments, but rather used them for what they are, a chance to expose exactly what and how they are squashing people as they try to find their way.
So here's a little roadmap for John to follow when he tries to disassociate his bullshit from Pomerleau's bullshit.
Spirit's concept shows up at a couple of points in Pomerleau. The first is that international law binds Canadian authorities. Pomerleau at paras 97-127 guts that. Spirit argues you can take international human rights treaties and 'read in' their provisions into Charter, s 7. The incomplete quote at para 100 from R v Hape is pure John Spirit. Pomerleau's other SCC case quotes are also straight from Spirits materials.
So that's the first great kick to the balls for Spirit. International treaties are, at most, an interpretation tool but they do not define Canadian law.
At paras 113-114 we see the treaties Spirit says are binding on Canada. The analysis by Master Schulz that follows eviscerates that axis of Spirit's argument, which is that international law creates property rights for Canadians via Charter s 7. Instead, the cases cited there show the opposite is true. Property and economic rights are never protected in Canada, and that was a conscious policy decision. The SCC and other courts have specifically rejected application of treaties as a basis for property rights via the Charter. So that rebuts what Spirit has been arguing for a least 3-4 years.
The modified Strawman argument at paras 75-88 is also pure John Spirit. He accepts that Meads has rejected the Strawman, and so has attempted to develop this new variation on the Strawman. Schulz rejects that as just another Strawman scheme. It doesn't matter whether the Strawman is a separate legal thing, or you are saying "I refuse the privilege of being a person before the law". Both are Strawman schemes. Spirit's innovation, such as it was, was that he reframed "a legal person" as being a personal right, rather than the Strawman being a distinct and separate entity glued to you by the State as was taught by Menard. The Pomerleau judgment says it doesn't matter - those two claims are variations of the same thing.
Spirit also argues that the Bill of Rights is a binding authority, which is rejected at para 147, but Spirit should have known better to use that argument, it's been long established as spurious.
So get to work on that video John. However I see that, as a fallback, you're trying a new gig, debt elimination;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9fNxPniwZw
Good luck with that!