Psam Frank - Sovereign with his own laws and court

[MRN]

Thanks for the recipe, I might give it a shot. My wife is a ginger fanatic and nothing is ever gingery enough for her. She makes her own ginger ale from her own fresh ginger concentrate and soda water because even the Jamaican ginger ales aren't strong enough for her. Although, if I do, I'll probably up the ginger quota even higher.

I'm not saying don't but maybe taste the batter before adding more...

[Burnaby49]

I've already posted our general list of rules that I wrote years ago. Now for some specifics on politics and religion.

First, before I start, if you write this, or anything approaching it again you'll be facing a ban.

John Locke and Jesus can suck each other’s d*#!s all they want, they’re still both idiots.

Banning is generally initially done for just a short time period, say 24 hours. Further offensive or prohibited comments can earn progressively longer bans. Continuous disregard for rules can result in a permanent ban. This just happened to our unlamented poster Jackroe. If you want to vent your opinions on religion do it elsewhere, there are probably numerous blogs that would be happy to accommodate you. You certainly do enough of it on your Face Book page.

Our religious prohibition isn’t because Quatloos is pro-religion or anti-religion or supports one religion over another. It's just not a topic Quatloos covers. If you're not familiar with Quatloos's mandate check what topics are included in the forums section.

This doesn't mean that politics or religion are totally banned under all circumstances. Your posts are entirely political but have so far been allowed. However the personal opinions you express about politicians on your Face Book page would not be allowed. It's all driven by context, how these topics relate to valid Quatloos discussions. I'll cover both issues individually to try and give that context.

1 - Politics - As I've noted we don't do politics. You won't find any pro-Trump or anti-Trump rants here, no discussions on the still ongoing US election squabbling and nothing about my opinions on Justin Trudeau. We went through that in 2012 and it was toxic.

I first ran across you when you sent that request for attendance at you New Westminster court hearing in 2014. You'd invented ISS, a fantasy government, and wanted freedom from the actual government since it wouldn't implement your personal voting system. Fantasy governments and claimed sovereign exemption from existing laws fall foursquare in the mandate of our Canadian Sovereign Citizens forum so I went to your hearing to see what it was all about then started a discussion on it (and psam, no need to explain yet again why my understanding of your intent in pursuing your lawsuit is entirely wrong, I'm just giving background about my actions at the time). Since the basis for your court action and your purpose in trying to invoke an alternative Canadian government are both based on your political beliefs it would normally not been allowed but since they intersected with sovereign ideology it was a sufficient fit.

I've made a number of extensive political postings on your discussion but they are not opinion, at least not deliberately. They are explanations, perhaps in part erroneous, of how the Canadian federal and provincial systems of government are structured, how our voting system works, and the legal aspects of being a parliamentary democracy.

2 - Religion - As above. It's not part of Quatloos's mandate and when it was allowed it resulted in nothing but flame wars and trouble. Yet I discuss religion extensively here. You may not be aware of this but just type "Belanger" in the search bar and you'll get hours of reading on paraclete Belanger along with his take on Christianity and the King James Bible. Again, context. Belanger claims to be the leader of CERI (the Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International) a Christian church that claims a literal belief in the King James bible. However CERI exists only inside Belanger's head. There are no actual churches, no congregations, no religious doctrine apart from what Belanger spews out on You Tube videos, no formal church structure, no services or order of worship, nothing that you'd think an actual church would require. However what CERI does have in abundance is ministers since everyone who joins up is proclaimed to be a church minister. You can be one too if you want since Belanger has no requirement regarding earning the designation. All you have to do is ask him for one and you're suddenly a Christian minister.

So why is this a Quatloos topic? CERI is, as the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench has pointed out, a sovereign scam. Judge Rooke of that court called Belanger a con-man in one court decision. One of the few core CERI doctrines is that CERI ministers are exempt from all statutory laws and most common law. So they don't have to have a driver's license or pay car insurance. More seriously if you are ever convicted of, say, rape, (not you psam, a hypothetical you) and you become a CERI minister you have to be released from jail because rape is a statutory law and man-made laws don't apply to CERI ministers. This isn't theoretical, a convicted rapist actually tried it. CERI ministers are also in the fortunate position that they don't have to honour their debt obligations. So if you can't pay your credit card bills or mortgage you can just stop paying. Under Belanger's unique interpretation of Christianity your debts are extinguished and your creditors have no recourse. The Volks tried that with their mortgage and lost their home. This exploitation of religion for secular sovereign purposes makes Belanger and CERI legitimate Quatloos targets. However I have not, in any of my CERI postings, expressed any personal opinion on religion or discussed Christianity in general. As I've said, context.

No doubt the Quatloos rules can be confusing. Very subjective and prone to judgment calls by moderators. But that's how it is. This is a blog, not a representative democracy. So argue about John Locke with Wserra all you want but any more comments along the line of sucking d*#!s is going to get you my unwelcome attention as the Canadian Forums moderator.

[Psam]

Burnaby49, your illustration of the rules here was a very concise and thorough bit (maybe that’s an understatement) of work and your skills as a moderator are of benefit to everybody here. Thank you.

I want to bring up a law in Canada that you and I are both subject to, just to make a point. Please note that I am not in any way trying to be threatening; I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.

I found this in the Criminal Code of Canada.

298 (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.

Now you might think I would allege that I am not subject to that law due to my allegation of having some extent of exemption from laws of the Crown. However, just hypothetically speaking, even if it were true that the Crown unconstitutionally denies section 3 Charter rights without demonstrable justification and the ISS does not, I am still subject to ISS law because as I’ve stated previously, to remedy the denial of my section 3 Charter rights in a way that would cause any other citizen’s same rights to be denied (in terms of being able to exercise their own section 3 Charter rights with respect to some legislative assembly that I am in fact governed by) would not be my wish, nor would I expect anybody, including any ISS member, to claim that this is fair, reasonable, or just. I previously cited R v Crawford to make this point, and I respect the SCC’s reasoning as cited from that decision.

The ISS has written this in its laws:

“Respect for Others’ Laws
“People who exist in proximity to, or engage in community or social interaction with, those who live in different lawful states may find it challenging to feel respected by those others. This can cause distress to any who disagree on what kinds of behaviours they are willing to accept from each other. It is therefore pivotal that when in proximity to, or interacting with, those who are under the lawful authority of a government, Interactive Sovereign Society members show respect for the laws of that government. Members may nonetheless declare that they are not lawfully responsible to those laws if the actions in question are not in violation of the principles of the Interactive Sovereign Society.
“There shall be an External Legislation Committee (ELC), whose purpose is to provide a definitive answer as to whether and to what extent a law of a government external to the ISS is consistent with ISS principles. Any member who would like an answer on such a question may consult with or request membership in the ELC. This committee shall record all such decisions in the External Legislation Registry (ELR).
“A member that knowingly refuses to follow a law of an existing government without first consulting the ELC for a definitive answer on whether the ISS views the law as consistent with ISS principles may be deemed as acting against the principle of Respect For Others' Laws.”

So even if my claims about denial of section 3 Charter rights were true, I would still be subject to section 298(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada, and I don’t believe there’s an ISS member who would deny or contest this. Certainly the ELR has nothing written in it about that section of the Criminal Code nor anything related to it, so according to ISS law, I am subject to that section of the Code.

What the ELR does have written in it, though, is that decisions of ISS judicial process in Canada must respect superior provincial courts as appellate courts (page 3: http://issociety.org/wp-content/uploads/ELR.pdf ). So the ISS judicial system must make an effort to make decisions (when adjudicating ISS members’ conduct in relation to a law such as 298(1) of the Code) that are consistent with precedents of Canadian courts or their decisions will be overturned upon appeal and it will reflect poorly on the ISS judicial system, which would not bode well for the ISS’s ambitions, similarly to any court’s incentive to adhere to the precedents of higher courts as closely as possible. So even if my section 3 Charter arguments were accepted, I am subject to that law identically to how you are. That would remain true even if the concurrent original jurisdiction of ISS judicial process over its members was affirmed by courts in Canada.

So now I’m not going to deny that I have made libellous commentary, and you don’t need to look any further than the fact that I posted a song I wrote and recorded that starts off with the words, “I hope John Horgan dies of cancer”. I have no doubt that this would qualify as “likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule”. I’ll just briefly state that I would qualify this as self defence because Horgan’s government makes no effort whatsoever to adhere to the SCC’s words in Reference re Secession of Quebec where it states that “the consent of the governed is a value that is basic to our understanding of a free and democratic society”, so I am only returning fire. Similarly, someone on this forum might claim to make libellous words against me and justify it by my unreasonable and hostile defiance of what any reasonable person can plainly see is the de jure, legitimate government of the land. Okay, fair enough. So we all have our excuses for libel (and the word “excuse” is included in 298(1)), and I’m not trying to infer any intentions of legal action or any such nonsense.

Just for academic interest though, I want to refer to these words that you wrote, just to hypothetically discuss whether they might qualify as libel under 298(1) of the Code:

You'd invented ISS, a fantasy government, and wanted freedom from the actual government since it wouldn't implement your personal voting system.

You might claim that it is inaccurate to refer to the ISS as a “legislative assembly” consistently with section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, when a person agrees to a contract, their adherence to that contract becomes a requirement of law. Several dozen ISS members have agreed to the ISS Constitution, so for them it is law. For them, the ISS’s legislative assembly writes the laws that they are subject to, whether the section 3 Charter precedent stands or not, just by virtue of the contract they entered into when agreeing to the ISS Constitution.

So I would contend that the phrase “legislative assembly” is an accurate description of the ISS. Referring to it as “a fantasy government” might qualify as “likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule”. I’m just wondering whether you can see any merit to this. If you’re willing to adhere to 298(1) just because of the merits of your own conscience, I would greatly appreciate it, and I would certainly make more effort to reciprocate. If not, I will make note of it but I will not show any further objection. It is your forum after all, and I entered into it by my own choice, and as I said, my own adherence to 298(1) is at the very least suspect, if not flagrantly, obviously lacking.

I have one more question for you. You wrote this:

I first ran across you when you sent that request for attendance at you New Westminster court hearing in 2014.

I’m just curious where I made that request and how it came across your attention, if you happen to remember.

Again, thank you very much for your expounding of the rules that members of this forum agree to as a condition of being included. It was eloquent, respectful, and reasonable.

[wserra]

Referring to it [Psam's fantasy government] as “a fantasy government” might qualify as “likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule”. I’m just wondering whether you can see any merit to this.

Of course I'm not Burnaby, and of course Burnaby is more than capable of speaking for himself. I simply couldn't let this go by without comment.

"[A]ny merit to this"? Hell, no. In every common-law jurisdiction - which, as I understand it, in Canada means every province except Québec - truth is an absolute defense to libel. Per the Cambridge online dictionary, "fantasy" means "a pleasant situation that you enjoy thinking about but is unlikely to happen". "Government" means "the group of people who officially control a country". Your Sesame Street organization no more controls Canada than the one that several friends and I came up with when we were ten years old controlled the U.S. And I'm sure that, while it's pleasant for you to think about, even you believe that such control is unlikely to come to pass. Certainly that's what sane people would think.

So not only is Burnaby's description substantially true - that's the actual standard - but it's completely accurate. And the fact - if it is a fact - that "several dozen" people believe that your fantasy is real doesn't make it so. After all, I'm sure that more than several dozen people believe that they are Napoleon.

ETA: Just so you don't believe I'm being one-sided, at least in the U.S. your “I hope John Horgan dies of cancer” would not be actionable either. First of all, it isn't defamatory because it's not a statement of fact. It almost certainly isn't actionable as a threat, which must be "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

[Burnaby49]

I’m just curious where I made that request and how it came across your attention, if you happen to remember.

All that I can recall is that I ran across something from you on the internet, probably one of your ISS postings, saying that you were off to court and would appreciate support. Until I read that I hadn't known you existed, I certainly wasn't following you. Since attending sovereign court hearings and reporting on them here at Quatloos is one of my post-retirement hobbies I ambled over to to the New Westminster courthouse to see what you were up to and started this discussion as a result.

[Burnaby49]

Thanks Wes, I think that pretty much covers any reply I would have made about psam's fantasy life. As far as the John Horgan gets cancer comment is concerned that's, as Wes again said, legally harmless but that doesn't mean it's appropriate here. Feel free to fill your Face Book page with it, and similar comments about other politicians, you were certainly enthusiastic about sharing similar opinions during the brief period I followed your postings. But I don't want you ad hominem comments about political personalities on this thread.

[Psam]

Yeah I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised that that was the kind of reaction I expected. You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe and you think because so many people accept your belief therefore it’s the right one and mine’s the wrong one and I think perhaps your belief might not be absolutely objectively ethically conclusive.

So supposing my belief was to change and I was to believe that there is nothing unethical about Crown governance being imposed upon me without my consent.

Despite the disagreements we do have, perhaps you might agree that one of my character traits is that I like to choose my beliefs based on as comprehensive of an understanding of the fundamental principles behind them as possible. If so, then in preparation for the possibility that my beliefs do change as I’ve conjectured they might, perhaps you’d be willing to help me understand the principles behind this belief that I might some day in future share with you.

I have a few questions regarding examples of ethical validity of non-consensual imposition of governance that might help me understand why you’re right and I’m wrong. If you have answers, I’d love to hear ‘em.

If the Queen had refused to sign the Constitution that Canadian Parliament asked her to give assent to in 1982, would it still be “the supreme law” as section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982 states?

If so, would it have anything to do with the events of 1688, when it was established in the U.K. that Parliament had supremacy and the monarch was a servant thereof (which incidentally is what largely motivated the writings of John Locke that I was previously referred to)?

If not, then what would Canadians had to have done so that that Constitution could be made the supreme law of Canada without the Queen’s assent so that you would agree that the government created under that Constitution would have the ethical right to impose its governance upon every individual in the land with or without consent?

If you had lived in Germany in 1938 and your neighbour told you that some people down the street had been abducted by Nazis to go to concentration camps, and your neighbour said that the government therefore no longer had the ethical right to govern the people of Germany, would you have agreed?

If so, at precisely what point did the government of Germany reach the point where it no longer had the ethical right to be the de jure government of Germans? And do you think this point could be established well enough that Germans could agree in a sufficient majority so that they could rebel against the de facto government and create a different one? And precisely what would they have to collectively choose to enact as a new government before you would agree that it would have the ethical right to govern Germans?

On the other hand, if you had replied to your neighbour, “no, they’re the government of this land and if they wrote the law so that some people have to be put in concentration camps, then that is the ethical thing to support”, then wouldn’t that mean that countries like Canada and the US had no right to invade Germany to free the people from those camps?

If Germany had no right to invade Poland and France etc and impose its governance upon the people of those lands, then doesn’t that similarly mean that the Crown had no right to impose its governance upon Canada since it should be a government chosen by the First Nations that rules this land? By that reasoning shouldn’t Canada have not fought against the Germans in that war?

When the CIA coordinated the removal of the last (allegedly) democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953, did the government that was facilitated by the CIA as a replacement have the ethical right to govern all people in Iran?

I’d love to hear your answers to these questions if you wouldn’t mind.

[Pottapaug1938]

I have no intention of dignifying your idiotic "what ifs" by treating them as serious questions worthy of a response.

As for "[y]ou believe what you believe and I believe what I believe and you think because so many people accept your belief therefore it’s the right one and mine’s the wrong one and I think perhaps your belief might not be absolutely objectively ethically conclusive," that's not what we say. We do NOT think that "because so many people accept [our] beliefs therefore it's the right one"; we are not so much "believing" as "accepting", as in we accept the fact that your delusional ISS has no basis in fact or law, and is never going to develop past the fantasy stage.

[Burnaby49]

So we're down to Nazis. If we don't agree with psam the fourth Reich is just over the horizon. The laziest of all debating points.

Look psam, if I've tried to make one point through all of this it's that it doesn't matter in the slightest what I believe or you believe. Who cares? If you believe, as you clearly very strongly do, that Canada's current system of governance and voting is unfair, undemocratic, borderline fascism, so what? What counts is what you can do to change it to a system more to your liking. And the answer to that is absolutely nothing. Canada is never going to change its voting system to meet your demands nor is anyone outside of your little circle of like-minded political theorist (if you even have one) ever going to give your fantasy government the courtesy of even a few moments of critical thought. You are at exactly the same point in attaining your goals that you were when I first saw you in court over six years ago, absolutely nowhere. That's why I'm not bothering to debate all these endless arguments you keep throwing out. They don't matter to anyone but you and I don't care if you're right or wrong.

I doubt that Canada will ever, or at least in my lifetime, change from our first past the post electoral system. If they do it will be to a more equitable representation by population system but we will still have only periodic elections with a single voting day. Your chaotic system of endless voting rights is never going to happen no matter how impassioned you are about it. Don't bother to reply with a 4,000 word retort telling me how I'm dumbing it all down and misunderstanding it completely. It doesn't matter if I understand or not, at least it doesn't matter to me.

The government of British Columbia has had three provincial referendums in the past fifteen years seeking electorate approval to change to a 'fairer' voting system than our current first past the post. All three referendums suggested possible replacement systems far more modest in their goals than yours. All three failed, the last two decisively.

One of Justin Trudeau's keynote campaign promises in the 2015 federal campaign was his vow to legislate a more representative voting system as one of his first acts as the prime minister of Canada. When he became prime minister that was one of the first promises he broke although he had a majority government which had the power to legislate it.

So, yet again, it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, how well thought out they are or how great you think they'd work in actual practice. Electoral and government reform is dead, you're shouting into the void.

[wserra]

If the Queen had refused to sign the Constitution . . .
If so, would it have anything to do with . . .
If not, then what would Canadians had to have done . . .
If you had lived in Germany in 1938 . . .
If so, at precisely what point . . .
On the other hand, if you had replied to your neighbour . . .
If Germany had no right to invade Poland and France . . .

Only Psam knows what the world would be like if it were completely different from what it is.

[JamesVincent]

If Germany had no right to invade Poland and France etc and impose its governance upon the people of those lands, then doesn’t that similarly mean that the Crown had no right to impose its governance upon Canada since it should be a government chosen by the First Nations that rules this land?

in·vade
/inˈvād/
verb
verb: invade; 3rd person present: invades; past tense: invaded; past participle: invaded; gerund or present participle: invading

(of an armed force or its commander) enter (a country or region) so as to subjugate or occupy it.

gov·ern
/ˈɡəvərn/
verb: govern; 3rd person present: governs; past tense: governed; past participle: governed; gerund or present participle: governing

1.
conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of (a state, organization, or people).


Yes. They're exactly the same. Why did we never see that.

Dumbass.

[NYGman]

You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe and you think because so many people accept your belief therefore it’s the right one and mine’s the wrong one and I think perhaps your belief might not be absolutely objectively ethically conclusive.

So supposing my belief was to change and I was to believe that there is nothing unethical about Crown governance being imposed upon me without my consent.

You believe the Sky is blue, and I believe the sky is purple. You think because so many people accept your belief that the sky is blue, therefore it’s the right one and my belief that the sky is purple is the wrong one and I think perhaps your belief that the sky is blue might not be absolutely objectively ethically conclusive.

So supposing my belief was to change and I was to believe that the sky is blue and there is nothing unethical about science being imposed upon me without my consent.

Just because you think it is true, doesn't make it so. While the rest of the world may believe in blue sky's, I know the truth, just wish people would believe me.

[MRN]

If the Queen had refused to sign the Constitution that Canadian Parliament asked her to give assent to in 1982, would it still be “the supreme law” as section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982 states?

OOH, I'll play!

If the Queen had, most improbably, refused to give assent to the Constitution in 1982, Canada would almost certainly no longer be a Constitutional Monarchy.

It would not have become "the supreme law" on that occasion, but it would almost certainly have become so within a year or so, without the necessity for Royal assent.

If you had lived in Germany in 1938 and your neighbour told you that some people down the street had been abducted by Nazis to go to concentration camps, and your neighbour said that the government therefore no longer had the ethical right to govern the people of Germany, would you have agreed?

No, actually. I'd have changed the subject and gone home to figure out the most effective way I could break the damn' law.

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my [neighbour], I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”

That said, I hope whatever steps I took I'd have the sense to realise that if I lost/got caught there wouldn't be a lot of point in arguing about it. Or opportunity to do so. If it's like that, break the damn' law and assume you're subject to the consequences.

The point, as people keep saying, isn't whether you're right or wrong. We think you're wrong, but that's not that important in the end.

The point is that you seem determined to pick the path that involves maximum moo and minimum milk.

Lots of Germans agreed that "the government no longer had the ethical right to govern the people of Germany." Or so they said, much later.

The one who kept it firmly philosophical until '46 or so are not remembered kindly.

[Psam]

So we're down to Nazis. If we don't agree with psam the fourth Reich is just over the horizon. The laziest of all debating points.

If a particular war is typically cited as the most important war for a nation to have entered due to the threat posed by the extent of unethical intent of the opposing regime, then shouldn’t that war also be cited as the most relevant war to analyse in assessing what constitutes an unethical regime versus an ethical regime?

I’m not saying the fourth Reich is over the horizon. Nothing like that at all. Didn’t even imply it. Kind of ridiculous to suggest that, actually. I’m just asking for help analysing well known historical events that contrasted unethical regimes against allegedly ethical regimes so that I can understand what you believe constitutes an ethical regime.

If you’re unable to answer my questions in an analytical manner then I can only conclude that either the regime you are claiming has an ethical right to govern people is actually not as ethical as you are claiming it is and you know it or else you haven’t given enough thought to the concise differences between an ethical regime and an unethical regime to be able to expound the details of the differences.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

The only way is Ethics.

...thread now dissolves into a series of ethics girl jokes. I'll give you your starter for 10:

An ethics girl is in a car accident, the paramedics arrive to find the ethics girl covered in blood, the paramedic asks "where are you bleeding from?" The ethics girl replies "Romford".

[MRN]

The only way is Ethics.

...thread now dissolves into a series of ethics girl jokes. I'll give you your starter for 10:

An ethics girl is in a car accident, the paramedics arrive to find the ethics girl covered in blood, the paramedic asks "where are you bleeding from?" The ethics girl replies "Romford".

"Never mind her qualifications, pass me the bleeding tourniquet!"

[Burnaby49]

If you’re unable to answer my questions in an analytical manner then I can only conclude that either the regime you are claiming has an ethical right to govern people is actually not as ethical as you are claiming it is and you know it or else you haven’t given enough thought to the concise differences between an ethical regime and an unethical regime to be able to expound the details of the differences.

You confuse 'unable' with 'can't be bothered'. If you take the position that my lack of a rebuttal to your endless stream of hypotheticals means you've won the argument, fine, I concede, you've beaten me in debate. And, for future reference, I further concede that you automatically win any proposed debate based on questions you pose to which I do not respond.

[AndyK]

Long past time to relocate this thread to Word Salad.

[Psam]

there is nothing unethical about science being imposed upon me without my consent

Yes, science, exactly, that is exactly what section 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982 imposes upon us without our consent, if it is adhered to: science, rationality, analytical thought, empirical evidence.

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

The word “demonstrably” makes this clear. The elaboration upon this by the SCC, requiring a party seeking to limit a constitutional right to prove on a preponderance of evidence that an objective of pressing and substantial importance to a free and democratic society is achieved by the limit on the right, gives it more clarity.

If you have to argue that a claim that a right is denied is inaccurate instead of accepting a more broad and liberal interpretation of that right in which the denial is evident, then it can only be concluded that you are unsure of your ability to provide “a preponderance of evidence” of some pressing and substantial objective being achieved by the denial of the right. I can only guess that this is precisely why the SCC stated that the first stage of analysis of a Charter claim requires rights to be interpreted broadly and liberally.

The fact that nobody in this forum wishes to consider section 1 with an analytical mindset makes it apparent that their ability to predict how the courts will decide this issue is decidedly lacking in credibility.

Nonetheless, the odd shred of analytical thought that does creep into my adversaries’ reasoning does give me good practice for making these arguments to a court, and I am thankful to each of you for those rare moments.

I did recently send a confession to the BC Attorney General of having contravened the Commodification of Sexual Activity section of the Criminal Code of Canada. That was several months ago and I haven’t heard back. But just in case I am prosecuted over it, I’ve prepared an opening statement to make to the court in case I am not provided with counsel. I’ve memorised roughly two thirds of it and can recite it without looking at the page. I’d be interested in hearing your mockery and derision. It would be quite a bit of fun. Here it is:

R v Frank
Defence — Opening Statement

(1) The assertions of the defence to this honourable court are, respectfully, as follows.

(2) There are two alternative functional groups of federated legislative assemblies by which the defending party may be governed, one non-consensually, the other consensually. One is constituted by the Crown and the other by the Interactive Sovereign Society, or ISS, both sharing significant similarities in legislative process, including the election of legislative assemblies as well as being federated into similar jurisdictional character (federal, provincial, local etc). The defending party shall argue that the ISS’s legislative assemblies are more democratic than the Crown’s.

(3) The Supreme Court of Canada has stated, in Reference re Secession of Québec, that “the consent of the governed is a value that is basic to our understanding of a free and democratic society”. While there may be other considerations of greater constitutional merit than consent, the defence shall ask the court to observe that consent does, according to the SCC, have value under the law. Your Honour, in the defending party’s experience, many members and proponents of the institution represented by the prosecution regard the value of consent to have absolute inapplicability to any considerations of law in any dispute such as the present proceedings despite the Supreme Court’s finding that consent is a value of consequence to the law. If the defendant’s observation were accurate, then in the unlikely event that the counsel for the prosecution was influenced by these unconstitutional interests, the prosecution’s resulting treatment of consent as an absolutely inapplicable principle in this disagreement of law would, with apologies for what the prosecution might rightly describe as paranoia, be a position in contempt of the Supreme Court and inconsistent with the Constitution. This possible paranoia of the defendant may cause offence to my learned friend on the prosecution, probably a devoted genuine defender of members of the public from criminal acts, but it would be obstructive to justice to refrain from making this paranoia and its accompanying prejudice known to the court to facilitate the genuine interests of impartiality. The judicially unqualified man on defence holds the greatest of respect toward any individual with the integrity to uphold a sincere commitment to treat the ethical principle of impartiality as a manifestation of an aspect of the conscience of what is described in the preamble of the nation’s supreme law as God.

(4) The defence shall, during these proceedings, contend there to be a more compelling relevant constitutional principle than consent, one that is enacted to provide more specific clarity as to its interpretation. The defence shall show the court that one of the two previously mentioned groups of legislative assemblies denies the rights described in section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the fundamental democratic rights to vote and pursue candidacy, for sustained periods of several years at a time, and the other does not ever deny these rights. The defence shall ask the court to impartially assess which of the two legislative assemblies should be imposed upon the defendant and which should not be, taking into account the contention that one choice results in a remedy for the denial of a constitutional right.

(5) The defence shall show that the legislative assembly whose governance the prosecution advises the court to impose upon the defendant uses an electoral process in which section 3 Charter rights (voting and pursuing candidacy) are only occasionally available to be exercised when permission is given by authorities, and then the periods of denial of these rights are several years in duration.

(6) In the Sauvé v Canada decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, the court stated that, in the determination of whether a right is denied or infringed as per section 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, rights are to be interpreted broadly and liberally. Defence shall contend that is more broad and liberal to regard periods of time when these rights are unavailable to be exercised as denials of section 3 Charter rights by the Crown than it is to regard these rights as simply not existing during these periods.

(7) The prosecution may contend that it is a misusage of the word “deny” in section 24 of the Charter to claim that section 3 Charter rights are denied for periods of time by the Crown. The defence shall argue that none of the arguments to this end may stand up to level judicial, legal, and ethical principles, and of course most importantly, constitutional principles; a broad and liberal interpretation of rights shall be argued to yield the observation that the prosecution’s government denies section 3 Charter rights for years at a time and therefore according to section 24, an appropriate and just remedy may be constitutionally warranted, subject of course to the exclusive limits as specified in section 1 of the Charter.

(8) If the court finds that this may constitute a denial of these rights, then the defence must concede that the denial as a limit may be saved by section 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limit, possibly demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society.

(9) In accordance with R v Oakes, if the court finds that the Crown denies section 3 Charter rights for periods of time, then the onus is on the Crown to demonstrate, on a preponderance of probability, that a pressing and substantial objective is achieved by the denial of these rights, and that the achievement of this objective is reduced when the denial of these rights ceases altogether.

(10) The prosecution may present several objectives that the Crown’s counsel may allege are achieved by these periods of denial. Defence expects to demonstrate to the court that the opposing counsel will not have proven with a preponderance of evidence that these objectives have been in any way compromised in the ten years of experience of the members of the ISS. The defence shall argue that this failure will be the equivalent of failing to satisfy the exclusive limits specified in section 1, using reasoning which can be summed up as shall now follow.

(11) The members of the ISS elect legislative representatives to choose the conditions upon which ISS members predicate their lawful expectations of each other. These elections work in a way that makes section 3 Charter rights available to be exercised at all times. Each voter has one vote that can be cast for any candidate at any time that the voter wishes and changed to any other candidate at any time after that, with no deadline or finish date. Analysing the experience of these participants in this form of election is the most direct source of empirical evidence as to whether any objective might be compromised by the cessation of periods of denial of these rights. Prosecution may make a theoretical conjecture that an election in which section 3 Charter rights are continuously available to be exercised compromises some pressing and substantial objective of the law making processes for a free and democratic society. Counter arguments by the defence to any such conjecture will invoke logical reasoning by claiming that theoretical conjecture holds less compelling weight in determining the likelihood of the achievement of the objective through the impugned denial of rights than empirical evidence, even if that evidence is derived from a comparably small electorate in comparison to the size of electorate being conjectured to experience detrimental impacts from having these rights always available to every individual. If theoretical conjecture measures to be less compelling than empirical evidence, then the Crown shall not be able to achieve the preponderance of evidence, as is its onus. The defence shall respectfully contend that the prosecution fails to satisfy section 1 of the Charter by giving evidence based on a preponderance of probability, within the context of the only available source of empirical evidence-based observation, that an objective of pressing and substantial concern to a free and democratic society is compromised by the cessation of denials of these rights.

(12) Now, just as the defence predicts that prosecution will not be able to prove that any objective may be observed to be detrimentally impacted if section 3 Charter rights are continuously available, no matter the size of electorate that is observed to experience this form of election, similarly, defence cannot disprove this reasonable possibility. Defence must concede that a compromise may be necessary so that the purposes behind these proceedings, not the least of which would be the overarching constitutional principle of rule of law, may be assured if the evidence of an achieved objective becomes a preponderance once the ability to access section 3 Charter rights without interruption has been availed by a sufficiently numerous electorate so that any potential detrimental impact upon a pressing and substantial objective caused by the cessation of the denial of these rights becomes evident.

(13) One such possible compromise is that the court could rule that the proceedings against the defendant be stayed pending the Crown fulfilling [the onus inherent in section 1 regarding the denial of section 3 Charter rights] [its onus to provide evidence based upon a preponderance of probability that a pressing and substantial objective is detrimentally impacted by ceasing the denial of section 3 Charter rights], once the electorate choosing to avail themselves of such continuous access to their democratic rights reaches a sufficient size so that evidence of any such impact becomes available. If the Crown then fulfils its constitutional duty to satisfy the criteria to fulfil section 1, then the defendant shall have confessed to the allegations in this court and shall thus most certainly be incarcerated as specified in the Criminal Code of Canada after the stay is lifted. If the defendant, at that time, disagrees with the decision of the court as to whether there is sufficient evidence provided by the prosecution of the achievement of a pressing and substantial objective, then the dissent shall be expressed through an intentionally terminal hunger strike while incarcerated, not through resisting or in any way attempting to evade arrest. Any constraints that the court wishes to impose upon the defendant to assure availability for any such further developments on these proceedings, the defendant shall accept willingly. This would constitute minimal impairment of the rights whose denial by the Crown the defence intends to see impugned in these proceedings. Minimal impairment of a constitutional right for the purpose of justifying a limit on that right is a requirement illustrated in the R v Oakes decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Despite the right being minimally impaired, it may be nonetheless assured to the prosecution that the desired punitive measures can be executed if it is demonstrated to be lawful under the Constitution to do so.

(14) Another option available to the prosecution is for its client to create an alternative legislative assembly in which section 3 Charter rights are always available to be exercised as has been demonstrated by the legislative assembly preferred by the defendant. Such an alternative assembly could be open to participation by any Canadian citizen who wishes, and then the defendant could have the laws of that assembly imposed upon him instead of laws of the assemblies that the prosecution advocates having imposed upon him despite their periods of denial of constitutional rights. The defendant shall have no dissent to any such arrangement.

(15) Still one further option available to the prosecution is to look at the alternative criteria placed upon the defendant by his preferred choice of legislative assembly. The prosecution could take whatever measures are reasonably and lawfully warranted to assure that the defendant is adhering to these alternate criteria. If the defendant does not fulfil those criteria, then the defendant’s preferred legislative assembly has made it known that its representatives may advise the Crown to impose Crown penalties upon the defendant for his actions as observed under the laws of the Crown. The defendant does not dissent to lawful interference when there is reason for anyone to believe at any time that the defendant is not adhering to the laws prescribed by his preferred choice of legislative assembly, emphasising that this alternative legislative assembly is more democratic than the Crown’s in that it does not ever deny fundamental democratic rights that the Crown denies for years at a time.

(16) If this court finds it to be appropriate and just that the defendant be governed by a legislative assembly that never denies section 3 Charter rights instead of having the governance of a legislative assembly imposed upon him without consent for which section 3 Charter rights are denied for sustained periods of time, then section 286.1(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada is not the standard of lawful conduct by which the defendant’s actions should be judged, but rather the criteria specified by the Interactive Sovereign Society for which the society has affirmed that violation of those criteria would cause harms that would merit the punitive measures specified in 286.1(1) of the Code.

(17) The defence will now list those criteria to the court. The defence affirms that if the prosecution can produce evidence that the defendant has violated any of these criteria, then the defendant consensually accepts whatever punitive measures this court deems appropriate.

(18) The first criterion is that the defendant may not in any way or at any time compromise the physical, mental, or emotional wellness of a sex worker.

(19) The second criterion is that the defendant may not in any way or at any time insinuate, about any person from whom sexual services are obtained, that any of the worker’s skills or contributions to society outside of the sex trade are in any way reduced in dignity, value, or respect because of the work presently being engaged in.

(20) The third criterion is that the defendant may not use any form of marginalization suffered by the sex worker, notably financial marginalization, as leverage or in an exploitative way to negotiate the consideration exchanged for sexual services.

(21) The fourth criterion is that the defendant must openly offer all details of any such sexual services obtained for consideration to all other subsequent sexual partners.

(22) The fifth criterion is that the defendant may not show public opposition to any political platform or agenda advocating that society act upon its duty to provide opportunities, for sex workers who find their trade to be a disappointment, to find alternative labour that more fully satisfies their development of their personality, in accordance with each such worker’s individual view of herself or himself, including providing a basic living income for a sufficient period of time to realise one’s view of oneself without the influence of the sex trade.

(23) The sixth criterion is that the defendant must inform sex workers as well as any other sexual partners of the details of these requirements, so that other partners clearly understand the expectations to which the defendant has agreed to be held responsible.

(24) The final criterion is that the defendant must give stronger merit to a sex worker’s or other sexual partner’s opinion as to whether the defendant is upholding these requirements than to the defendant’s own opinion.

(25) The defence shall respectfully and resolutely affirm to the court that adjudicating the defendant’s actions according to these criteria as specified by his preferred choice of legislative assembly and providing punitive measures commensurately with his failure to adhere to them is entirely lawful and does not in any way deny or infringe his section 3 Charter rights in the legislative process by which those laws are asserted and continued.

(26) The defence shall contend that the laws by which the prosecution wishes the defendant’s actions adjudicated, section 286.1(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada, these laws are asserted and continued by a legislative assembly that denies section 3 Charter rights for sustained periods of time without any preponderance of evidence that any pressing and substantial objective is achieved through the denials of these rights. If this were true, the defence shall argue, then it would be unconstitutional to impose the laws put forward by the prosecution upon the defendant, provided of course that the alternative legislative assembly preferred by the defendant maintains a public standard of supportiveness to the participation of all other citizens of Canada in the exercise of their section 3 Charter rights or that another alternative legislative assembly exists, also with constant availability of section 3 Charter rights, that has some form of greater consistency with the Constitution of Canada, thus making it a more appropriate remedy for the denial of these rights than the defendant’s chosen legislative body.

(27) The defence would not at any time during these proceedings dissent to an adjournment for the prosecution to reassess the proceedings based upon the alternate specified criteria of the society for which section 3 Charter rights are never denied. Due to the unprecedented nature of these proceedings, clearly the prosecution may have focused its resources on pursuing the Crown charges rather than anticipating alternative lawful criteria of adjudication. In fact, it would be entirely welcome for any voter in Canada who is discontented with these alternate criteria of lawful adjudication regarding matters of commodification of sexual activity to become a member of this democratic society and experience a greater extent of enfranchisement. They may perhaps find it satisfying to experience a more democratic forum of advocacy for change to the law. If they wish to see stricter constraints lawfully applied to the society’s members in these matters, then perhaps a more democratic society will be receptive to their contentions about the harms that they claim are caused by the impugned forms of conduct.

(28) The defence apologises to the court for being insufficiently financially responsible to retain the funds to afford legal counsel so that the case for the defence could be provided with full academically informed proficiency as is the standard preferred by the court. The defendant’s general grief at the Crown’s inattentiveness to its denials of constitutional rights as shall be described in these proceedings, and other injustices that the defendant believes are made possible by them, perpetually distracts the defendant from financial matters and has left the defendant with a depletion of finances, despite working full time hours and receiving a reasonable compensation for labour. The defendant will attest that being denied constitutional rights with no demonstrable justification is a distressing circumstance. The defence shall therefore ask the court for its attention to the Pintea v Johns decision of the SCC in 2017 in which the SCC affirmed its endorsement of the Statement of Principles on Self-represented Litigants and Accused Persons established by the Canadian Judicial Council.

(29) The Statement of Principles states that judges, court administrators, members of the Bar, legal aid organizations, and government funding agencies each have responsibility to ensure that self-represented persons are provided with fair access and equal treatment by the court. Additionally, the statement provides principles for the guidance of such persons in the administration of justice in relation to self-represented persons.

(30) If any element of court process or other process of law interferes with adjudication of the principles of supreme law in dispute in these proceedings, then the defendant offers utmost gratitude for any assistance offered by members, employees, or colleagues of this court, as lawfully required by the Statement of Principles, in assisting the defence to refine its presentation of its case consistently with the venerated principles of this honourable court. The defendant also offers apology in advance for any inadvertent failure to maintain fluent familiarity with, and respect for, the practices of this court.

(31) In summary, Your Honour, the defence shall contend that the laws relevant to the commodification of sexual activity that the prostitution, oops I mean prosecution, asks to have imposed upon the defendant are created by a legislative assembly for which section 3 Charter rights are only occasionally available to be exercised when given permission by authorities and denied the rest of the time, while an alternative legislative assembly for which section 3 Charter rights are available to be exercised at all times has created distinctive laws relevant to the commodification of sexual activity. The defence shall argue that the Constitution of Canada would, in the balance of all considerations, be substantially better served by adjudicating the defendant’s actions in reference to this distinctive set of laws, created in a way that makes section 3 Charter rights constantly available to be exercised, rather than under the laws proposed by the prosecution, created in a way that denies section 3 Charter rights for sustained periods of several years at a time.

(32) The defence offers three final notes to summarise the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Canada that the defence shall ask the court to uphold by precedent, Your Honour. These notes arise from quotations from Sauvé v Canada and Frank v Canada, two major precedents regarding section 3 Charter rights, Sauvé concerning the rights of prisoners to vote and Frank concerning the rights of citizens residing outside of Canada to vote.

(33) In the 44th paragraph of Sauvé, the SCC states that “Denial of the right to vote on the basis of attributed moral unworthiness is inconsistent with the respect for the dignity of every person that lies at the heart of Canadian democracy and the Charter. It also runs counter to the plain words of s. 3 of the Charter, its exclusion from the s. 33 override, and the idea that laws command obedience because they are made by those whose conduct they govern.”

(34) Your Honour, if it is true that laws being made by those whose conduct they govern is a basic part of the formulation for justification of a person being commanded into obedience of those laws, then a method of writing and adjudicating laws that gives a person lesser enfranchisement in the law making process is, by comparison, deficient in ethical, lawful, and constitutional justification for commanding a person into obedience of its laws in comparison to a method of writing and adjudicating laws that gives a person greater enfranchisement.

(35) Furthermore, Your Honour, if attributed moral unworthiness has been deemed by the SCC as irrelevant to a citizen’s entitlement under the Constitution to exercise their section 3 Charter rights, then the defence suggests to the court that any discussion about the character or prior conduct of the defendant is irrelevant to the proceedings and may not be subjected to observation for the purposes of these proceedings unless these proceedings determine that section 3 Charter rights have in fact never been denied to the defendant or the denial of these rights is determined to be a reasonable limit that is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, or lastly, the prosecution asks the court to adjudicate the defendant’s conduct under the laws of the legislative assembly under whose governance the defendant consensually claims to abide.

(36) In the 59th paragraph of Sauvé, the SCC states that “When basic political rights are denied, proof of additional harm is not required.”

(37) Your Honour, the defence shall submit that any dialogue by the prosecution through these proceedings that appears likely to be motivated by showing a lack of harm to the defendant by the denials of section 3 Charter rights should be discontinued promptly unless some objective that might be achieved by the denial of these rights is illustrated by conjecturing such a lack of harm. If the court concurs, then the defence shall show objection if any such dialogue occurs. Speculation about lack of harm done to the defendant by denial of section 3 Charter rights should, as far as the defence understands paragraph 59 of Sauvé, generally be irrelevant to these proceedings.

(38) Finally, the 1st paragraph of Frank states that “Any limit on the right to vote must be carefully scrutinised and cannot be tolerated without a compelling justification.”

(39) Your Honour, the defence simply wishes to emphasise the words “any limit” and the words “compelling justification” in this SCC ratio decidendi. The defendant feels singularly strong admiration for the authors and proponents of that paragraph of the SCC’s written reasons for its decision in Frank v Canada.

(40)Thank you, Your Honour, this concludes the opening statement of the defence.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

I guess when someone told me when I was young that banging one's head against a brick wall only felt good once you've stopped was talking from experience.