A RoadKill Radio "Warrior of the Week", pro-lifer Don Spratt launches his new pro-life campaign on RKR News: challenging Christians to sign a "Value Voter's Pledge": that they will never, ever vote for any politician who would allow even one pre-born baby to be killed; and challenging politicians to sign a "Principled Politician's Pledge": to always defend life—no matter what their party or leader says.
Don Spratt has spent 30 years defending the supposedly "constitutionally-guaranteed" right to life of those who cannot speak for themselves: pre-born children. Some pastors criticized his tactics, but said: "If they ever said we couldn't preach the Gospel, I'd stand with you!" But when Spratt preached forgiveness of sins to abortion-mill staff… he was sent to jail. And where were the promised "supporters"? Nowhere to be seen! To defend Canadians' Charter rights of free speech, Don Spratt and Cissy von Dehn distributed copies of BC's infamous "Bubble Zone" law—and were convicted of breaking the very law they were publicising!
After decades teaching constitutional law in the United States, Dr. Charles Lugosi is back practicing law in Canada, and has taken Mary Wagner as his client. Her case highlights some foundational issues in Canadian constitutional law. Kari Simpson and Ron Gray interview this distinguished legal scholar and pro-life activist (his doctoral dissertation posited that slavery and abortion are almost identical human rights violations) to learn how the Wagner case represents all Canadians’ free speech rights.
Pro-lifers Don Spratt and Cissy von Dehn made a big mistake by handing out copies of BC’s ‘Bubble Zone” law; it turns out the abortionists, police and courts don’t think the public should be notified of the law! It also turns out that cop-shopping and clairvoyant judges have led to thought crime convictions in Canada!
Ron Gray reports on today's BC Court of Appeal case in which Don Spratt and Sissy von Dehn attempt to overturn their conviction. Because they were educating passersby about British Columbia's "bubble zone" law (areas near abortion clinics where the free speech of citizens is suppressed), Spratt and von Dehn were convicted of breaking the same bubble zone law! How would people know about a law unless it's advertised? Tune in for this quick update!
Kari Simpson speaks to Don Spratt, one of the many victims of Canada's anti-free speech actions. Mr. Spratt brings us up to date on his legal battles, and details how Canada is on a Road to Tyranny. Will Canadian citizens continue to sit back and passively let their rights to free speech erode until it's too late to turn back?
Mark Hasiuk hosts Cecilia von Dehn, convicted of notifying people about the law that prohibits picketing near abortion clinics. Can educating the public about a law be considered "picketing"? Canadian rights like Free speech takes another bloody beating at the hands of alarmists and activist courts.
Show #106, Part 2, audio only:
Question: What happens if you pass out copies of legislation in front of an abortion mill?
Answer #1: The abortion mill goes cop-shopping. If at first they don’t find an officer who will arrest you, they’ll try, try again—and again, and yet again—until they do.
Answer# 2: When the abortion mill finally finds a compliant cop, the courts will put your life on hold for more than two years while they search for a way to pretend that you did something you actually did not do.
Those lessons were learned last week by pro-lifers Don Spratt and Cissy von Dehn, arrested June 19, 2009 for doing something Vancouver Police had twice told Mrs. von Dehn was not against the law.
On that day in June two years ago, Spratt and von Dehn were in a protected Bubble Zone in front of the mis-named “Everywoman’s Health Clinic” at Commercial Drive and Broadway in Vancouver, where—without making any comment—they gave a copy of the Harcourt NDP government’s 1996 Access to Abortion Facilities Act to anyone who wanted one. Both were wearing signs warning passers-by that they could be arrested if they uttered the wrong kind of statements within the “Bubble Zone” that limits freedom of speech outside BC abortion mills.
They were not criticizing the abortion mill in whose zone they stood; they were not even criticizing the legislation that prohibits such criticism. They merely passed out copies of the law, with a map showing the boundary of the speech-limiting zone. Without that information, they told the court, passers-by might inadvertently violate the law.
Three times before their arrest, the abortion mill had called police because Mrs. von Dehn was passing out copies of the Act within the zone; and all three times the police had told her—and the management of the abortion mill—that what she was doing did not violate the Act. On one occasion, the court was told, a policeman e-mailed the legal counsel of the Vancouver Police, asking what he should do. The VPD lawyer’s answer was not given to the court—it is “privileged communication between lawyer and client”—but one might infer the advice he received from what he did: nothing.
The case had gone through three days of expensive hearings last November, and a further three days of hearings this month. The court has put off a decision until June 20, 2011—two years and a day from the date of the alleged “offense”.
In court last Friday, Crown Counsel Dasein Neering offered her alarming summation of the Crown’s case: “If the defendants are not found guilty,” she warned, “tomorrow the 50-metre zone will be full of protesters,” she warned.
Mrs. von Dehn’s attorney, Doug Christie, brushed aside that warning: “For years,” he pointed out, “the existing law has kept the zone peaceful. If the law needs to be changed, that’s the responsibility of the legislature, not the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that constitutionally, the courts must not legislate from the bench.”
The Access to Abortion Facilities Act prohibits acts of protest about abortion, or sidewalk interference, within 50 metres of an abortion facility or abortionist’s home or office; but it does not prohibit expressing objections to the Act itself.
Crown Counsel Neering asked the court to infer that the defendants real intention—their “thought crime”—was to object to the Act itself because it is known that they diapprove of abortion.
However, Spratt and von Dehn were not even protesting the Act; they were only informing passers-by that certain ideas cannot legally be expressed within the 50-metre “Bubble Zone”. They did not even specify what those forbidden ideas are; they only handed out copies of the Act, so that citizens might read for themselves what thoughts may not be expressed within the zone.
Now they face a further wait of three months before they learn their fate.
Not surprisingly, during the two years he has had to wait to find out if distributing copies of a law violates that law—a precept which cannot be found within any Canadian legislation—Spratt has been unable to find an employer willing to risk hiring a man whom the Crown wants to throw into jail for months or even years.
If you tally the salaries and support costs of the judge, court clerk, Crown counsel, several sheriffs and half-a-dozen police witnesses, then throw in the capital and operating costs of the courtroom, taxpayers have probably spent more than a million dollars on this farcical “trial”; it has probably cost the defendants (and/or their lawyers, if they are in any measure acting pro bono) a further $100,000 or more.
And for what?
If they are convicted, Orwellian “thought-crime” will have gained a significant precedent in Canadian criminal law.
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