I have placed the items in the transcript that I feel important in bold if you want to scan through.
CA48339
Vancouver Registry Vancouver Registry
In the Court of Appeal for British Columbia
(BEFORE THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE NEWBURY)
Vancouver, B.C.
August 30, 2022
REGINA
v.
TREVOR RUSSELL HOLSWORTH
PROCEEDINGS AT HEARING
CA48339_CHAMBERS_AUG 30 22.docx
J.C. WordAssist Ltd. (Port Coquitlam)
202-2608 Shaughnessy St., Port Coquitlam, B.C. V3C 3G6
Phone 778-285-3425
Federal Crown Counsel: M.A. Erina
Appearing on his own behalf: Trevor Holsworth
INDEX
SUBMISSIONS FOR FEDERAL CROWN BY CNSL M. ERINA: …………………… 1
SUBMISSIONS FOR APPELLANT BY TREVOR HOLSWORTH: …………………. 3
EXHIBITS
Nil
RULINGS
Nil
Proceedings
Vancouver, B.C.
August 30, 2022
(PROCEEDINGS COMMENCE AT 10:33 AM)
THE CLERK: Calling Regina versus Trevor Russell Holsworth, Justice.
THE APPELLANT: Good –good morning. My name is Trevor Holsworth, appearing on my own behalf.
THE COURT: Thank you.
CNSL M. ERINA: Yes, Justice Newbury, my name is surname Erina, it’s spelled E-r-i-n-a, initial M. for Mark, and I appear for the Federal Crown, the respondent to Mr. Holsworth’s application for leave.
THE COURT: Thank you. Mr. Holsworth.
CNSL M. ERINA: If I could, Justice Newbury.
THE COURT: I’m sorry.
CNSL M. ERINA: Just at the outset, and I informed Mr. Holsworth that I’d like to just briefly address the court, and it’s for the purpose of –I want to inform the court of a couple additional facts and a couple of documents that are relevant to the delay issue, and I’m –perhaps it would be appropriate to do this at the outset because, in Mr. Holsworth’s submissions, or Your Justice’s questions, these may come up, so it may be better to have them up front now as opposed to when the Crown makes its submissions, and I’ve given the documents to Mr. Holsworth and I’ve informed him of the facts I wanted to say. They’re not a lot, but –
THE COURT: Okay.
CNSL M. ERINA: Yeah.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Holsworth, you can sit down.
THE APPELLANT: Oh, sorry, yeah.
CNSL M. ERINA: And it’s just for the sake of having a bit more of a fulsome record because, as I will say in my submissions, one of the difficulties in dealing –we’re going to have in dealing with delay, there is no evidentiary record of what took place in the lower courts. So the –the one fact is this, is that in correspondence on October the 21st of 2020, the trial Crown was –received an email from the judicial case manager offering a trial date of January the 29th, 2021, and the Crown turned that down because the Crown was not available. I think that’s a fact that should be before the court. Also, when the Crown set down the April 22nd, 2021, trial date, this being the date that was adjourned, when it was set down, the Crown knew, but appears to have overlooked, the fact that its witness was not available, so that the fact of the availability of the witness did not come to the Crown’s attention subsequently. That knowledge was known to the Crown at the time but was overlooked. I think that’s appropriate to be before the court. And one small correction, which frankly I think was –is not material, but just for the sake of completeness, is in the Crown’s memoranda of argument, at page 2, paragraph 8, it stated that Mr. –
THE COURT: Just a minute while I find it.
CNSL M. ERINA: My –my apologies.
THE COURT: Where is the memorandum?
CNSL M. ERINA: So it’s page 2, paragraph 8.
THE COURT: Where is the memorandum? Is it a separate book? This one?
CNSL M. ERINA: It should be –
THE COURT: Okay. Page 2? Page 2, you say?
THE APPELLANT: Uh-huh.
CNSL M. ERINA: Yes, paragraph 8 at the bottom of the page.
THE COURT: Okay.
CNSL M. ERINA: It stated that Mr. Holsworth made his first appearance on November the 4th.
THE COURT: Mm-hmm.
CNSL M. ERINA: His first appearance was actually October the 7th, 2020. I just want to change that date.
THE COURT: Okay.
CNSL M. ERINA: And lastly, the two documents. The first is an email between Mr. Holsworth and the Crown agent, which makes reference to Jordan, and it’s a string of emails starting on November the 5 of 2020. Again, I can show this again to Mr. Holsworth, but he’s seen this.
THE APPELLANT: Thanks.
CNSL M. ERINA: I can pass that up. And lastly, and I thank the court’s patience, is just a two-page excerpt from the trial transcript in which Mr. Holsworth makes reference to delay of the case, and this is at the trial.
THE COURT: Okay.
CNSL M. ERINA: And subject to any questions, those are the additional materials and facts I wish to bring to the court’s attention.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, I don’t understand the significance of them right now, but I’m sure you’ll be filling me in when –
CNSL M. ERINA: Yes.
THE COURT: –you make your argument.
CNSL M. ERINA: Thank you.
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Erina. Mr. Holsworth, and all I’ve got from you is notice of appeal or application for leave to appeal?
THE APPELLANT: Right. Yes, I didn’t realize that I could present any other evidence or information, according to the practice directives. It just says I can file a short outline of argument. It doesn’t say that I can –but it does say that Crown can provide additional materials, is my understanding.
THE COURT: Okay. So what do you want to tell me?
THE APPELLANT: Okay. My understanding is that the issue of the constitutionality of the courts has not been resolved judicially at this time. The matter was ignored. The letter that I wrote to the Prime Minister’s office that I read to the court on December 3rd has been received, including the relevant correspondence including threats to destroy my evidence by the RCMP, my UN human rights submission, my Charter of Rights notice, my submission to the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Justice, which was deleted from the committee record, and the acceptance of my complaint of the conduct of the Minister of Justice to the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner and forwarded the matter –he forwarded the matter to the Minister of Public Safety, since forwarding the matter to the Minister of Justice previously did not solve the matter. The Minister of Public Safety has not responded at this time since receipt of the communication from the Prime Minister’s office in early March. On July 16th, 2021, I made a freedom of expression argument regarding my conduct being one of protest and presented facts regarding failures in the rule of law throughout the legal system involving lawyers, the B.C. Law Society, the RCMP, the Canadian Judicial Council, the Minister of Justice, and the Prime Minister’s duty as the Prime Minister in the Canadian Parliamentary system with respect to ministerial responsibility, the doctorate –doctrine of separation of powers, and the constitutional requirement –
THE COURT: Mr. Holsworth, I’m just going to interrupt you for a minute.
THE APPELLANT: Sure.
THE COURT: I wonder if you could explain to me the connection between these items you’re talking about and the present –
THE APPELLANT: Right.
THE COURT: –application for leave.
THE APPELLANT: Because the reason I was in court was to protest the –
THE COURT: When you say what the reason you were in court –
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: –when do you mean?
THE APPELLANT: July 16th, 2021.
THE COURT: Okay. And what court was that?
THE APPELLANT: That was the B.C. Provincial Court where the Income Tax Act, they alleged that I had not filed income tax.
THE COURT: Okay. So you were giving your defence at that time?
THE APPELLANT: Correct.
THE COURT: Okay. And you made this argument about freedom of expression?
THE APPELLANT: Correct.
THE COURT: Okay. Okay, now I’ve got it.
THE APPELLANT: Okay, thank you. And the constitutional requirement for the rule of law to protect democracy. The Canadian Judicial Council, without proper legal authority, claimed that judges have unreviewable discretion and call requests for review of their discretion an abuse of process.
THE COURT: Okay. Now I do not have any document that shows me that, so you –could you –
THE APPELLANT: Well, that was all presented at the B.C. Provincial Court. It was also a matter of a –a notice of constitutional question that Crown has not responded to and has refused to respond to.
THE COURT: Okay. Can you make me a copy of this -this letter or whatever it was? Was it a letter, you say –
THE APPELLANT: I –
THE COURT: –that you got back from the Canadian Judicial Council?
THE APPELLANT: I can.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: I don’t know if I have a copy here, but I might have a copy.
THE COURT: So you’ll give me a copy of that?
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
CNSL M. ERINA: Mr. Holsworth, here’s copies of –
THE APPELLANT: Oh, okay.
CNSL M. ERINA: –if I might take the liberty of –
THE APPELLANT: Oh, sure.
CNSL M. ERINA: –[indiscernible/overlapping speakers] that out –
THE APPELLANT: Okay.
CNSL M. ERINA: –in case you needed it.
THE APPELLANT: Thank you, man.
THE COURT: Thank you. So that’s your notice of constitutional question?
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct.
THE COURT: Okay. And how about the reply that you’re talking about from the –from the Judicial Council, you said?
THE APPELLANT: I don’t have a copy of that here. It was presented to the court. I can provide that if that’s required.
THE COURT: Yes, please. I have to be able to see what you’re talking about.
THE APPELLANT: Sure.
THE COURT: And what’s the date of –what’s the date of that letter?
THE APPELLANT: I’m not –it’s 2007 sometime.
THE COURT: 2007?
THE APPELLANT: Correct. The letter from the Canadian Judicial Council.
THE COURT: Okay. So it’s long before this –
THE APPELLANT: Exactly.
THE COURT: –case arose?
THE APPELLANT: Exactly. That’s why I was protesting.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: The Deputy Attorney General’s office was served with the enforcement procedure of the Charter. It has never been responded to and Crown reports that they will not be providing a response. The Crown is in breach of the Charter. Crown cannot legally enforce the law when they are in breach. That breach has been acknowledged, but the requirement to resolve the breach has been denied repeatedly by Crown prosecution.
THE COURT: Now, sorry, could you please describe this breach to me, what –how is –
THE APPELLANT: That –that –
THE COURT: –the Crown in breach?
THE APPELLANT: —when I served the Crown with the enforcement procedure of the Charter to have the conduct of the judge who wrote the decision by the Canadian Judicial Council, claiming that they can ignore the transcript and prefer a woman’s voice, then I asked for that to be checked.
THE COURT: To be?
THE APPELLANT: I asked for that to be checked by Parliament, that discretion.
THE COURT: Checked?
THE APPELLANT: Yes. The Minister of Justice is claiming that he has no lawful right to be involved in the process of the Canadian Judicial Council, when that simply is not true. I have a letter from the Minister of Justice, claiming that he can’t get involved in the Canadian Judicial Council, but that is not the case. Claiming that he trusts the process of the Canadian Judicial Council when the Federal Court –
THE COURT: Well, it is the case, though, because the judiciary is independent of the Minister.
THE APPELLANT: Well –
THE COURT: The judiciary is independent of the executive and legislative arms of government.
THE APPELLANT: That might be the case to some extent. Claiming that he trusts the process of the Canadian Judicial Council when the Federal Court has labelled the process as abusive in the Justice Smith matter. We have a constitutional crisis.
THE COURT: Sorry, what’s the Justice Smith matter?
THE APPELLANT: Justice Smith was the judge that the Canadian Judicial Council took it on their own behalf to request his removal for taking on a job or a –volunteering to be helping out at a law school –
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: –in nine –in 2019.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: And he took that –he complained about the conduct of the Canadian Judicial Council to the Federal Court.
THE COURT: And is –Mr. Justice Smith did?
THE APPELLANT: The Justice Smith did that.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: Before that time, the Canadian Judicial Council and the Minister of Justice claimed that there was no appeal from the decision of the Canadian Judicial Council, so that was the first time that that door was opened. We have a constitutional crisis, a breach in the Charter, and zero response from Crown. That is a situation which puts the integrity of the court in doubt –
THE COURT: Now you say we have –
THE APPELLANT: —for all Canadians.
THE COURT: –-a constitutional crisis. What is that?
THE APPELLANT: Well, we have the Crown not complying with the Charter.
THE COURT: How did the Crown –in your –
THE APPELLANT: I served –
THE COURT: –case or in –
THE APPELLANT: I served –
THE COURT: –somebody else’s case?
THE APPELLANT: I –before the case, in 2009 –2021, March 2021, I served the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General’s office with the enforcement procedure of the Charter.
THE COURT: Now, sorry, an enforcement procedure. What’s that?
THE APPELLANT: Section 24(1) of the Charter.
THE COURT: What –what’s your document called, though, that you –
THE APPELLANT: It’s called –I’m not sure what it was. I sent it —I served it on the Minister of Justice and they didn’t respond. I then wrote to the Minister of Justice and asked him why he hasn’t responded, and then he told me some stories which weren’t true.
THE COURT: Okay. So this is not a process in court. It’s correspondence?
THE APPELLANT: This is correspondence before the court case in 2021.
THE COURT: You got no response, is that right?
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct, I’ve not got a response. I served Crown with a notice of constitutional question with at least two weeks’ notice prior to the trial in the Provincial Court with the notice of constitutional question regarding the issue, as well as the notice of the constitutional question of the ITA.
THE COURT: That’s this?
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct. And it was read out in court, that constitutional question, but was never dealt with. It was basically said, well, we don’t have –we can’t deal with it in Provincial Court. On July 1st, 2021, before the court case in the Provincial Court, a local West Kootenay newspaper, the Valley Voice, printed a full page outlining my experience in the legal system and made democratic and legal appeals for justice. This problem started in 2006 with a lawyer not complying with a court order to provide trust account statements and resulted in collusion combined with failures by the B.C. Law Society to properly exercise their statutory duty to protect the public. At trial, this is back in 2007, a judge then abused his power of discretion to protect lawyers committing fraud upon the court by calling on the –on the plaintiff, a woman, to perjure herself to protect her lawyer, and preferred her testimony to mine, which was supported by the official court record, the transcript, of a hearing that happened six months ago, and the judge preferred the woman’s voice. I disclosed to the public my complaint regarding Judge Shaw’s conduct to the Canadian Judicial Council. The Canadian Judicial claims that the review of discretion is not in their mandate and refused to allow a review of their discretion.
THE COURT: So this was in –
THE APPELLANT: This –
THE COURT: –was it the Supreme Court of British Columbia?
THE APPELLANT: This was in the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2007.
THE COURT: Okay. So in B.C. court, and that was Judge Shaw –
THE APPELLANT: Correct.
THE COURT: –Mr. Justice Shaw?
THE APPELLANT: Correct.
THE COURT: And do you –did he issue reasons for judgment that –
THE APPELLANT: He did, but he never provided reasons for his decision on that matter.
THE COURT: Okay. So you say he just did it in the course of the trial?
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct.
THE COURT: And do you have a transcript?
THE APPELLANT: I have not been able to get hold of that transcript. I’ve made appeals to the Freedom of Information Act from –
THE COURT: Well, you have to –
THE APPELLANT: –the Canadian Judicial Council.
THE COURT: You have to order a copy.
THE APPELLANT: I have tried to order that.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE APPELLANT: And they’ve lost various files. But the Canadian Judicial Council has said that they don’t have a problem with judges preferring the -to call a woman and rule over the transcript.
THE COURT: Well, yeah, that’s right. A trial judge can believe one or the other, right?
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm. I don’t –
THE COURT: Or neither of them –
THE APPELLANT: –think that’s really the case.
THE COURT: –or both of them.
THE APPELLANT: That’s really my point. I don’t think –
THE COURT: Sorry?
THE APPELLANT: I —I’m saying that a judge does not have that right.
THE COURT: Oh. So what’s he supposed to do when you’ve got two different –
THE APPELLANT: Well, he should accept the transcript over a woman’s voice.
THE COURT: The transcript –
THE APPELLANT: Or the plaintiff’s –
THE COURT: –of what?
THE APPELLANT: The transcript of what occurred at a hearing. What happened was that a lawyer created a false court order. I tried to get that court order corrected. I presented the transcript. The judge called the plaintiff and requested her to protect her lawyer and decided to reject the transcript and prefer the plaintiff, which is a problem.
THE COURT: Who was the plaintiff?
THE APPELLANT: The plaintiff was my ex-wife. It’s clearly unfair and partial.
THE COURT: So I’m –I’m sorry, I’m still not getting this right. You were in Supreme Court of British Columbia before Master Justice Shaw.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: In a family matter in 2007, is that right?
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: Okay. And he, in the course of the trial, appeared to believe one witness over another?
THE APPELLANT: No.
THE COURT: Believe your ex-wife –
THE APPELLANT: No. He –
THE COURT: –over you in this case?
THE APPELLANT: I presented the transcript to correct a court order.
THE COURT: The transcript of what?
THE APPELLANT: Of a hearing six months prior.
THE COURT: Yeah, in what court?
THE APPELLANT: In the same court, Supreme Court, for –
THE COURT: You presented a transcript, so you did have a copy.
THE APPELLANT: I –of that hearing.
THE COURT: Yeah. Where –
THE APPELLANT: And I’d also written –
THE COURT: Where was that hearing?
THE APPELLANT: That was six months before in 2006 or something like that.
THE COURT: Yeah, in what court? Supreme?
THE APPELLANT: In the Supreme Court.
THE COURT: Before whom?
THE APPELLANT: Before –I’m not exactly sure who that judge was.
THE COURT: Some other –was it before Mr. Justice Shaw?
THE APPELLANT: It wasn’t through –
THE COURT: No.
THE APPELLANT: –Justice Shaw at all, no.
THE COURT: Okay. So –so you said that because this judge in ’06 had believed your –your ex-wife –
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: –then Mr. Justice Shaw should –
THE APPELLANT: Well, then I made a complaint to the Judicial Council and the Judicial Council said they have the right to do that.
THE COURT: Yes.
THE APPELLANT: And I don’t believe that that’s true.
THE COURT: Oh, okay. Well, you’re wrong on that one.
THE APPELLANT: And so that’s why I’m here.
THE COURT: You’re wrong on that one.
THE APPELLANT: That may be your opinion.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE APPELLANT: I have a different opinion.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE APPELLANT: My opinion is shared by a great deal of Canadians.
THE COURT: Mm-hmm. So –so I thought –I thought that when you were in front of Mr. Justice Shaw, you had a transcript of the previous hearing in ’06.
THE APPELLANT: That’s true.
THE COURT: And what did Mr. Justice Shaw say about that?
THE APPELLANT: He —he called up my ex-wife to the witness stand and requested that she perjure herself and protect her lawyer –
THE COURT: Well –
THE APPELLANT: —with an obvious lie.
THE COURT: That’s not –he didn’t say it, “Please perjure yourself.”
THE APPELLANT: No, he didn’t.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: But that is the ultimate consequence and the only possible reason.
THE COURT: The only reason that he
THE APPELLANT: Would do that.
THE COURT: –would accept her evidence was that –
THE APPELLANT: He wanted to.
THE COURT: The only reason –I’m just writing this down –he accepted her testimony was that, quote, “he wanted to”?
THE APPELLANT: I –I –
THE COURT: Is that what you said?
THE APPELLANT: —I do not know what was in his mind, right, but I can –I can guess what –what was in his mind. That’s really what we’re talking about. Why did he do that? Why did he do that?
THE COURT: Okay. So he didn’t say, “I want you to perjure yourself because I want you to” –
THE APPELLANT: No, he just called her up and asked her what she heard the judge say.
THE COURT: Yeah. And he believed her?
THE APPELLANT: And he believed her –
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: —not the transcript.
THE COURT: What the previous judge had said.
THE APPELLANT: The rules that the Canadian Judicial Council has determined for the judging of judicial conduct are fairly straightforward. Is the conduct alleged so manifestly and profoundly destructive of the concept of impartiality, integrity, and the independence of the judicial role that public confidence would be sufficiently undermined to render the judge incapable of executing the judicial office and judicial independence exists for the benefit of the judge, not the judges. It is therefore to be assessed from the perspective of the reasonable observer and in light of the public interests it is meant to serve.
Canadians know that a judge that cannot see the correct decision in this situation is not a judge. If a judge cannot judge which evidence is preferred when presented with a transcript, then how can we possibly trust judges with our rights, our finances, our lives, and our children? The entire Charter of Rights becomes meaningless, the guarantee of a fair and impartial trial, our right to appeal becomes an arbitrary decision and the foundation –
THE COURT: So, Mr. Holsworth, did you –you must have had a copy of this transcript?
THE APPELLANT: I’ve never been able to get hold of the transcript from that –
THE COURT: No, but the previous, the ’06 hearing, you had a transcript –
THE APPELLANT: I had a transcript –
THE COURT: –to give –
THE APPELLANT: –of that.
THE COURT: –Mr. Justice Shaw?
THE APPELLANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Do you have that?
THE APPELLANT: I do not have that here.
THE COURT: Oh, well –
THE APPELLANT: It’s really not relevant to the –the matter before the court.
THE COURT: Well, it seems to be relevant. You’re referring to it.
THE APPELLANT: The –-the Judicial Council has said that judges have that discretion.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE APPELLANT: That’s really the –the issue.
THE COURT: That’s the issue?
THE APPELLANT: That’s the issue.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: I appeal to the United Nations as they have recognized that human rights abuses throughout time have largely been caused by abuses of power and labelled the problem directly in the Declaration of Human Rights. Since Parliament offers the only method for removal of a judge, I wrote in my –my application to the Attorney General, the only court of competent jurisdiction to judge the judges who judge the judges is Parliament. I have currently lost most of my legal rights except obviously my right to life, but I am in fear of losing that. I am hereby applying to Parliament for the protection of my Charter rights. Obviously urgency is of prime importance.
After several months of silence, including reminders by email, I wrote to the office of the Prime Minister in November 2020, noting the problem, and that resulted in a reply from the Minister of Justice in February 2021. He regretted the delay in his response, he offered some procedural advice, and said that he was not able to provide legal advice to the public, and to get legal advice from a lawyer. I responded to his procedural concerns as the Minister had claimed that he was bound by the decision of the Canadian Judicial Council, by quoting from the Department of Justice website:
The Minister is not bound by the [Canadian Judicial Council’s] recommendation; the option to seek a judge’s removal by Parliament exists whether or not the [Judicial Council] recommends that the judge be removed. If the question of removal is to be put before Parliament, it is the Minister who does so. It is open to the Minister to put the question to Parliament or decline to do so. Like all acts of an Attorney General, the minister’s discretion in that regard is constrained by the constitutional obligation to act in good faith, objectively, independently, and with a view to safeguarding the public interest.
THE COURT: And do you have a copy of this letter from the Minister or Prime Minister?
THE APPELLANT: Those are copies of the letter to the Prime Minister. I’ll look for the letters to the Minister of Justice. I had supplied them to the courts before.
THE COURT: This –okay, so this is email, right? Madam Registrar. Madam Registrar, could you make me copies of those? I think he’ll want them back, and I need them. Thank you.
THE APPELLANT: A letter from Minister of Justice. I think that those letters do reference the problem of the Minister of Justice. I was compelled to attend court several times under threat of imprisonment, and each time I requested that the case be dismissed due to an abuse of process. However, every time the judge refused to hear the matter in a further abuse of process, “maybe at trial” being the response.
THE COURT: Sorry, are you talking about the family trial?
THE APPELLANT: No, now we’re moving into the present time.
THE COURT: Now we’re moving into present time.
THE APPELLANT: This is into the B.C. Provincial Court.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: At the Provincial Court of B.C. on July 16th, 2021, I made a freedom of expression protest argument regarding my understanding of a claim of absolute and unreviewable power by the judiciary, including the reality that the process of appeal was procedurally flawed, if judges maintained -thank you very much –if judges maintained a discretion to ignore the transcript. Judge Sicotte, in that form, refused to allow me to ask the question of a Crown employee regarding his opinion on the fairness and impartiality of such a tribunal. Apparently, the only perspective of importance is the judicial one in –and in their discretion can claim to speak for all Canadians despite no mandate for that position, and once again a claim of unlimited unreviewable discretion for that personal opinion.
Using the Income Tax Act as a method of exposing abuses of the rule of law is a time honoured method of protest used by Robin Hood, Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, the Women’s Tax Resistance, Jesus Christ, Magna Carta, and the unfortunate results of the French and American revolutions.
I point this out –I pointed this out in the Nelson Supreme Court along with arguments for a writ of mandamus for the Minister of Justice to properly resolve the issues before the court. I pointed out the public service that I was performing, the complete absence of a guilty mind, and that none of the purposes of sentences could be legitimately exercised by the court. Crown has not disputed any of the facts except to claim that my life experiences are irrelevant. Crown has not responded to any requests for evidence, provided zero argument to defend the failure to respond to the enforcement procedure of the Charter.
As a matter of law, claiming that my perspective is irrelevant and the only perspective is the judicial one, is using the incorrect perspective.
Fundamental justice dictates that the tribunal which adjudicates upon his rights must act fairly, in good faith, without bias, and in a judicial temper, and must give to him the opportunity to adequately state his case. That a judge would conduct a trial knowing the Crown was in breach of the Charter is an abuse of process and goes to trial fairness. In the Crown’s submissions, particularly in Argument 19, they claim that I only intended to advance argument about the constitutionality of the Income Tax Act. However, it is obvious from the facts that this is not the case and my argument regarding the matter was solely to protect the security of my person from the threats of imprisonment in the letter from the CRA, who threatened to imprison me, the Act of Parliament, which threatened to imprison me, the application of the law at the Provincial and Supreme Court, and the failure of Crown to present any argument in response to the constitutional questions presented.
THE COURT: Now when you say threat of imprisonment, you mean under the Income Tax Act?
THE APPELLANT: Correct, yeah.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: The problem is exacerbated by the fact that in the Supreme Court on December 3rd, Justice Lyster sent the case back for a mistrial, with the implicit threat because Judge Sicotte has provided the absolute minimum fine –below the minimum fine, and given me five years to pay. There was not a lower ruling that you could have made. The implicit threat is that I’m facing a prison term again of up to seven years. The matter of due diligence in the compliance with the law is –is not the only defence available in these administrative –
THE COURT: So you –sorry –I’m sorry to interrupt you.
THE APPELLANT: Yeah, that’s fine.
THE COURT: You say Madam Justice Lyster, or Lyster was making a veiled threat that you would go to jail?
THE APPELLANT: That’s my understanding, yes. I had applied –
THE COURT: And why do you say that?
THE APPELLANT: Because . . .
THE COURT: As I read her reasons, she felt that –I can’t remember what it is, one point had not been dealt with –
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: –and so that had to be tried in Provincial Court.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: I don’t –
THE APPELLANT: She –
THE COURT: –I don’t see anything about threatening imprisonment.
THE APPELLANT: But that’s the implicit threat behind sending it back.
THE COURT: Why is that?
THE APPELLANT: ‘Cause I asked for –she could have -she could have adjourned the matter or whatever, dismissed the matter, but she chose not to. She chose to –
THE COURT: Well, she chose –
THE APPELLANT: –send it –
THE COURT: –not to –
THE APPELLANT: –back to trial.
THE COURT: –because it hadn’t been dealt with.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm. But she also did not –
THE COURT: It had to be dealt –
THE APPELLANT: –deal with –
THE COURT: –with because the Crown was pressing it –
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: –had presented it, so it had to be dealt with below, but it wasn’t, so there was something –in other words, there was a remaining thread to be dealt with, so why is that a threat of imprisonment?
THE APPELLANT: That’s the way I feel about it. That’s why I’m here –
THE COURT: You just say that –
THE APPELLANT: –appealing this decision.
THE COURT: –that’s the way you feel, is that –
THE APPELLANT: Well, because —because there’s seven years of jail term on the table.
THE COURT: Yes. But why do you read that as containing a threat?
THE APPELLANT: Because there’s seven years of jail term on the table.
THE COURT: Mm-hmm.
THE APPELLANT: The matter of due diligence and the compliance with the law is not the only defence available in these administrative offences as stated in the case in Pontes and also in reference Re Motor Vehicle Act. The quote is: . . . that he reasonably believed [even] in a mistaken set of facts which, if true, would render the act or omission innocent. Even if my belief of the facts are mistaken, it is reasonable that, if true, my protest regarding my belief that my legal rights had been effectively removed, is correct.
THE COURT: No, but the question before the judge was whether it was an absolute or a strict liability offence, and that had not been argued below, isn’t that right? That’s what she said you should be able to argue about. She –as I read it, she’s giving you a bit of a break.
THE APPELLANT: The fact is that if judges claim that they can ignore the transcript, then there is no evidence –
THE COURT: She wasn’t ignoring a transcript. She was –
THE APPELLANT: But that’s my –
THE COURT: –dealing with your appeal –
THE APPELLANT: –experience.
THE COURT: –on the Income Tax Act.
THE APPELLANT: That’s my experience in the court is that –
THE COURT: Oh, so we’re going back to the –
THE APPELLANT: –everything that I have said has been ignored.
THE COURT: Everything you’ve said has been ignored?
THE APPELLANT: All my arguments, all my Charter complaints, the Charter enforcement procedure has all been ignored.
THE COURT: So therefore –
THE APPELLANT: I have no –
THE COURT: –anything you say –
THE APPELLANT: –real –
THE COURT: –is being ignored?
THE APPELLANT: –right. If you can ignore everything I say, all the evidence that I present, including your official court record, I do not really have a right of appeal because it’s at your discretion.
THE COURT: So –okay, so really, you’re saying this is not about strict versus absolute liability. It’s really about the fact that you feel hard done by, if I can put it that way, from what happened in 2006 and ’07.
THE APPELLANT: That is –that –that is correct in some respect. I did not –the Income Tax Act was a protest. I —I didn’t go in there trying to prove whether the Income Tax Act was a strict or absolute liability. I wasn’t trying to attack the constitutionality of the Income Tax Act. I was trying to defend my security of person, and three weeks before, preparing for the trial, I realized that I could go to jail, I started to investigate the whole problem of the Income Tax Act constitutionality, and I realized that this was a question that had really not been presented or argued before the court, and it hasn’t.
THE COURT: The constitutionality of the Income Tax Act has –
THE APPELLANT: That’s –
THE COURT: —never been –
THE APPELLANT: Not s. 238.
THE COURT: Oh, okay.
THE APPELLANT: There’s only one case that has vague references to it –
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: –that was used by them.
THE COURT: And what —what basis do you say s. 238 is unconstitutional?
THE APPELLANT: Is because it is an absolute liability offence with a prison term attached.
THE COURT: Okay. So –
THE APPELLANT: Crown all –
THE COURT: But the judge said, no, it’s a strict liability. I can never remember which is which, but it’s –
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: –-if you showed due diligence, then you can’t be found guilty, right?
THE APPELLANT: Due diligence or that he reasonably believed, in a mistaken set of facts which, if true, would render the act or commission innocent.
THE COURT: Okay. So she said –
THE APPELLANT: So it’s not just due diligence.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: It’s also –
THE COURT: Yeah, those –those are two –
THE APPELLANT: –this other issue.
THE COURT: —two different –
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct.
THE COURT: —possibilities.
THE APPELLANT: Yeah.
THE COURT: So she said, you know, these were not -this question was not raised below in the Provincial Court, so I’m giving you a chance to go back and have it –have it argued and fleshed out and decided in Provincial Court, and then you would be able to come back and appeal again if you weren’t satisfied with that result. That’s –that’s what I –how I read the judge, Madam Justice Lyster in this case.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm. I —I view it in a different way.
THE COURT: Okay. So you don’t believe that’s correct. She was –she was lying through her teeth, in other words?
THE APPELLANT: Well, the fact is that she did not address the issue of delay in her reasons, and she did not address the issue of the writ of mandamus in her decision at all, which is a failure to act judicially.
THE COURT: Okay. So you say –
THE APPELLANT: To not resolve the issues before the court.
THE COURT: —even though she found there was a way to allow you to go back to Provincial Court and make your point there about absolute versus strict –
THE APPELLANT: But I wasn’t interested in that.
THE COURT: You weren’t interested in that. Really, you’re interested in making a protest about what happened in 2007 –
THE APPELLANT: That’s –
THE COURT: –is that correct?
THE APPELLANT: –basically correct.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: Is how do I function –
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: –-in a society where all my evidence can be ignored? All my arguments. That is a problem for all Canadians.
THE COURT: Yeah, and even though Madam Justice Lyster was not ignoring your –
THE APPELLANT: She was.
THE COURT: —your argument –
THE APPELLANT: She did.
THE COURT: –she was saying it wasn’t –it has to be made below, so you can go back and make it, I’ll declare a mistrial.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-mm, that’s not what she did.
THE COURT: Well, yes it is.
THE APPELLANT: She ignored the writ of mandamus.
THE COURT: She what?
THE APPELLANT: She ignored my request –
THE COURT: Yeah –no, but –
THE APPELLANT: –for the writ of mandamus.
THE COURT: —what she did do was listen to your argument about strict liability.
THE APPELLANT: Oh, yeah.
THE COURT: But you don’t care –
THE APPELLANT: Yeah, I don’t care.
THE COURT: –because that was kind of a –
THE APPELLANT: I was just trying to –
THE COURT: –just a sham?
THE APPELLANT: —protect my security –it wasn’t a sham. I was just concerned about my security. I didn’t want to go to jail.
THE COURT: Yeah, well, that’s understandable.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm. That’s –that’s the only reason I brought up that strict absolute liability.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, then she –she said, okay, you’ve got to take that argument and have it heard by the Provincial Court judge.
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
THE COURT: So you got what you sought.
THE APPELLANT: No, it’s –no, ’cause I came in here with a protest. She ignored the protest. She ignored that argument.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: It has, from time immemorial, been part of our system of laws that the innocent not be punished.
THE COURT: So she ignored your arguments about mandamus?
THE APPELLANT: Yeah.
THE COURT: And re –
THE APPELLANT: And the Jordan principle, and anything that she didn’t really care to hear.
THE COURT: Well, I just would like to know what those are –those were at the time.
THE APPELLANT: Right.
THE COURT: Mandamus, Jordan, delay?
THE APPELLANT: That –
THE COURT: Did she –
THE APPELLANT: Well, that’s the Jordan delay, yeah.
THE COURT: Yeah, okay.
THE APPELLANT: Those are the two factors that she ignored completely. Crown nor I asked for a mistrial. That was a decision that Justice Lyster came up to on her own.
THE COURT: Okay. So the fact that she said it has to go back to Provincial Court, you –you’re not going to go back to Provincial Court, is that right? You’re –
THE APPELLANT: Well, I am in Provincial Court. They set a trial date and –or they’re –yeah, they set a trial date and I made abuse of process arguments before the provincial Crown -provincial judge and –
THE COURT: Oh, so the trial date has already been –
THE APPELLANT: It has been set.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: It’s in November and January or something like that.
THE COURT: Of this year?
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct, yeah. I made abuse -abuse of process and quoted from Cobb quite liberally and –
THE COURT: When you say you made it, you made an argument, you filed something, is that what you mean?
THE APPELLANT: No, I made argument before the court, why the court should not hear the case.
THE COURT: Oh, okay, so there’s already been a –
THE APPELLANT: I asked for –-I asked for two things, either a delay until this Court of Appeal process had been resolved, because my understanding is that it shouldn’t, and –and the judge acknowledged my argument and said he had to follow orders and could not follow the precedent from the Supreme Court of Canada on Cobb, but had to follow the orders –
THE COURT: Sorry, on what?
THE APPELLANT: Sorry, the Cobb –the ruling on R. v. Cobb, it deals with abuse of process and the abuse of a process –the continuation of abuse of a process being an abuse of process, which is what I’m alleging is that sending the mistrial back is an abuse of process.
THE COURT: Okay. And do you have a copy of Cobb?
THE APPELLANT: I –I believe I might. Sorry, I’ve got the Justice Lyster –sorry, the Patrick Smith case here and the Landriault [phonetic] case which I’ll present here, but I do not have the Cobb.
THE COURT: Do you have the citation of it?
THE APPELLANT: I’ll look it up.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: Once I finished here.
THE COURT: So the judge acknowledged your argument, but said he had to go by the rules?
THE APPELLANT: Exactly. Which is a bit of a problem.
THE COURT: So what did he do in the end?
THE APPELLANT: He ignored my argument and set it down for trial.
THE COURT: He set it down for trial. Okay.
THE APPELLANT: In which case I’ll be just going back to court, making the same arguments over and over again, and then I’ll appeal the case again, and we’re going to be in this endless loop forever, which is going to be awesome.
It has been from time immemorial –but it’s probably a waste of court’s time. It has been from time immemorial been part of our system of laws that the innocent not be punished, which is what I’m saying that sending it back for a mistrial is punishment. It is basic to any theory of punishment that the sentence imposed bears some relationship to the offence. It must be a fit sentence, proportionate to the seriousness of the offence.
My protest action utilized in the Income Tax Act is the most valid and appropriate method to communicate with the court, government, and Parliament, given that all other methods of communication have been ignored or deleted. Citizens must have a safe method to communicate with their government. My protest actions are in the public interest and in the defence of the Charter. I’m trying to get an answer to a constitutional question and the enforcement procedure of the Charter, and they show a complete absence of a guilty mind. Punishment is not appropriate as it would not serve any of the legitimate purposes of sentencing and would bring about the contempt for the administration of justice.
I’m going to skip the next section that talks about absolute and strict liability, which I think we’ve talked about, but I will say, if judges don’t know the law, if Crown doesn’t respond to constitutional questions on the law and Crown provides no comment, which was what happened in the Provincial Court on argument, and the judge still ruled against me, the law is declared by the court to be different to what Parliament has declared it to be, then it can hardly be said that I could possibly know the case to meet. Crown prosecutor didn’t know what the law was. The judge said he knew what the law was, but he was incorrect. It’s in –
THE COURT: Now when you say the judge, who do you mean there?
THE APPELLANT: Sorry, Justice Sicotte. He claimed that he just knew the law and that it was a strict liability or as that –that –I can’t remember.
THE COURT: Well, sometimes –
THE APPELLANT: But my comment is –
THE COURT: —sometimes judges are wrong, you know, that’s why –
THE APPELLANT: Oh, I appreciate that.
THE COURT: —we have appeal.
THE APPELLANT: I’m not –I’m not having a problem –
THE COURT: You know that.
THE APPELLANT: –with that argument at all. I prefer my laws made in Parliament, and I read them the way that any normal person would, including, as Judge Sicotte did, the words that are written. I expect that if there is a constitutional question before the court and it has a massive effect on the fairness of a trial, that it be heard first and resolved prior to the commencement of a trial, particularly when a man’s liberty is being threatened. To avoid a question because it is difficult or a claim that the court is not superior enough to hear the matter should not allow one to just ignore it. This type of conduct demonstrates partiality of judges and so is improper.
I presented these arguments before Justice Lyster but was completely ignored. What would a reasonable man or woman have done in a similar circumstance? Perhaps it would be helpful to examine the situation if it were a man’s voice that was preferred over a woman’s evidence of the transcript? There would be absolute moral outrage. That indicates a failure to apply the equal standard of the law on the basis of sex. The problem is exacerbated by the conflict of interest exposed as Justice Lyster was part of a team at the LEAF women’s legal group that played a pivotal role in the Canadian Judicial Council’s inquiry into the conduct of Robert –Robin Camp, who infamously said, “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” in a rape trial. However, when I present the evidence of a woman’s testimony being preferred over a –over a man’s evidence of the transcript and the Judicial Council claiming that that is acceptable conduct for a judge, she refuses to even respond with an argument or even a decision. From my perspective, it appears to be an obstruction of justice or, at the very least, a clear demonstration of partiality on the basis of sex, which is a breach of the Charter by the court.
Given Justice Lyster’s background and her communications to the media, like in the interview she gave to the Georgia Straight where she said: . . . there is “a great deal of uncertainty” about how human-rights cases will be dealt with in the future. “I think the public should be asking questions,” . . . ” What are the government’s intentions with respect to the future of the protection of human rights in this province? What mechanisms do they intend to have in place to ensure that people have access to justice in the form of human rights? I have no idea what the answers to these questions might be. But what I do know is those questions need to be asked because the things that I am seeing are disturbing to me.”
And that was published in the Canadian lawyer mag as well as the Georgia Straight.
Questions were asked in the court on December 3rd, 2021, and the public perception is that because the facts of the case did not fit Justice Lyster’s world view, she rejected them or was -or was directed to reject them, not on the basis of evidence, but on the basis of ideology. Either that woman should be believed no matter what the evidence against them, or that powers of lawyers and judges should never be questioned, both of which are contrary to the law, undemocratic, and unconstitutional.
I compare this to the problem that was brought up in the case of R. v. Red Hot Video in 1985 in this court, B.C. Court of Appeal, and they said:
If true equality between male and female persons is to be achieved it would be quite wrong in my opinion to ignore the threat to equality resulting from the exposure [in that case] to male audiences [or in my case of female audiences] of the violent and degrading material described above.
My point is –is that if women know that their voice can trump a man’s evidence, the transcript, we have a problem.
As I have said, such material has a tendency to make [wo]men more tolerant of [abuse to men] . . . and creates a social climate encouraging [wo]men to act in a callous and discriminatory way towards . . . [men].
And that’s just swapping the genders from the case of R. v. Hot Radio [sic].
On appeal before Justice Lyster, on December 3rd, I presented evidence regarding a failure in the rule of law throughout the legal system and, by natural extension, throughout the public service and a muzzling of all independent thought in the public service and the general public through the fear of the uncontrolled coercive powers of the judiciary. After a six-month delay, Justice Lyster presented her oral reasons, with her written reasons presented just prior to the appeal procedure closing. That was just about a month ago, presumably to prevent the most obvious obstruction of justice conclusions. If she had not filed it at all, it would be obvious what was going on.
Issues regarding the deletion of submissions to the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Justice were ignored as irrelevant. RCMP threats were ignored as irrelevant. Failure by the Minister of Justice to respond to the enforcement procedure of the Charter just deemed irrelevant.
Ultimately, the integrity of the judicial system is at stake and that is a matter that concerns all Canadians equally. We all want a judicial system that we can trust, but coercion isn’t trust. That issue is still unresolved, still being debated in Provincial Court due to the failure to resolve the issues before the Supreme Court, and it’s resulting in more abuse of process and confusion for Provincial Court judges, Crown prosecutors, and court staff. It is fundamentally undemocratic to refuse to permit the review of judicial discretion by Parliament. The precedence of court journalist Christie Blatchford has some relevancy here, “Let no good deed go unpunished,” and that was quoted in the Federal Court regarding –regarding the Judicial Council’s abusive treatment of Justice Smith. When Crown was provided two weeks’ notice and failed to –of a –of a constitutional question and failed to respond except by letter to me that they would not be intervening at this stage and Crown prosecutor at trial stating he has no comment and a judge still ruling against my argument, with precedent, is abhorrent to any sense of fairness. The proper outcome would have been to rule on the basis of the evidence, not the belief. That is an improper use of discretion. The proper use of discretion is in good faith and in accordance with the law. From the perspective of the public, a judge that believes his word is the law and evidence is not a requirement, which is what happened in the Provincial Court. I presented argument and –and precedent and the judge ignored me and went on what he believed the law was.
THE COURT: Mr. –
THE APPELLANT: In regards –
THE COURT: Mr. Holsworth, I wonder if we could just –
THE APPELLANT: Sure.
THE COURT: –as I see it, the kind of the linchpin of –of your argument is the fact that Mr. Justice Shaw believed the evidence of a female witness over that of a male witness, which you say was reflected in a transcript, and, you know, I really need to see that transcript.
THE APPELLANT: Well, I would love to have it for you. It’s somewhere in the Nelson B.C. Supreme Court and they have not been able to find it.
THE COURT: So you’ve made –
THE APPELLANT: I have made –
THE COURT: –you’ve made every effort to find that?
THE APPELLANT: I’m –they –there –there is -there’s a lot of problems with transcripts in this case. I’ve also got a case –I’ve also got two transcripts of the same hearing.
THE COURT: Of the same?
THE APPELLANT: Of the same hearing.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE APPELLANT: One was that –one that was partially deleted after –
THE COURT: So you’re not able –
THE APPELLANT: –a complaint to the –after the complaint. I’m not able to provide that transcript because it’s being denied by the –the B.C. Supreme Court –
THE COURT: Registry?
THE APPELLANT: –registry office.
THE COURT: Well, it hasn’t been typed up. Has it -was it not requested?
THE APPELLANT: I have requested. I asked for the entire transcript of the entire trial to be done and they’ve refused to do so.
THE COURT: Well, they can’t do –they have to –you have to pay a lot of money.
THE APPELLANT: I did. I’ve got lots of transcripts.
THE COURT: You’ve gone through this?
THE APPELLANT: Yeah. I asked the transcript service to do the transcript of the entire trial.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: And they have declined to do so.
THE COURT: What do you mean, they’ve declined? They said –
THE APPELLANT: They –
THE COURT: –they can’t or they –
THE APPELLANT: They declined to do it.
THE COURT: Okay. Did you try another transcript company?
THE APPELLANT: Not at present. At this point in time, I’m just going off the Canadian Judicial Council’s question, that they say that they have the right to ignore the transcript, and that –
THE COURT: I see.
THE APPELLANT: —really addresses the entire situation –
THE COURT: Yeah, okay.
THE APPELLANT: –in front of the court.
THE COURT: Okay. And when you say the CJC’s responses, you –you’re going to give me a copy of that, aren’t you?
THE APPELLANT: Mm-hmm.
THE COURT: Yes?
THE APPELLANT: I don’t know if I can give it to you today.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, I’m going to have to wait and see it then.
THE APPELLANT: Yeah, okay.
THE COURT: All right. Now I think you’re pretty well wrapping up, is that –isn’t that right?
THE APPELLANT: I’ll do that. So I reference the case, Pontes case, where they say: In these circumstances, to –
THE COURT: The Cobb case? Did you say Cobb?
THE APPELLANT: R. v. Pontes.
THE COURT: Pots?
THE APPELLANT: P-o-n-t-e-s.
THE COURT: Oh, yes, that’s here. I’ve got it in the material here.
THE APPELLANT: Yeah. In these circumstances, to direct a new trial . . . would be unfair and unduly harsh. And I also referenced Cobb, which I’ve got a copy for.
THE COURT: So you’re saying the –that Judge Lyster should have reached a similar response, is that right?
THE APPELLANT: That’s correct.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE APPELLANT: I also referenced R. v. Roncarelli: In public regulation of this sort there is no such thing as absolute and untrammelled “discretion” . . .
A refusal to address the request for a writ of mandamus is a denial of a democratic right to access the only court with authority to resolve the matter before the court. And that’s pretty much the nuts and bolts right there. In regards to the Jordan ruling, I do accept the Crown’s submission that they were –that there were exceptional circumstances, but to consider that those exceptional circumstances only affected Crown is absurd, but unfortunately consistent with Crown’s perspective that my circumstances and experiences are irrelevant. Crown alleges that I was under an obligation to raise the issue at trial. However, in Woolsey, paragraph 86, they state that: . . . it was incumbent on both the judge and Crown counsel to raise the issue . . .
I lost two years of revenue during the COVID pandemic and made that point in Provincial Court. I didn’t have a dime. I even asked for food from a judge so I could survive to trial. I couldn’t pay accounting to do anything, but that apparently is irrelevant. There may have been court cancellations during this period, which is the argument that Crown is going to bring up, but to claim that those closure contributed anything to the delay is not factually true. They all happened very, very early on and Crown had already said that they were not able to attend the January 6th –the earliest court case –court hearing date that they were possibly able to, so they weren’t even able to use any of the dates that were cancelled.
THE COURT: So you’re talking about the delay in getting your hearing before Judge Lyster?
THE APPELLANT: Sorry, in the Provincial Court.
THE COURT: Provincial Court.
THE APPELLANT: Yeah. Regarding the –the application of the Jordan ruling on the 18-month, which they did not accomplish. The Crown admits that no delays were attributable to defence and that I did everythingin my powers at all times to facilitate a speedy resolution to this matter. Crown has to prove additionally that they cannot reasonably remedy the delays emanating from the circumstances once they arise. I don’t believe that they have done so. All they have done –all they are going to do is say, “Look there were delays in –or cancellations,” but none of those cancellations have any impact on the delays that occurred.
THE COURT: Well, wasn’t the Provincial Court closed down in –
THE APPELLANT: It was, but –
THE COURT: –in 2021?
THE APPELLANT: –like I say, there —that did not impact because they weren’t even able to be on trial. They weren’t able to do anything because they’d already said that they weren’t going to be able to do the trial earlier on, so any of those earlier court dates weren’t even going to be relevant.
THE COURT: Well, I don’t understand, you’re saying the COVID delay does not affect your case?
THE APPELLANT: Well, no, the –the –-the COVID closures did not factually cause any delays to Crown. There may have been delays that closed the court or there were definitely court cancellations, but they had no impact on Crown, because Crown was not available to trial before that time, before January 6th, 20 –like they cancelled January 6th, 2021, and moved on to a March date or something like that so they had –
THE COURT: What year? What year?
THE APPELLANT: 2021. So all the closures that Crown says –
THE COURT: So you’re saying, even if the courts were open, there still would have been the same delay?
THE APPELLANT: Exactly.
THE COURT: Okay. But the fact is that the courts were closed down.
THE APPELLANT: They were. They were, but that did not contribute to any material delay to the Crown’s case because they weren’t available to go to trial before the date that they had set it anyhow.
THE COURT: And why weren’t they available? Because of COVID.
THE APPELLANT: No, because they weren’t available, ’cause they said they had another trial on and then there –what –their Crown witness was not available the next day, so all those delays were not my doing and they weren’t –they —there was nothing to do with COVID in those delays. So just in wrapping up. Since the issue was one of constitutional crisis with a refusal to comply with the enforcement procedure of the Charter, it is one of importance to all Canadians as it affects their rights to justice, to fairness in the conduct of police, and a responsible ministerial government within the system of parliamentary supremacy. The Charter promises fundamental justice, and the checking of that is the duty of Parliament in their responsibility to provide peace, order, and good government. The courts are obviously biased in the judging of their own conduct, which is why we have a system of checks and balances in a parliamentary democracy.
I do not consent to being governed without the protections of the Constitution of Canada. As women say emphatically in the cases of sexual assault, no means no. I completely agree. Legal abuse is an assault and a betrayal of the public trust. The proper resolution of this matter is straightforward and is necessary to restore the public trust. There is no other just resolution for this matter possible. I urge you to act quickly and decisively.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Elizabeth May, speaking in the house regarding the recently proposed amendments to the Judges Act, which all the lawyers in the house seemed to consider the perfect solution and require no debate and encouraged all members to vote immediately to pass. She said:
“. . . the bill . . . a great deal of consultation due to cases . . . not . . . a lot of cases . . . only 14 reviews in the last 40 years . . . speaks to a very high level of ethics and integrity within our judiciary….
Let us get this bill passed.”
And she comments about her time at law school:
“We spent hours trying to figure out . . . the judge’s decision. It made no sense to us. . . . our professor asked, “Is it permissible to ask if the judge was bribed?” The judge was, which is why the decision made no sense, and he was thrown off the bench for it.”
I believe that I have established the grounds for a right of appeal on the question of law before the court. There is –the issue is one of importance. It is –the Crown acknowledges that it’s on the questions of law. There is sufficient merit in the proposed appeal, and it has a possibility of success as long as the writ of mandamus is issued. The overriding consideration is –in the exercise of discretion is in the interests of justice. This will contribute to increase in trust in the judiciary, as well as in my personal case it will remove the threat of seven years’ jail and . . .
THE COURT: If you were granted a write of mandamus, what would that mandamus say? What would the order say?
THE APPELLANT: Well, fundamentally, I don’t think it’s right to have the Judicial Council claim that judges can ignore all the evidence that I present. That –
THE COURT: So what –what would the mandamus order say?
THE APPELLANT: Well, I did request that he present the matter to Parliament.
THE COURT: Sorry, “he” is who?
THE APPELLANT: The –the Minister of Justice, David Lametti, and I –I’m not sure exactly what it would say at this point in time, but I think Parliament would be concerned to know that the Judicial Council made a ruling such as they did because it fundamentally affects trial fairness, equality on the basis of sex, and I think it’s an affront to justice, full stop.
THE COURT: Okay. And when you say the ruling, you mean the ruling of Mr. –
THE APPELLANT: The ruling of the Judicial Council, claiming that judges have a discretion to ignore the transcript.
THE COURT: Okay. And you have not even got that in front of me.
THE APPELLANT: I will.
THE COURT: So –
THE APPELLANT: Okay. I’ve got that written down.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, I’m not going to do anything on this matter until you do –
THE APPELLANT: Okay.
THE COURT: –provide it to me.
THE APPELLANT: So I’m going to give you a letter from the Canadian Judicial Council, a letter from the Minister of Justice, and the –and I think –and I’ll give you the Cobb citation as well.
THE COURT: Yes.
THE APPELLANT: I do have all this information publicly available. I have a website called “fundamentaljustice.com”.
THE COURT: Well, I can’t go to that.
THE APPELLANT: I’m just informing the court of these issues.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE APPELLANT: Okay. So I will get those materials. How do I get those materials to you?
THE COURT: You bring them to the registry and ask them to give them to me.
THE APPELLANT: Okay, thank you.
THE COURT: Thank you. Mr. Erina, I don’t believe I need to hear from you. Is there anything you in particular need to add to what you’ve already given me in the written material?
CNSL M. ERINA: No.
THE COURT: Thank you.
CNSL M. ERINA: The only thing that was just as a courtesy to the Provincial Crown, just as a matter of housekeeping, Mr. Holsworth had six constitutional –or pardon me, eight notices of constitutional question. I see he has not raised them. I just want to confirm he’s not advancing them because the Provincial Crown asked me to inform the court that they weren’t served properly under the Constitutional Questions Act and informed Mr. Holsworth by letter, but –
THE COURT: So I’ve got the one here filed July 15.
THE APPELLANT: That’s –yeah, I submitted eight constitutional questions. One of the constitutional questions was about the constitutionality of Crown not responding to a constitutional question. It kind of makes the whole purpose of the Act irrelevant if Crown just can ignore constitutional questions.
THE COURT: So you had a separate –separate notice on that point?
THE APPELLANT: I did make a constitutional question on that.
THE COURT: Well, maybe you could add that to your list of things to –
THE APPELLANT: Sure, I’ve got that right here.
THE COURT: Oh, you’ve got one for me?
THE APPELLANT: Yeah.
THE COURT: Great.
CNSL M. ERINA: I’ve got copies of all of the material if Mr. Holsworth doesn’t have them.
THE COURT: Well, whatever you think I need, Mr. Holsworth.
THE APPELLANT: I think that’s . . .
THE COURT: Thank you. All right, then, so judgment is reserved, but I’m not going to start on the reasons until you give me those materials.
THE APPELLANT: Okay.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
THE APPELLANT: Thank you very much.
THE COURT: Thank you, counsel.
CNSL M. ERINA: Thank you.
THE CLERK: Order in chambers.
(PROCEEDINGS ADJOURNED AT 11:36 AM AWAITING
DECISION)
Transcriber: B. Berekoff