Team Canada female athletes disqualified from Commonwealth silver medal, jailed Chinese democracy activist awarded with Nobel peace prize, and others in between (Part 7) — when legal and judicial prudence means the powerful is right

(Continued from Part 6)

In-between “E” Division Contract Policing Branch’s February 3 receipt of a copy of Chief Superintendent M. K. M. Clegg’s January 29 letter from“E” Division to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Headquarters in response to my complaint forwarded by Solicitor General – as in Part 6 of this blog article – and C/Supt. P. M. Cummins in charge of Contract Policing receiving it on February 5, on February 4, 1993 The Vancouver Sun newspaper quoted RCMP Assistant Commissioner Frank Palmer on newly proposed freedom-of-information laws for British Columbia (“Institutions are worrying about how many secrets they will have to disclose”, by Frances Bula, February 4, 1993, The Vancouver Sun):

“The proposed law - the second phase of B.C.’s new information and privacy legislation - is supposed to come into effect in October, 1994. (The first phase, affecting central government, should be in effect by this fall.)

While people who fight for the rights of psychiatric patients, paraplegics or union employees are excited about the legislation, the institutions that hold information about them are wary.

“There’s great paranoia at the beginning,” admitted RCMP assistant commissioner for B.C. Frank Palmer, who has already been through a round of this once with the federal government's freedom-of-information legislation.

“That’s what’s happening here now, with people worried about protecting privacy and coping with the demands for information.””

The “RCMP assistant commissioner for B.C. Frank Palmer” talking about “great paranoia at the beginning” wasn’t exactly RCMP’s top leader in British Columbia. Nonetheless, A/Comm. Palmer was in charge of Criminal Operations at “E” Division in B.C., i.e., the officer to whose attention my complaint was directed before forwarded to a subordinate, C/Supt. P. M. Cummins.

It wasn’t only that Frank Palmer, or F. G. Palmer, happened to be talking about “great paranoia” at this time, but that his media profile had placed him personally on record for criminal prosecution of only one politician in B.C., and that unlucky one wasn’t ex-Premier Bill Vander Zalm in 1991-92 for his “breach of trust” in the Fantasy Gardens scandal covered in Part 6, but former Vander Zalm cabinet minister Jack Kempf (“RCMP investigating Socred MLA: Kempf’s supporters stand by him”, by Daphne Bramham, August 14, 1991,The Vancouver Sun):

“An RCMP investigation of Social Credit MLA Jack Kempf “makes it hard to run an election campaign,” the president of Kempf’s constituency association said Tuesday.

…

Assistant deputy attorney-general Bill Stewart confirmed Tuesday the former forests minister is under investigation and has been for more than four months.

…

The investigation is being overseen by special prosecutor Richard Peck, who was appointed by the attorney-general May 2 and is responsible for determining whether charges should be laid.

His appointment was made by the attorney-general's office following an April 19 request from RCMP assistant commissioner F. G. Palmer that a special prosecutor be appointed.

…

Special prosecutor Peter Freeman is expected to report to Attorney-General Russ Fraser within the next two weeks on whether charges should be laid against Vander Zalm.

…

NDP leader Mike Harcourt defended Kempf’s right to run as a Social Credit candidate.

…

Kempf was appointed forests minister in 1986 and was forced to resign in 1987, after the comptroller-general determined there were irregularities in the ministry’s financial operation.”

That’s right, after Vander Zalm’s disgraced exit there was a criminal prosecution of the ex-Premier; yet the RCMP officer in charge of criminal operations, Frank Palmer, was not on press record for it but for prosecution of Jack Kempf, a pioneer in challenging Vander Zalm’s personal credibility as a lawsuit witness in 1989 called by Brian Mason who later became my lawyer in 1992 – as discussed in Part 6.

From the fall of 1991 to the spring of 1992, the two nemeses Vander Zalm and Kempf were each prosecuted on “breach-of-trust” charges, Vander Zalm defended by prominent business lawyer Peter Butler of Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy, and Kempf by Mason – the same opposing lawyers in the Peter Griffiths lawsuit litigation in 1989.

Vander Zalm was acquitted in late June 1992 as in Part 6. But Kempf made an unexpected guilty plea for misuse of constituency office money, on March 16 after a last-minute discussion with prosecution (“Kempf admits he breached trust of constituents”, by Larry Still, March 17, 1992, The Vancouver Sun)

March 16, 1992 was an ‘infamous’ day when I had heated email exchanges with graduate student Christopher Healey at UBC Computer Science Department, that then went into RCMP file through an exaggerated complaint by some about so-called “violence” – as in Parts 4, 5 & 6.

That date was something intriguing shared by Kempf and me: bad personal political luck on the same day with no apparently connection other than that later his lawyer I would hire who otherwise wasn’t known for political cases.

So in October-December 1992 when Justice Department lawyer Paul Partridge for RCMP, and Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy lawyers – especially Jack Giles, a henchman for the Vander Zalm government – for UBC tried to get Brian Mason to back down from my legal action as discussed in Parts 5 & 6, they probably mentioned higher levels than Superintendent D. G. Cowley, RCMP commander for Vancouver region who personally intervened on October 14 to obstruct my lawsuit.

RCMP personal-information disclosures so far have not revealed if he acted oppressively on my case, but Frank Palmer had a law degree so was qualified to handle legal situations, and had been known for a hint of “McCarthyism” since the 1970s, intimidating people on behalf of RCMP (“Opposition accused of ‘trial by press’”, by Mary Trueman, November 26, 1977, The Globe and Mail):

“Opposition MPs are encouraging a trial by press of people implicated in RCMP wrongdoing, Liberal Roderick Blaker charged yesterday.

Mr. Blaker, MP for Lachine-Lakeshore and parliamentary secretary to Solicitor-General Francis Fox, told several hundred students at a University of Ottawa panel discussion that the process involves an opposition member asking a question in the Commons containing several allegations of wrongdoing of which he has no proof but which he knows will make the
news at 6 and 11 o’clock and the newspaper headlines.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association counsel Alan Borovoy quickly countered that he agreed there should be no accusation without a trial, but he only wished that some trials would take place.

In a spirited exchange punctuated by enthusiastic applause, the two men debated the federal Government's use of a royal commission to handle charges of Mountie illegalities, with Mr. Borovoy calling the commission an oversized receptacle that the Government is using to handle allegations which in many cases call for immediate investigation and prosecution.

…

Conservative MP Elmer MacKay (Central Nova), another member of the panel, said he had been disappointed in the ability of parliamentary committees to look into allegations of wrongdoing.

Parliament is the highest court in the land and committees are very important adjuncts of Parliament, he said. …

The panel’s fourth member was Sgt. Frank Palmer of the RCMP, a member of the force’s legal branch who holds a master’s degree in law. Sgt. Palmer discussed the need for more police powers, particularly in regard to the opening of mail.

He told the students that we do have spies running around this country, regardless of how unimportant Canada may seem to you in the scheme of things in this universe.”

So back in 1977 when Canadians were passionate about investigating RCMP wrongdoing and Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed a royal commission to do so, Canadian Civil Liberties Association counsel Alan Borovoy wanted to prosecute it as crime, and Tory MP Elmer MacKay – father of today’s Defence Minister Peter MacKay and friend of Airbus Affair businessman Karlheinz Schreiber as in Part 1 – wanted parliamentary committee investigations, whereas RCMP Sgt. Frank Palmer wanted to open people’s mail to see if they were foreign spies.

Why then in January 1993 didn’t the powerful A/Comm. F. G. Palmer simply dismiss my complaint forwarded from Solicitor General Doug Lewis, which contained documents with a much broader scope, sent on November 30, 1992 to Member of Parliament Kim Campbell who happened to be Justice Minister, intended to raise the issue of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership conduct? As in Part 6 when the complaint came down on January 6 from A/Comm. J. W. B. McConnell, RCMP Director of Enforcement Services, it had already been restricted to only about my July 2 arrest in an RCMP-led eviction after my UBC faculty job had ended.

It turned out that C/Supt. P. M. (Patrick) Cummins (Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police 2002-2003 Membership Directory) who was given my complaint and made the decision to shove it under RCMP civil litigation for my lawsuit, had been the kind of man Palmer would want for opening people’s mail and catching spies.

Cummins had been RCMP’s leading national-security investigator in its headquarters in 1989-90, but inexplicably by January 1993 was only in charge of Contract Policing, i.e., municipal policing, in B.C.

A press report 4 years earlier in January 1989 had described then Supt. Cummins taking part in British police’s Pam Am Flight 103 bombing investigation, noting the lack of progress in the RCMP investigation he led into the 1985 Air India Flight 182 and Narita Airport twin bombings (“Canadians join investigation of Pan Am sabotage”, by Paul Koring, January 4, 1989, The Globe and Mail):

“RCMP Superintendent Patrick Cummins and Canadian Aviation Safety Board investigator John Garstang will consult in the investigation of the Dec. 21 destruction of Pan Am Flight 103, spokesmen from their agencies said.

…

Supt. Cummins is expected to stay only about a week. He heads the RCMP investigation into the twin bombings of the Air-India jet, which killed all 329 people on board, most of them Canadians, and a blast at Tokyo's Narita airport the same morning that killed two baggage handlers. The second bomb is thought to have been intended for another Air-India jet and had been carried across the Pacific aboard a CP Air jumbo.

Both bombs began their air journeys in Vancouver, and extremist Sikh separatists have been widely blamed for the attacks. The RCMP, however, has yet to arrest anyone in connection with the bombings, the worst-ever terrorist attack on civilian airliners.”

In fact, the RCMP investigation into the Air India bombing was so slow that in a face-to-face meeting a year later with C/Supt. Cummins, victim families blamed RCMP for blocking a public inquiry and for ignoring repeated warnings before the tragedy (“RCMP accused of blocking inquiry into Air-India crash”, by Charles Rusnell, January 31, 1990, The Ottawa Citizen):

“A group representing Canadian victims of the 1985 Air-India crash has accused the RCMP of blocking its bid for a public inquiry.

About 20 members of the Citizens' Alliance for a Public Inquiry into the Air-India Disaster met with Chief Supt. Pat Cummins of the RCMP's criminal investigation division Monday.

But alliance spokesman Sundaram Ramakesavan said Cummins wouldn’t answer specific questions about the investigation except to say the RCMP didn’t have enough evidence to charge anyone in connection with the crash.

Ramakesavan said the group left the meeting convinced the RCMP has made no progress in its five-year investigation.

He said the alliance, which has about 200 members, believes the force is refusing to end its investigation and hand the matter over to an inquiry because the RCMP might be found negligent.

It has been reported the RCMP was warned several times before the crash that an Air-India flight was to be bombed.”

You see, later in 2011 Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass blamed the late Vancouver lawyer David Gibbons for blocking RCMP investigation of the Air India bombing, as in Part 6, but it sounded rather whimsical in this context: for years with its topnotch investigators and state-of-the-art equipment under C/Supt. Cummins RCMP made little progress, and an egoistic lawyer making money from middle-class immigrants was to blame?

I make this personal observation because, as in Part 6, David Gibbons’s small law office was the first Vancouver law firm I visited, in July 1992 recommended by Justice (at the time Master) Pamela Kirkpatrick of the B.C. Supreme Court whose husband David had been my UBC colleague and mentor.

At the time I looked at Gibbons law firm’s address, 2 Gaoler’s Mews, and said to myself, “It’s got my name and the cat’s meows – my favorite feminine sound!”

Well, even after my political activism in Vancouver had gone into hiatus my limited English still didn’t recognize ‘Jailer’s Cages’ in “Gaoler’s Mews” – site of Vancouver’s historical first jail (“Haunted Locations: Gaoler's Mews, 12 Water Street”, Ghosts of Old Vancouver).

So Justice Kirkpatrick had subtly warned me of police traps, which Supt. D. G. Cowley would soon authorize although it remains unclear if A/Comm. F. G. Palmer and C/Supt. P. M. Cummins also did.

Later in the 1990s, Gibbons expanded his law firm Gibbons Ritchie and moved to the historical Marine Building’s Suite 1300 – another 13th-floor exception in Vancouver like Justice Kirkpatrick’s old firm McCarthy Tetrault as covered in Part 6. (“David W. Gibbons recommendation letter for CPA Investigations”, November 30, 1999, CPA Investigations)

As for the Air India bombing, I doubt C/Supt. Cummins had also been blocking the truth, but more likely torn apart by his various agendas as a ‘jack of all trades’ in the national security arena.

At the time in 1989-90, Cummins also led RCMP’s National Security Investigations Directorate and National Emergency Operation Centre, busy with catching spies and countering terrorism. His directorate was not even supposed to exist because past RCMP “dirty tricks” in national security had led to the field’s takeover by a civilian Canadian Security Intelligence Service after studies by royal commissions investigating RCMP activities. One of the royal commissions, the McDonald Commission, was at the center of debate in 1977 in the earlier story about Sgt. Frank Palmer wanting to open people’s mail to catch spies. (“Some RCMP traditions never die”, by Bob Bragg, July 9, 1989, Calgary Herald; and, “WAR ROOM: Command centre ready for battle”, by John Kessel, February 19, 1990, The Ottawa Citizen)

In fact, in June 1989 when RCMP Commissioner Norman Inkster disclosed the existence of the national security directorate, Cummins was at his prime, touted as a future RCMP Commissioner (“RCMP security team may be rival of CSIS”, by Richard Cleroux, July 4, 1989, The Globe and Mail):

“RCMP Commissioner Norman Inkster confirmed the existence of the 131- member section, which he called a directorate, at a Justice Committee hearing in Ottawa in June.

The directorate, the highest designation given to a special group in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police , is led by Chief Superintendent Pat Cummins . Mr. Cummins, a bilingual Western Canadian in his early fifties, is often touted as a possible future commissioner of the RCMP.

CSIS has the mandate to gather intelligence on groups in Canada with links to foreign revolutionary organizations. The RCMP is supposed to receive intelligence from CSIS and become involved only when it has evidence or suspicions of criminal activity.

But there has been bad blood at various levels between the two organizations since CSIS was set up after two royal commissions - the McDonald Commission in Ottawa and the Keable Commission in Montreal - exposed a series of dirty tricks committed by the old RCMP security service in the name of national security.”

Though not the Air India bombing, but Cummins did achieve success on ‘smaller’ cases. The parallel bomb explosion killing two baggage handlers at Japan’s Narita Airport was solved, as was a budget leak parallel to the Doug Small affair – a copy of the 1989 federal budget summary found in a trash bin and given to Global TV reporter Doug Small who aired it early.

For the parallel budget leak, Cummins determined that a copy obtained by Johan Mares, a manager at Mutual Life Assurance of Canada, allowed the company to benefit in a business deal though it backed out at the last minute. (“Pieces could be key to Air-India charges”, by Paul Koring, September 2, 1989, The Globe and Mail; “Bureaucrat ‘schemed’ against Small, officer says”, by Richard Cleroux, November 9, 1989, The Globe and Mail; “INTRIGUE; Chaotic budget-leak trial leaves a spy-novel trail of twists and turns”, by Greg Weston, November 11, 1989, The Ottawa Citizen; and, “MOUNTIE DESCRIBES DUAL PROBE: TOKYO BOMBING, AIR CRASH CITED; Terrorist trial told of dual probe”, by Marc Edge, September 19, 1990, The Province)

So it must have been an extremely important assignment, or a slap in the face, for C/Supt. P. M. Cummins to find himself handling municipal policing in British Columbia where the Sikh extremists had originated their Air India Flight 182 and Narita Airport bombings. He did get press coverage for complaining about welfare fraud, but it’s a far cry from the glory of national security (“‘We’re legitimizing fraud,’ police say”, by Salim Jiwa, December 3, 1993, The Province).

Ironically though not quite coming full circle, many years later in a 2010 inquiry report on the Air India bombing, by then retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice John Major not only criticized RCMP dismissiveness toward prior warnings but pointed to “contract policing” as reducing RCMP’s ability to act on national security (“RCMP, CSIS bumbling behind Air India tragedy”, by John Ivison, June 17, 2010, National Post; and, “RCMP, airports in spotlight after Air India report”, June 18, 2010, CBC News).

I doubt the training of the RCMP officers who evicted me from UBC office on July 2, 1992 endowed them to catch spies or terrorists, but in B.C. their duties in ‘small’ cases like it were ultimately overseen by C/Supt. Cummins, who on January 13, 1993 blocked a required investigation for my complaint that had gone through Solicitor General Doug Lewis – not to mention my allegations against Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership conduct in the documents.

But given the history of Frank Palmer and Patrick Cummins, I get the sense that being declared a “paranoid ideation” and sent to psychiatric committal by RCMP, as in Part 6, was already fortunate. These RCMP leaders had their magnifying glasses on looking for anything resembling ‘spying’ or ‘terrorism’, and tossing a plastic coffee mug or water in it not at anyone – as in Parts 4 & 5 – could be an act of “violence” to be compared to Valery Fabrikant’s multiple murders.

Yet the web of connections was such that even if a ‘McCarthyish” police leader had not been there my complaint about RCMP likely would still have been cast aside, for it was an extension of my UBC dispute with Computer Science Head Maria Klawe, whose regional ties were more cemented than an average person like me realized.

At the time RCMP’s top leader in B.C. was Deputy Commissioner J. D. (Dennis) Farrell, “E” Division Commanding Officer to whom A/Comm. McConnell’s January 6 letter forwarding my complaint was addressed as in Part 6.

Farrell was a business-friendly figure, also interested in science as he sat on the board of B.C. Science World, wisecracking about being the only policeman in that circle (“Fund raiser for Science World was no gamble”, by Malcolm Parry, February 18, 1995, The Vancouver Sun):

“SCIENCE BREAKOUT. . . After eight years of holding decorous fund-raising events in the Hyatt's sombre ballroom, event chairs Joan Proudfoot and Kim Stevens moved no-host bars, roulette wheels and blackjack tables into Science World's own False Creek facility Thursday and began raking attendees' wallets.

“All the bandits in town are here: the bankers, the lawyers, and I’m the only policeman,” RCMP deputy commissioner and Science World director Dennis Farrell joked of the $150-per event as cards turned against him.”

Well, since 1990 my boss then ex-boss Maria Klawe had been on the same Science World board (Curriculum Vitae, Office of the President, Harvey Mudd College) and was not a policewoman. So one of the bandits?

Then consider C/Supt. M. K. M. (Mike) Clegg, the officer in charge of Administration & Personnel at “E” Division who sent letters to me on ending investigation for my 1992 public complaint and on receipt of my new complaint in January 1993, and sent the January 29 letter to RCMP headquarters in Ottawa regarding my new complaint. As late as November 1991 – when my dispute with Klawe was flaring up – then Supt. Clegg was still in Edmonton in charge of RCMP personnel in Alberta. (“RCMP reconsider apology”, by Ron Collins, August 23, 1991, Calgary Herald; “Alleged rape victim to file complaint about RCMP”, November 28, 1991, Edmonton Journal; and, “Mountie's firing over secrecy oath demanded”, by Neal Hall, November 3, 1993, The Vancouver Sun)

As touched on in Part 5, Maria Klawe didn’t just come from an Edmonton family with her parents University of Alberta professors, but one in which her British mother had been a intelligence officer during World War II and her Polish father the chief cartographer (map maker) for Thomas Nelson & Sons, one of the oldest publishers of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories – the kind of heritage endearing to Canadian police.

I was simply unaware of the broader critical factors blocking my efforts, and my lack of knowledge was made worse by disinformation tactics from persons like Klawe even before our dispute, before an 1990 incident alleged in my lawsuit and mentioned in Part 4 about availability of Computer Science faculty positions. I met her parents in 1989 when she and her husband, colleague Nick Pippenger, invited me and visiting professor Chee Yap over for dinner, where she introduced her dad as an Alberta professor of Chemistry who had served as a medical doctor in India’s military – Sherlock Holmes kind of fairy tale no one there contradicted!

In January-February 1993 when RCMP “E” Division senior officers were blocking my complaint forwarded from Solicitor General, I was actually under a second round of psychiatric suppression after an arrest at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Vancouver site while attempting an interview, this time criminally charged by Vancouver Police then diverted to psychiatric committal. One of the two letters from C/Supt. M. K. M. Clegg was undelivered and returned to RCMP.

Previously, on December 22, 1992 a mental health review panel had ordered my release from my first psychiatric committal, which had begun on November 30 at UBC Hospital with an RCMP intervention led by Sergeant Brian Cotton with cooperation of Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick after I had faxed documents to MP Kim Campbell as in Part 6. Back in my Vancouver apartment, I continued phoning CBC TV about issues in press releases I had sent CBC and Kim Campbell.

In the late evening of January 12, 1993, after CBC national news had ended at 10 p.m., a man on the phone line asked me to come right away, I was surprised and asked for the purpose, and he said for an interview I had been requesting.

I went immediately for my first-ever visit to CBC Vancouver at 700 Hamilton Street, told the reception at the empty lobby about the news interview appointment, and was asked to sit down and wait. For over an hour, every time someone came down, apparently to go home, I wondered if it was to greet me. After midnight the reception again asked me what I was there for, I explained accordingly and the receptionist said but no one was in the newsroom now.

Disappointed, but feeling positive that at last I was given an interview, I made phone calls on January 13 around news hours to CBC to reconnect for the interview ‘granted’, but was again put on long holds like before. That evening after the early local news I decided to attend the CBC site, hoping that whoever had asked me to come last night would pick it up again.

As discussed, January 13 was also the day when RCMP C/Supt. P. M. Cummins, former national-security head, sent a memo to C/Supt. M. K. M. Clegg to suggest that given my lawsuit there be no separate investigation for my complaint directed from Solicitor General.

That day was also the start of the Vancouver Police record as released to me in a 2003 personal-information disclosure.

Vancouver Police officers Munroe and Bieg attended the CBC site on January 14 and made an arrest, after police had started attending in the evening of January 13 at the request of CBC security, and phone records given to police by the head of security showed a history of many calls and that at CBC’s request B.C. Tel security had been monitoring my calls.

There was a major error in officer Munroe’s notes, the claim that I had been “escorted off many times in the past for weeks”. I had begun attending CBC site on January 12 after being asked to come for an interview – but it was then like hadn’t happened to CBC however B.C. Tel security records could contain the info.

The following in a Synopsis by officer Bieg was largely accurate:

“Accused (GAO) first attended on 93-01-13 @ 1915 hrs after numerous unsuccessful telephone calls for his interview. He was escorted off the premise by security staff. GAO returned one hour later and police were called. Police attended and escorted GAO off the premise. GAO returned 1/2 hrs later again demanding an interview. GAO was convinced that there was no one in the newsroom (2318 hrs) and left. GAO returned the next morning and once again refused to leave. Police were called and escorted him off the property. GAO returned 30 minutes later and once again refused to leave. Once again, police were called and PC’s 1410 BIEG and 1396 Munroe attended.

PC’s attempted to dissuade GAO from pursuing his cause in this manner and suggested numerous alternatives. GAO was granted a start(?) interview with CBC staff, but this also failed to satisfy him. GAO was requested to leave by staff several times and continued to refuse. GAO stated if arrested, he would return. GAO eventually arrested after refusing to leave and stating he would keep returning.”

Thanks to these two Vancouver Police officers Bieg and Munroe, I got to speak with an executive producer.

More specifically, when two young officers, Bieg and Munroe as in police record, arrived on bicycles they asked me what I wanted to talk about. I said that during Charlottetown constitutional negotiation Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had intentionally subjected Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, who had been weakened by skin cancer and treatment, to physically exhaustive tactics in order to extract concessions from Quebec, and I felt it was criminal conduct.

It was the second time I mentioned this to police. Late the night before on January 13 I had told two older officers called to escort me away and they responded, “it’s too late, nobody is in the newsroom, come back tomorrow.”

Now just before noon on January 14, police officers Bieg and Munroe said let’s go inside to ask CBC if it would cover this issue. After the officers spoke to the security personnel, an executive news producer came down and said I could be given an interview by staff but not for news. I replied it would be insufficient as the issue needed to be reported and discussed, and he responded, as if asking, that CBC would have to file a criminal charge over this for my refusal to leave and whether it would be okay with me. I said okay.

Thus the only time a CBC newsroom staff met with me was when two police officers accompanied me inside to ask, but it was also these same officers who then arrested me for my first-ever criminal charge.

My allegation about Mulroney making life difficult for Bourassa’s health had not been in my press releases referred to in Part 6, but was prompted by the latest news in January 1993 that Bourassa’s cancer had spread, as I later recalled in 2009 (“The myth of political vendetta in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Airbus Affair investigation, the politics of Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien, and some social undercurrents in Canada (Part 3)”):

“During the Charlottetown constitutional negotiations in 1992 Premier Bourassa was “fatigued” and did not do well, partly due to the long hours and the intensity of the negotiations and partly because shortly after the Meech Lake accord he had undergone treatments for a serious form of skin cancer, which Brian Mulroney personally noted during his public campaign for the Charlottetown accord’s passage in the upcoming October 26, 1992 national referendum, and which would be discovered already spreading shortly after the Charlottetown accord failed in the referendum; Bourassa would ultimately died of it on October 2, 1996.”

Later when Bourassa died of skin cancer he was only 63 years old.

One newspaper story referred to in my blog post showed a link between the Diane Wilhelmy affair mentioned in Part 6 – a phone conversation transcript leaked to the media about Quebec not doing well at the constitutional negotiation table – and Bourassa’s poor health while under pressure by Mulroney (“PM asks opponents, What are you for? Anti-accord allies lack ‘common vision’ of Canada, Mulroney says”, by Alan Freeman, October 5, 1992, The Globe and Mail):

“Mr. Mulroney later conceded to reporters that last week’s publication of the transcript of a taped conversation between two top Quebec constitutional advisers was “not helpful.”

He said the Yes side had been doing “extremely well” in Quebec until the transcript, in which Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa was accused of caving in during the Charlottetown negotiations, was made public. “We started behind and we were progressing very nicely,” he said, adding that it was only a “temporary downside.”

During a stop last night in St-Georges-de-Beauce, south of Quebec City, Mr. Mulroney again defended Mr. Bourassa’s performance in Charlottetown, saying that he was amazed at the Premier’s strength two years after his bout with skin cancer.

Mr. Mulroney’s repeated insistence that Mr. Bourassa negotiated strongly on behalf of his province may be a sign that the Prime Minister feels it necessary to offset the damage done in Quebec by the release of the transcript.”

Quoted in my blog post, Quebec constitutional official Andre Tremblay lamented in the leaked phone conversation:

“We’re walking on our knees, as you know, eh? I think mine are full of holes … We were aggressed, badgered, fatigued. In other words, there were an awful lot of those types of problems. It’s tough to take, psychologically having all these people against you. And they’re all against us.”

So in my mind in January 1993 it seemed like physical ‘hazing’ Robert Bourassa had endured prior to the discovery that his cancer had spread.

As mentioned in Part 6, in late November 1992 when CBC first said it might file a criminal charge if I didn’t stop phoning, I already replied that I would expose the political issues in criminal court. So it was with this thinking that on January 14 I said okay to CBC filing a criminal charge; I even asked the police officers if I could just go home and receive the notice to attend court, but was told an arrest was necessary.

The arrest charge was “Assault by Trespass” as in police record, referring to physical resistance against removal or arrest, although the truth is that like in the July 2 RCMP arrest at UBC there wasn’t resistance. With CBC phone records of my many calls and the fact that back on December 12 – when I had eloped home to phone CBC during UBC psychiatric committal as in Part 6 – CBC had contacted Vancouver Police to discuss a charge, police also requested a charge of “Harassing Phone Calls”.

What I didn’t expect – like the first time on November 30 with RCMP officers at my apartment – was that Vancouver Police and Crown prosecution would not let me air the political issues in court despite it being already my last-resort venue – but would again send me to a psychiatric committal, though this time with a criminal charge filed.

On January 14 officer Bieg then phoned UBC Hospital and spoke with a female psychiatrist – Dr. Laura Chapman as in Part 6 – who provided info on my year-long UBC dispute and my “current obsession” with “corruption and criminal activity in the offices of Prime Minister Mulroney” – all part of a mental illness in need of treatment but wasn’t treated due to my release by a mental health review panel from the last committal.

Officer Bieg then listed 3 police recommendations, the first as recommended by the UBC psychiatrist:

1) 30-day remand to Forensic Psychiatric Center for psych assessment;

2) one street block of no-go area around CBC Vancouver building;

3) no direct or indirect contact with any CBC premises or employees.

Vancouver Provincial Court record shows that on January 15 a “harassing-telephone-calls” charge was filed under Judge W. J. Kitchen, then stayed by Crown counsel D. Mulligan. There was no bail requirement, thus no condition of no contact with CBC.

On that day I was examined by a Vancouver Police Department medical doctor and then by a forensic psychiatrist from B.C. Forensic Psychiatric Institute. The wheels began the motion for the justice system to diagnose me as a “Paranoid Schizophrenic”.

As in Part 6 my psychiatric diagnosis had begun on November 30 as “Paranoid Delusional Disorder”, wanted by RCMP Sgt. Brian Cotton, with many differential diagnoses including “Schizophrenia”, and on December 1 became “Delusional Disorder of Persecutory Type” as per Dr. Peter Chan but Dr. Chapman kept one differential diagnosis of “Schizophrenia” – possibly at the request of RCMP Supt. D. G. Cowley.

Schizophrenia is a more permanent and real disease whereas delusional disorder can be a temporary mental misperception of reality, as mentioned in Part 6.

The first maneuver for “Schizophrenia” was by the Vancouver Police Department doctor, who falsified what I had said about Mulroney and Bourassa:

“Extremely delusional and quite paranoid. Believe Brian Mulroney is responsible for Robert Bourassa cancer.”

That really made me sound kind of ‘crazy’. How could an individual like me have known who, if anyone, had been responsible for Bourassa’s cancer? I was merely protesting about the ‘hazing’ of a Bourassa already weakened by the disease and treatment.

Later when Mulroney announced his resignation he would indicate he had taken special notice in 1990 when Bourassa was first diagnosed with cancer, but that was quite different from being responsible for the disease.

With this ‘scary’ statement planted in my mouth, the police doctor declared:

“Not fit for court

1st certificate signed

Request psychiatric consult”

Clearly this police doctor wanted a hard psychiatric diagnosis for me. However the released police record doe not contain a copy of the “1st certificate” he had signed.

The forensic psychiatrist interviewing me in the evening of January 15 did record a correct version of what I said:

“He claimed that he was calling CBC for last couple of days and today went there to arrange an interview with news team. When asked what kind of things he wanted to talk on TV, he said, “There are two things. One is about my former boss who planned a scandal about me, the second thing is about Brain [Brian] Mulroney, he knew that Robert Bourassa had cancer but he put him through too much during Charlottetown scandal. He played dirty tricks.””

So the psychiatrist concluded that I was fit to stand trial, but still diagnosed me as suffering from “Paranoid Schizophrenia”:

“1. He suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia in active phase.

2. He is fit to stand trial

3. He is certifiable under MHA (certified)

4. He should seek treatment for his mental chronicles.”

A medical certificate by this forensic psychiatrist is among the police record disclosure.

The Forensic Psychiatric Services Referral Form listed a next court date of January 16, which could be when the criminal charge was stayed – following the police doctor’s instead of the psychiatrist’s opinion.

Luckily, I was not sent to Forensic Psychiatric Institute for committal, a place for criminal offenders with serious psychiatric problems. Someone asked me if I had a family doctor who could help, I gave Dr. James Lai’s contact info, and an arrangement was made to have Dr. Lai’s referral by which I was sent by ambulance on January 18, with police officers escorting, from the Disordered Offenders Unit of the Vancouver Pre-trial Services Centre to Vancouver General Hospital.

The diversion to the city hospital instead of the forensic psychiatric facility suggested that the justice system at that point didn’t really treat me as a “Paranoid Schizophrenic”, but used that hard diagnosis to suppress the political issues. I personally was not aware of being that “ill” – not until October when I was assessed as part of another forensic psychiatric assessment required by the court.

Vancouver General Hospital record recorded my transfer from Dr. J. K. Lai on January 18 for “Delusional Disorder” as in Admission record, and brought by a police officer as in a medical certificate signed by Dr. Dorothy Linda McWatters.

Most likely the police doctor’s “1st certificate” didn’t exist despite the ‘hard’ evidence planted by him so a second certificate was needed for the committal to last more than 48 hours by the B.C. Mental Health Act – but by January 18 it had already been over 48 hours since the evening of January 15.

Unlike the November 30 UBC Hospital certificates which had used collateral info from RCMP Sgt. Brian Cotton and UBC management, Dr. McWatters’s certificate was objective regarding “violence”:

“Violence has been alleged by those he accuses of persecuting him.”

Without a court trial to present the background political issues but instead in psychiatric hospitalization, I became seriously worried not only because I really disliked the first committal experience and the anti-psychotic medication Haldol, but because of my fear of psychiatric committal turning more permanent like a ‘dark tunnel without light at the end’.

I re-evaluated the political allegations I had made, and began to retract from those I had no direct evidence for when speaking to psychiatrists.

Of my three claims recorded in Dr. McWatters’s assessment sheet, the first was that my former boss at UBC had made things up and “framed” me, leading to the UBC Hospital committal, and the third was that Mulroney had acted criminally by subjecting a physically weak Bourassa to exhaustive talks during the Charlottetown process. But the second, that Mulroney was personally persecuting me, I retracted given that CBC+Kim Campbell+RCMP+Justice Kirkpatrick wasn’t quite Mulroney:

“Says at that time he was delusional that PM Mulroney was personally persecuting him but no longer he believes that.”

Dr. McWatters’s diagnosis was still “Delusional Disorder”, but without the “persecutory type” in UBC Hospital’s. Like UBC Hospital at the start there were differential diagnoses, here including “Schizophrenia” and “Psychotic Depression”.

My partial retraction of allegations was not enough, and after two days of observation on January 20 I was transferred to UBC Hospital.

On arrival for my second psychiatric committal at UBC Hospital I denied any belief in my political assertions except to continue with my lawsuit against UBC, and withheld any mention of the Bourassa cancer issue. The Admission Holding Note said:

“Currently he admits that most of his actions were likely delusions. He states he does not believe the Mulroney Government is conspiring against him. He believes he was wrongfully dismissed from the University, but feels that his lawsuit is the best approach to dealing with this. He attributes his “new enlightenment” to the Haldol which was restarted & to his police experience & CBC’s refusal to see him.”

Regardless, I was diagnosed with “Persistent Delusional Disorder”.

By now Dr. Laura Chapman at psych ward 2 West no longer wanted to treat me because I had refused to accept voluntary treatment as she told Vancouver Police. So I was sent to psych ward 2 East to be treated by Dr. James Harris.

At admission I said so little to the interviewing psychiatrist so was scheduled an additional interview with Dr. M. O. Agbayewa, Officer-In-Charge and Associate Head of the Psychiatry Department as in Part 6. I had known Dr. Agbayewa as friendly from the first committal, so when he said I could trust him I raised the Bourassa cancer issue again but added that I no longer believed it:

“At the CBC, he insisted on being given an interview to expose the conspiracy that Mulroney was involved in. He thinks Brian Mulroney intentionally exhausted Bourassa, who was recovering from cancer treatment, so that Bourassa gave in to demands. He now says  that he no longer believes this to be true. At the station, he was asked to leave or be charged, he preferred to be charged because of the importance of his task, i.e., exposing Mulroney.”

But I didn’t know that during my first committal Dr. Agbayewa had written a letter to notify my lawyer Brian Mason, and likely also updated RCMP Vancouver Subdivision commander Supt. D. G. Cowley’s office regarding my lawsuit, as discussed in Part 6.

Without telling me, Dr. Agbayewa then made a diagnosis of “Paranoid Disorder of Schizophrenia”, similar to the forensic psychiatrist’s diagnosis of “Paranoid Schizophrenia” – with a “Paranoid” component wanted by RCMP Sgt. Brian Cotton and “Schizophrenia” likely wanted by Supt. Cowley the first time.

The Admission Notes written by Dr. Silvia Chang for Dr. Harris made the diagnosis of “Paranoid Delusional Disorder”, same as the very first one on November 30.

Like the first time, I applied to a mental-health review panel for release. Supervising psychiatrist Dr. James Harris wrote a report to oppose my release, citing facts that despite stating I no longer believed in my political thinking during each of two passes for home visit I again went to CBC to ask for an interview. Dr. Harris asserted it would take 3-6 months for medications to take effect:

“It is evident then, by his actions, that Dr. Gao is in fact still believing in his conspiracy theory and is prepared to act on it. It is also clear that he is telling us contrary things to what he is in fact believing. Therefore, we cannot trust what his words say. We will have to go by his actions. The other thing that we will have to go by is our general knowledge that it takes 3-6 months for fixed delusions to respond to antipsychotic medications.”

3-6 months of treatment for “fixed delusions” – one wonders how long it would take for “schizophrenia”? Possibly years.

Dr. Harris also raised the spectre of not only destruction of my academic career but “revert to violence” by me, this time at CBC:

If he is discharged now, the chances are, I am sure overwhelming, that he will very shortly stop his medication and he will quickly revert back to a full-blown delusional state and start acting on these. At the very least, he will destroy any chance he has for an ongoing career in academia; however, there also is the possibility that as he gets more frantic in his belief of his delusion, that he in fact will revert to violence. It would seem that the people at CBC were somewhat concerned about his behavior and it may have escalated even more if the police had not been called.”

As demonstrated in Parts 4, 5 & 6, there had never been real violence on my part, and the myth had come from exaggerated or fabricated statements by some UBC and RCMP persons.

In his discharge report, Dr. Harris recommended that for future trouble with CBC I be charged so “the legal system” would have a handle on “treatment”:

“If he persists in harassing CBC and again comes to the attention of the police, I would suggest that there is no point in certifying him and treating him in-hospital. His treatment will take at least three to six months’ duration, and we only have a one-month mandate at any given time with certification, and it becomes a charade to keep going through this mock treatment of one month at a time, then releasing him on review panel hearing. If he creates a disturbance at CBC, I would suggest that they going ahead and press charges and that he be dealt with through the legal system where they may in fact have a handle on him to continue in treatment.”

After my February 12 release I continued to phone and visit CBC, and was so preoccupied with it that a special-delivery letter from RCMP C/Supt. M. K. M. Clegg – either the January 14 one to terminate my 1992 public complaint or the January 25 one to acknowledge my new complaint through Solicitor General as in Part 6 – did not reach me because I was first in hospital and then too busy to follow a mail notice, and was returned to RCMP on February 24.

Around that time on February 19, Justice Department changed its lawyer for RCMP on my lawsuit to Alisa Noda from Paul F. Partridge mentioned in Part 5, and RCMP also marked receipt of the notification on February 24.

February 24, 1993, was the day when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, whose leadership conduct had been the focus of my political activism since November 1992, suddenly announced his resignation to take effect after a new Tory leader was chosen. Announcing his retirement, Mulroney listed the failure of the Meech Lake constitutional accord – it had failed in 1990 under his stewardship while the 1992 Charlottetown constitutional process had been supervised by Constitutional Affairs Minister Joe Clark until the final negotiation – and Robert Bourassa’s cancer among reasons he hadn’t resigned in August 1990, which I summarized in 2009 (“The myth of political vendetta in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Airbus Affair investigation, the politics of Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien, and some social undercurrents in Canada (Part 7)”):

“That act of ‘good riddance’ by Clyde Wells became such a lasting sour point between Mulroney and Wells that later on February 24, 1993 when announcing his intent to retire, Mulroney again criticized Wells for not putting the Meech Lake accord to a vote in 1990 and thus betraying a written promise, and Mulroney also revealed that he would have retired in August 1990 – (just in case people were glad to see him go!) – had it not been for the Meech Lake accord’s failure and a number of other issues, including the emerging GST fight with the Chretien Liberals in the Senate and the discovery that Robert Bourassa had cancer.”

As reviewed in my blog post, the Meech Lake Accord to bring French Quebec into the Canadian Constitution contained a serious flaw in giving veto power – wanted by Bourassa’s Quebec – to every province on future constitutional changes, at a time when major constitutional reform issues such as an elected Senate and Aboriginal self-government rights had not been considered. Columnist Don McGillivray commented on February 9, 1989:

“Mulroney may be stalling Alberta’s rush to Senate reform for two reasons. First, like all prime ministers, he likes patronage. And he doesn’t want to jump the gun because Senate reform is the bait by which he hopes to lure the provinces into approving the Meech Lake deal.

And it’s like the cheese in the mousetrap, to be seen and sniffed but not to be enjoyed. If Meech Lake is ever approved, Senate reform is dead forever.

This is because every province will get a veto over changes to the Senate.”

So Mr. Mulroney could have happily retired in 1990 and many Canadians happy without him – but forever with a national constitution of his generation.

My complaint in November 1992 was that the 1992 Charlottetown Accord integrating Quebec as well as Senate reform and Aboriginal self-government, that then failed in the October 26 national referendum, contained marks of sabotage by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney himself.

5 Days after Mulroney’s resignation announcement, on March 1 Canadian newspapers began to report that Maria Klawe would be heading an $8 million, 24-person, American-Canadian research project funded by the Electronic Arts company, into the educational values of video games. According to Klawe, even violent video games like Street Fighter 2 were good for teaching children because they allowed “mental experience” difficult with pen and paper and cheaper than computer (“Team plugs into kid’s love of video games to teach them about science, medicine: They allow for experiences different from pen and paper, educator says”, by Frances Bula, March 1, 1993 , The Vancouver Sun):

“YOU LOOK at the Super Nintendo game Street Fighter 2 and see the evils of macho violence and weapons worship combined.

Maria Klawe looks at it and sees a way teachers could use it to teach children how biologists figure out ways to fight diseases.

In the first project of its kind, Klawe is coordinating an American-Canadian team of computer scientists, teachers, education professors and commercial-game producers that will look for ways that schools can plug into children's fascination with video games.

“Why video games? They're part of children’s culture. And they really allow for certain types of mental experience that are very difficult with pen and paper. They’re also a lot cheaper than computers,” says Klawe, who is head of the University of B.C.’s computer-science department, the mother of two video-game players, and the kind of person who goes to schools and uses her juggling skills to explain math and science.

…

To accomplish all of this is going to take several years of research, a team of 24 people - including Simon Fraser University professor Gerri Sinclair and the Burnaby video-game company, Electronic Arts - and $8 million.”

To use the video-game metaphor, some at UBC had falsely accused me of “violence” and linked me to real violent atrocities probably because of their own interests in the educational value of violence.

Vince Manis, the former UBC colleague involved in the scheme as in Part 4, whose own internet postings had been full of vulgarity and political bashing alluding to violence, later joined this video-game company Electronic Arts.

A few days after the appearance of this first news story about Maria Klawe and video game, UBC and Vancouver were chosen as the official site of new U.S. President Bill Clinton’s first major international summit – with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in early April.

I recalled it in my first blog article, in 2009 (“Greeting the New Millennium – nearly a decade late”):

“By the time Bill Clinton became U.S. president and right away came to Vancouver for his first major international summit, the first Clinton-Yeltsin summit in April 1993, pitching different themes from the previous Bush administration’s, including the re-emergence of Richard Nixon as an elder statesman on U.S. foreign policy, I was already out of the academia and bogged down in some politics of my focus, and was viewing the pomp and circumstance of the glitzy visit by the rare, distinguished guests to a place I had not long before been exiled from – part of the summit was held at the University of British Columbia – as a sort of ‘swan song’ by the departing Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, hardly noticing that at the time President Clinton was also transmitting his message to the U.S. Congress to legislate for Goals 2000, Educate America Act.

President Clinton loves Vancouver, British Columbia, obviously.”

Clinton definitely liked Vancouver as he has since enlisted Vancouverite Frank Giustra, founder of the movie studio Lions Gate Entertainment, as a major sponsor of the Clinton Foundation and provider of a luxury private jet (“Archived Profile: Frank Giustra”, June 21, 2007, Canada.com).

But back during his first superpower summit, on Canadian soil also featuring Canadians like Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and UBC President David Strangway, and Vancouver places like Queen Elizabeth Park’s Seasons in the Park restaurant and UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, Clinton insisted on staying at an American-owned, unionized hotel, while in the media a joke was played on Strangway about Clinton’s need for even more common Americana like Elvis Presley and McDonald’s (“TOWARD THE SUMMIT; A Summit With an Ocean View, 3-Star Dining and Even a Woods to Walk In”, by Clyde H. Farnsworth, April 2, 1993, The New York Times):

““We’re actually thrilled,” said Dr. Strangway, an Ontario-born geophysicist who studied moon rocks for NASA and is now the president of the University of British Columbia. “What a privilege to be able to say it happened here.”

…

Both men are sleeping downtown -- Mr. Yeltsin in the penthouse of the sparkling white Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver with a panoramic view of the harbor and Mr. Clinton at the somewhat less prestigiously situated Hyatt Regency, about half a mile inland. A Canadian organizer said “the President insisted on staying at an American-owned, unionized hotel, and the Hyatt fit the bill.”

…

The university residence is called the Norman MacKenzie House, but it was it was known as Dave’s Bed and Breakfast this week on the Larry and Willy Show, a comedy interlude on one of the most popular rock stations, C-Fox FM 99.3. Is Socks Coming?

Someone impersonating President Clinton, but sounding more like Elvis Presley, called in to ask Dr. Strangway, who appeared as a guest on the show, whether there was a deep frier in the house and where the nearest McDonald’s was. Dr. Strangway, playing along in the spoofing, asked whether the caller was bringing along Socks, the Clintons’ cat. A painting of a golden saxophone, called Sax Inc. by Canadian artist Eric Metcalfe, hangs prominently in the house.”

After Mulroney’s February 24 announcement of resignation I had begun to attend the CBC site less often as the political issues seemed less urgent, still making phone calls though.

Then B.C. Tel cut my phone service temporarily, citing frequent calls to CBC. I took it as a hint to slow down, so by the time of the April 2 & 3 Clinton-Yeltsin summit I had the leisure to walk around at the Kitsilano Beach, where I could see Clinton-Yeltsin motorcades snaking along waterfront streets and hear helicopters buzzing along.

But by the end of March UBC’s lawyers at Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy had requested examination for discovery, i.e., pre-trial cross examination of me for the defendant UBC, by associate Don Richards on behalf of lawyer Jack Giles.

My lawyer Brian Mason wanted to do the same with one witness each from UBC and RCMP, but I preferred to go directly to trial.

It was difficult for me to suggest a UBC person with the facts for Mr. Mason to cross-examine. The real person would have been David Kirkpatrick, whose role had already involved ‘betrayal’ as discussed in Part 4, and whose name I had claimed to be forgotten in my UBC internal grievances in the dispute with Klawe. Now with his wife Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick involved in the RCMP-led psychiatric suppression, would I still consider him a friendly witness?

Most importantly I ran out of money, and so on April 7 Brain Mason sent me a letter to terminate his representation, leaving me alone to be questioned by an associate of a ‘notorious’ political henchman as discussed in Part 6.

In the end the examination conducted by lawyer Don Richards for UBC didn’t appear hostile, considering the circumstances at that point; I kept a business card of official court reporter Wendy Dauphinee who did the transcription.

With my Mathematics and Computer Science background I find the coincidence interesting, that my case file at Brian Mason’s Maitland & Company had started as “92404”, with not much more than initial lawsuit filing but I suffered a lot of other oppression outside of the file, and then the date of my examination by Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy was “93414”.

For my subsistence and to pay off the part of the over $5,000 legal expenses I still owed, I had an immediate obstacle to overcome which determined my course of action in the next 3 months.

On April 29 at Vancouver General Hospital, psychiatrist Dr. G. Stevenson interviewed me and summarized the situation I was facing, that I needed fit-for-work medical clearance to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits, but was denied it by Dr. James Harris at UBC:

“Following loss of job in June/92, lived off savings briefly, then on medical unemployment insurance. These benefits ran out in January. He is on welfare now but needs clearance to go to work. He says his GP sent a letter OK’ing him, but Dr. Harris gave a contradictory opinion, so the UI board refused transfer to regular benefits. He has appealed to the board, which will hold a hearing to review his case in ~ 1 month – but he says he can’t wait that long.

He also has a lawsuit filed against UBC for wrongful dismissal.”

As mentioned earlier, UBC psychiatrist Dr. Laura Chapman required that I attend out-patient psychiatric counselling for any help, but I didn’t consider myself mentally ill and would not do so voluntarily. Dr. James Harris who had supervised my second committal agreed to write a letter, with me attending his office of private practice in Richmond just south of Vancouver, but it stated that I was still mentally ill – not surprising given his February reports’ statements that it would take at least 3-6 months to treat delusional disorder and here I was out for less than 3 months after only 3-4 weeks of treatment.

Fortunately, VGH psychiatrists were much more sympathetic, and the experience in contrast reinforced my view that back on November 30 RCMP had been bent on fixing a ‘mentally ill’ diagnosis when Sgt. Brian Cotton rejected my suggestion to go to VGH instead of UBC Hospital as in Part 6.

As in Part 4, after the March 16, 1992 incident I was asked to attend counselling by UBC Dean of Science Barry McBride, who at the time sent a fax to psychiatrist Dr. John Leslie at VGH, and I was then referred by Associate Vice President William Webber to private psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Remick.

So unbeknown to me VGH psychiatrists had known about my earlier circumstances, and Dr. G. Stevenson was in fact a UBC professor. Moreover as in Part 4 Dr. Remick told me he had been a UBC faculty member with a dispute already resolved, but Dr. Remick’s current biography says he left UBC only in 1992. Thus some of the more sympathetic, private or VGH psychiatrists were within UBC academic circle as well. Another interesting person among the UBC Psychiatry faculty was Patrick McGeer, whose son Rick and I had been UBC Computer Science colleagues as in Part 4.

Dr. Stevenson’s conclusion was:

“Impression delusional disorder in partial remission. Access to deeper content or more complex delusional features not pursued at this time.”

It was the first diagnosis to mention “remission” but Dr. Stevenson had a view similar to UBC’s Dr. Chapman when it came to a clearance letter, that I visit out-patient service, which would do counselling.

I still didn’t follow the advice, but the next day April 30 I found a psychiatrist at VGH Emergency Department willing to assess and write a letter for me as the hospital notes recorded.

Eventually this letter was accepted by the UI appeal board as clearance for regular unemployment benefits starting April 30, 1993.

There was another reason I went to the emergency department at VGH. I had a political goal in addition to obtaining a good letter for UI benefits, and that was to get a re-assessment of the earlier diagnoses to see if mistakes, i.e., wrongful diagnoses had been made. At either UBC Hospital or VGH, the place I had been first psychiatrically committed was the emergency department.

Because VGH had transferred me to UBC Hospital on January 20 and I was then out its care, for the period from my discharge on February 12 to April 30 the psychiatrists who could write a good letter was UBC Hospital ones – neither Dr. Chapman nor Dr. Harris would provide a decent letter so UBC Hospital’s emergency department was my next target.

I could have given up on that part of the UI money, but a re-assessment was critical logically as the psychiatric diagnoses hang like a sword over my head – a major obstacle for continuing lawsuit litigation.

My attempts at UBC Hospital for clearance and re-assessment would lead to my only ‘guilty’ criminal charges during my political activism in Vancouver – without getting the disputed money in the end that could have help pay my legal bills.

Unlike the security guards who kept an eye at VGH, UBC Hospital guards would often actively keep me away on orders, and pushed me off if I tried to enter. They would also call in RCMP officers, and that led to arrests for “Assault-by-Trespass”, and then on May 5 a criminal charge of “Assault” even though I didn’t assault anyone – with only unavoidable but passive physical contacts in a ‘trespassing’ situation.

Dr. Harris had said in a February report that I could turn violent at CBC, and that I should be charged there for the legal system to have a handle on psychiatric treatment. Well, after his report I was arrested a few times at CBC by Vancouver Police but never was there violence by anyone or another criminal charge. Nor did my perseverance at VGH cause such problem.

So now Dr. Harris’s recommendation was put into action by his hospital’s security guards and RCMP so that his prediction would be validated – to me the real reason being UBC-RCMP objective to use the criminal justice system to justify their false profiling of me as “violent”.

On May 5, the day on which my arrest would turn into an Assault charge, Emergency Record written by emergency physician Dr. Ken Edmonds surveyed the situation with no reference to “assault” or violence, clearly stating that I wasn’t “mental ill” at this time:

“Pt well known to UBC & ER. Admitted several months ago with delusional disorder. He contested his involuntary status & was noncompliant with meds. He was decertified by tribunal & since has been trying to collect U.I. They demand written documentation he is “mentally well”. Apparently his GP requires psych backup & Mr. Gao’s prev. psychiatrists here have agreeably terminated therapy. While Mr. Gao is not psychotic he continues to persevere in his attempts to get a psychiatric referral letter through the ER in spite of instructions with regards to obtaining what he requires. He has become like belligerent. Unfortunately he would not comply with security & was charged.”

As a kind of protest I did occasionally walk from the reception area to the the medical area, but never did I attempt to get near patients or medical personnel at work. UBC Hospital and RCMP used technical rules to prolong a peaceful dispute and ferment dissatisfaction, in order to brand me as a “noncompliant” patient toward being “belligerent”, and even ‘violent’ hence the Assault charge.

On May 10 in custody I was given a forensic psychiatric assessment, by the same VGH psychiatrist who had written a good letter on April 30 for my UI benefit clearance, who became the first to declare me mentally well:

“Patient known to myself as a result of previous recent visits to VGH under similar circumstances of alleged offences. I assessed him on April 30 at Department of The Emergency Physicians when Mr. Gao came to hospital looking for an assessment to help him with his UIC claims. At that time I didn’t find any evidence of psychosis and wrote a letter saying he was free of psychosis and able to look for work. Unfortunately this wasn’t good enough for Mr. Gao’s needs as he wanted it backdated to mid February. As I had not seen him at that time I explained I could do no more. Apparently he then went to UBC …

…

… At this point in time he is not mentally ill, but is fit to stand trial. It is unfortunate his behavior has resulted in criminal charges as this likely only will make things worse for him.”

The psychiatrist’s name has been withheld from the released personal-information documents. My unreliable memory is that it might be Dr. (John Mark) Levy who had handled my first psychiatric admission to VGH on January 18 as transferred from pre-trial custody.

Note that since the start of second psychiatric committal in mid January I had retracted most political allegations I had told psychiatrists. That no doubt helped get ‘mentally well’ assessments, but as Dr. Harris’s February reports clearly indicated hard-line psychiatrists like him would just dismiss the retractions as denials and treat my perseverance as a symptom of “delusional” beliefs.

Indeed, in detention again at Vancouver Pre-trial Services Centre I would be placed in the Disordered Offenders Unit, forced to take antipsychotic medication Haldol, and subjected to penalties like ‘lockdown’ when I tried to be noncompliant with medication or not to follow orders. Hard-line psychiatric opinions continued to rule – likely because the first forensic psychiatric assessment on January 15 declaring me as having “Paranoid Schizophrenia” had been done there.

At the May 28 trial I was found not guilty and the charge dismissed, despite testimonies from the prosecution witnesses: UBC Hospital security guards Jose Imperio and Kevin Allan Hatch, and RCMP officer Peter Joseph Kennedy.

But I was not satisfied with the trial because I didn’t achieve my original goal of discussing my political allegations as case background at trial, i.e., if I couldn’t air them in the media. That thinking had become even more serious after Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick’s involvement in the RCMP-led psychiatric suppression: I needed my allegations in official court record independently – although by May 1993 that intensity could be partly misguided.

I couldn’t get a defense lawyer of my choice so at the last minute a court-appointed counsel acted not to call my testimony.

It was part of my ‘overly’ ambitious goals – including on November 30, 1992 when I decided to fax documents to Member of Parliament Kim Campbell who happened to be Mulroney government’s Justice Minister – to find a female defense lawyer who could help me make my political case in court and win.

The early 1990s was a time when some ambitious women began to break the career ‘glass ceiling’ and advance to positions of importance in their fields. There was no question Kim Campbell’s ambition to someday become the national leader had weighed in my decision to involve her.

Phoning CBC newsroom during November, I had sometimes asked for anchor Gloria Macarenko to be given the political issues, and once a female staff responded, “Gloria is getting married and having a baby. Go away.” In Vancouver Police record of my CBC arrest officer Munroe reported “male annoying” about my attending CBC, but one can see it was an isolated interpretation to divert attention from the serious issues I raised.

So it was fitting that back on November 30 I was then sent to psychiatric committal in a UBC Hospital psych ward supervised by a female psychiatrist, Dr. Laura Chapman.

In RCMP custody in May 1993 I phoned Lawyer Referral Service, and through it and the lawyers contacted I reached two female defense lawyers in Vancouver, but both expressed that they could not take my case.

In hindsight it was a mistake that I began to persist with these particular lawyers. Considering that after many law firm visits in July-September 1992 I found only Brian Mason willing to do it suing both UBC and RCMP – as discussed in Parts 5 & 6 – it was difficult for me to just get a good lawyer, male or female.

But at that point my persistence at VGH in April 1993 had won me a much needed medical-clearance letter for UI benefit appeal, so there was a precedent of payoff. My persistence at UBC Hospital turned out bad because of my UBC dispute history, or so I felt.

In RCMP custody and pre-trial detention I kept phoning these two female lawyers. Then one day a woman visitor came, introducing herself as a defense lawyer, by the name of Linda Hall as I recall. I had not known about her but she displayed a good sense of motherly authority and intellectual persuasion.

Linda Hall warned that I was on the wrong track attempting to get defense from those two female lawyers, that if I continued to persist there would be negative consequences. She asserted that my perseverance approach and continuing focus on the political issues were also wrong, that my academic career could be ruined. Hall claimed to offer the advice like a friend, saying she could represent my legal defense provided I promised not to persevere, especially not with those two female lawyers, and trust her defense and her advice to move on with my career and life.

I couldn’t accept Hall’s advice, and let go on what would turn out to be the only female lawyer I could get – arranged by some authority no doubt.

In hindsight my guess is that Linda Hall would probably only get me the same dismissal of the charge without my chance to speak on the political issues, and be credited with the accomplishment as a female lawyer – Kim Campbell’s kind of magic perhaps.

After the May 28 trial I was freed, but was soon back at UBC Hospital as I still didn’t have a clearance letter backdating to February 12-13.

On June 2 after an arrest by RCMP I was again charged with “Assault”, in more serious circumstances this time for two reasons. First, the security guards blocking my path to the entrance had begun to dare me to fight them, and though I didn’t I felt challenged enough to walk, at a normal pace, toward the entrance despite a guard in front, and at the point of bodily contact he threw me to the ground. Secondly, RCMP Sgt. Brian Cotton who had started the UBC Hospital saga on November 30, began to appear on the scene – although when the incident occurred he was absent – and gave the go-ahead for arrest.

The appearance of Brian Cotton coincided with that of Dr. M. O. Agbayewa earlier in the day to give me a psychiatric clearance letter, finally. In the morning I was assessed by psychiatrist Dr. (Jonathan) Fleming, who then called Dr. Agbayewa. Upon taking the letter in an envelope I felt very happy and left in a hurry, but only after walking away from the hospital did I open the envelope and find – to my shock – that Dr. Agbayewa gave no backdated clearance for me. Instead he felt I had “Paranoia” and referred me to Kitsilano Mental Health Team for further counselling as indicated in the Emergency Record.

Dr. Agbayewa’s role is clearly recorded in the hospital records: for my first committal he wrote a letter to my lawyer Brian Mason to exert pressure, and at the start of the second committal he tricked me into mentioning my allegation about Mulroney exhausting Bourassa despite knowledge of the latter’s cancer, and then gave me a diagnosis of “Paranoid Disorder of Schizophrenia”. As discussed before he may have coordinated with RCMP as Officer-In-Charge of the hospital’s Psychiatry Department.

But prior to June 2, 1993, I had thought of Dr. Agbayewa as friendly – why I had felt comfortable enough to tell him the Bourassa-health allegation on January 20 when I had begun keeping mum about it and retracting earlier allegations.

So around noon on June 2, I walked back into UBC Hospital Emergency Department to ask for another clearance letter, and soon in the ensuing standoff with security guards the incident of my being thrown to the ground occurred.

In custody on June 14 a forensic psychiatric assessment was done, that retreated from the May 10 assessment’s “not mentally ill” conclusion and also referred to possible need for medication:

“…

- This man agrees that he sometimes becomes compulsive and cannot let go. He says he won’t return to UBC because UIC has accepted his letters.

…

No evidence of thought form disorder, delusions or hallucinations at present.

…

Impression

1) Fit for court 2) May have Delusional Disorder – in partial remission with medication”

So the second time charged with “Assault” I was not only more likely to lose due to RCMP Sgt. Brian Cotton’s involvement, but the forensic psychiatric assessment also left open a “Delusional Disorder” possibility thus giving criminal justice system the forensic psychiatry option – as UBC’s Dr. James Harris had suggested in February.

At this point the UI appeal board had accepted what I had submitted, but only as documentation for the appeal. When I said I wouldn’t return to UBC Hospital for a letter it was an admission that I likely would not get the backdating I needed.

But this time I found a lawyer to let me testify in court, so that my concise discussion of the political issues regarding UBC dispute and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership conduct would be presented as factors for the judge and enter into trial records.

I didn’t exactly find this lawyer, Richard Dempsey, but he came to visit me at Vancouver Pre-trial Services Centre like Linda Hall the first time.

On July 23 the trial was held under Judge J. R. Groberman as with the first Assault trial. Prosecution witnesses were UBC Hospital security guard Lance Theodore Holley, who had thrown me to the ground on June 2, and RCMP officer Brian Thomas Cotton, who interestingly was titled as Constable even though back on November 30 he had introduced himself to me as Sergeant as in Part 5.

The driving force for a guilty verdict – like on November 30 at UBC Hospital for a mental-illness diagnosis – was Brian Cotton, whose vivid testimony described seeing me push the security guard backward to try to get access to the hospital, without the real facts that I was the one thrown to the ground and Cotton himself was away during the incident.

So I was found guilty despite doing my best on the witness stand to present the political background and recall the incident factually, that I hadn’t assaulted anyone.

Fortunately Judge J. R. Groberman – not to be confused with Harvey Groberman who with RCMP Supt. D. G. Cowley had handled the 1990-91 native blockades as mentioned in Parts 5 & 6 – then issued an immediate absolute discharge, which to me suggested that he didn’t view it as much of an assault but granted RCMP the desired verdict.

But I wasn’t immediately freed because there were additional criminal charges I was now facing, to be tried several days later.

These new charges had arisen from my persistent phoning of the two female defense lawyers I had started in May with the first Assault charge and warned by lawyer Linda Hall about.

The two female criminal defense lawyers were Patricia Connor and Carol Konkin, and the charges were harassing telephone calls as well as noncompliance with no-direct-contact bail condition with respect to each lawyer, filed on June 18.

For each Assault charge, after my initial arrest and a few days of custody I would be given bail on the condition of not returning to UBC Hospital. Inevitably I then returned because I was still in need of a specific medical-clearance letter only psychiatrists there could write. Then after more arrests and releases with the same bail condition I again failed to comply, I would be held without bail until trial.

Such was what happened for the first Assault charge. The main reason I was not charged additionally for my failure with the bail condition, I believe, was that the court saw a legitimate need on my part to go to UBC Hospital.

I remember Judge Ron Fratkin once asked me, “You kept promising not to return to UBC Hospital and then you went again. I know you need a letter. If I write to them to request an appropriate letter for you, will you promise me not to go there?” I felt Judge Fratkin’s request would not get me what I really wanted and yet I would be indebted to the judge not to go to UBC Hospital again or the consequence would likely be worse, so I gratefully declined his offer of help. This anecdote may have happened on May 18 when I was then denied bail until the May 28 trial.

But after my UBC Hospital arrest on June 2 for the second Assault charge the two female lawyers in Vancouver became more serious and complained to Vancouver Police about ‘harassing’ phone calls.

On June 7, Vancouver Police Constable S. A. Ciok responded to the first complaint – likely by Carol Konkin – and even tried to find me at my apartment, but determined it was a civil matter:

“… On June 4 GAO phoned this law office approx. 30 times & each time asked to speak to [… …] refused to speak to him & finally she did & told GAO not to phone again. On June 7 GAO began phoning again approx. 10-12 times. I was called & while there GAO phoned again. I spoke to him & advised him not to phone. GAO kept saying he didn’t understand. GAO phoned after I told him not to phone. I then went to visit his residence but no one was in.

I advised […] that this a Civil Matter and that possibly […] would have to get a Civil Order and also to contact B.C. Tel.”

The next day June 8, police officer R. Ogier responded to a complaint and went to #400 - 1 Alexander Street, Patricia Connor’s office address. Connor was upset with my phone calls since May 3 and told police an opposite story of what I tried to achieve:

“GAO has been assessed at UBC and apparently is fit, but […] believes GAO is trying to establish a pattern of charges, police involvement, and harassment so that he can be declared unfit and qualify for some type of U.I.C. benefits.”

Had I known that this kind of distorted presentation was Connor’s way, like another version of Dr. Harris’s hard-line stand, I would have stopped phoning her, ‘cold turkey’, so as not to ruin my goals.

Officer Ogier also mentioned the other lawyer in a similar situation. Finding that I had been arrested by RCMP on June 7 on another matter – why officer Ciok hadn’t found me at home that day – Ogier referred the case to Vancouver North Detective Office.

As I recall, not long afterwards in June my home phone was permanently disconnected by B.C. Tel due to excessive calling.

Detective Sturm’s June 18 report indicated that I was arrested again at UBC on June 13 and released on June 16, this time with new bail conditions of no contact with the two lawyers, and that on June 17 & 18 I phoned one of them twice and the other 26 times, and was arrested for breaching bail conditions.

I was arrested by Det. Sturm on June 18, but his note was callous as to what the exact bail conditions had been. Oddly, they were conditions of ‘no-direct-contact’, as the criminal charges on June 18 then stated:

“… fail without lawful excuse to comply with that condition in that he had direct contact with …”

Each of the two lawyers had a small office and the phone had been either answered by a receptionist or routed to voicemail or professional answering service, so I knew if I didn’t ask for the lawyer I wouldn’t break the bail condition. I don’t know what Judge J. R. Groberman’s rationale was but his ‘no-direct-contact’ rules confirmed my thinking of something legitimate in my perseverance.

The idea of perseverance had begun in the fall of 1991 when my UBC dispute with Maria Klawe first came to the open as in Part 4, that her deceptiveness and trickiness required my coping with her tactics like in game playing. Then in March 1993 Klawe had also stared leading a video game research project as mentioned earlier.

That is why out on bail after June 16 I phoned Carol Konkin’s office many times but Patricia Connor’s only twice: the ‘tricky’ Connor all of a sudden answered the phone herself – it had never happened before – so I only needed a second call to confirm she meant to see my bail revoked.

It was after I had taken on the additional charges with respect to the two female lawyers that lawyer Richard Dempsey visited me, showing willingness to call my testimony for the Assault trial, and I felt resigned now that women were involved – even if negatively like MP Kim Campbell and Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick back on November 30, 1992.

Without further explanation I also accepted Dempsey’s suggestion not to testify against the charges from the two female lawyers – I could not describe my rationale without sounding like “delusional”.

In mid-July Vancouver Police officer Ciok who had felt my persistent phoning was a civil matter, looked at it again and was surprised the case was at Richmond court: Vancouver Police Detective Sturm had requested Richmond Provincial Court, which had jurisdiction over UBC area under RCMP policing but not Vancouver with its own police force, to add the Vancouver no-contact conditions to my Assault charge bail.

In the July 27 trial I was acquitted of the harassing-phone-call charges. Judge J. R. Groberman understood I hadn’t been “with intent to harass a person”.

But on the basis of Patricia Connor’s resolute testimony I was found guilty of breaching a bail condition. During trial Judge Groberman did something I thought was judicially incorrect: he ordered the ‘no-direct-contact’ bail condition with regard to Connor upgraded to ‘no direct or indirect contact' – retroactively after the fact! I remember his morally admonishing attitude speaking toward me, that if someone didn’t want contact then any kind of it shouldn’t be attempted.

I didn’t appeal the verdict despite this judicial arbitrariness, knowing that Patricia Connor had personally answered my call for that matter.

I was acquitted with regard to phoning Carol Konkin, despite testimonies by witnesses Susan Gray and James Neufeld on my frequent calls to her office.

So it ended rather paradoxically, that I was guilty for 2 calls but not for 26 calls.

During the time period of the second Assault and phone-calls charges, a number of important events happened.

On June 13, the day I was arrested again at UBC Hospital before release a few days later with new bail conditions not to contact the two Vancouver female lawyers, Kim Campbell was elected leader of the Progressive Conservative party, who herself had been a UBC faculty member and Vancouver lawyer.

Then while I was in continuous pre-trial incarceration from June 18 onward, Campbell became Prime Minister on June 25 and, as discussed in Parts 5 & 6, on June 24 Mulroney appointed his personal financial trustee and lawyer Bruce Verchere as Board Chairman of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

Around that time my mother arrived in Vancouver as a visitor from China sponsored by some Vancouver relatives of hers, who had been concerned about my situation but hadn’t told me about their contact with her on this. In jail one day I received a phone call, and when totally unexpectedly I heard Mom’s voice telling she was in Vancouver I broke into tears, nearly unable to continue the conversation.

With my mother’s arrival the relatives also moved my belongings out of my apartment unit at 1640 West 11th Avenue in Vancouver – an address discussed in Part 5 regarding the interesting ‘64’ – as I had started owing back rent. We began a short period of stay with the relatives.

After the July 27 trial I was reunited with my mother whom I had not seen since my parents’ 1990 Canada visit.

But I didn’t receive an immediate discharge for the guilty bail violation due to phoning Patricia Connor as I had for the assault charge. Instead, Judge Groberman ordered a pre-sentencing evaluation and a forensic psychiatric assessment, with postponed sentencing that was later held on December 1.

In the meantime I was on bail with psychiatric-counselling condition included.

So UBC Hospital psychiatrist Dr. James Harris’s hard-line position that criminal justice have a forensic-psychiatry handle on me became reality.

In hindsight, things were not as clear-cut. I was likely to be found guilty for the second Assault charge given RCMP officer Brian Cotton’s appearance, but is it as obvious that the charge of bail violation due to phoning lawyer Patricia Connor was purely additional woe? If the justice system at that point had Dr. Harris’s idea of using a forensic psychiatric handle on me, then a prolonged bail/probation period for “assault”, i.e., ‘violence’, would have been the more troublesome.

By 2003 when I obtained institutional personal-information disclosures and began analyzing my 1990s period of political activism in Vancouver, I noticed that Patricia Connor’s law office had moved to 12 Gaoler’s Mews, in the same building lawyer David Gibbons had been in 1992 when I made my first law office visit as mentioned earlier – so Connor was the type of ‘Jailer’s Cage’ I had mistaken for a feminine cat calling out to me in 1993.

Anyways, in August 1993 after a few days of rest and catching up with Mom, I returned to UBC Hospital to try to get a re-assessment. The atmosphere was more relaxed, perhaps because UBC and RCMP had gotten a guilty verdict related to violence and a criminal-justice psychiatric handle they had wanted. I was referred to the hospital’s Crisis Clinic.

On August 12, resident psychiatrist Dr. A. Burgmann issued me a clearance assessment. Though not backdating to my February 12 release from the second psychiatric committal, for the first time a UBC Hospital assessment did not mention “delusional disorder”. He also referred me to Dr. A. M. Marcus, retired UBC psychiatrist in private practice, stating that Dr. Marcus could access UBC Hospital records and review the earlier period and the original diagnoses for me. Dr. Burgmann wrote:

“Thoughts: no formal thought disorder is identified. Nondelusional, no psychosis.

…

Provisional Diagnosis

…

Continuing conflicts with the University of British Columbia over his employment

…

Plan

Mr. Gao was originally referred to the Crisis Clinic… It was thought that a more appropriate treatment intervention would be by a psychiatrist in the community. Dr. A. Marcus was chosen due to the fact that he has much experience in forensic psychiatry and he may be apt in dealing with this difficult patient.”

On that day there was big news related to UBC Computer Science Department: the day before, August 11, computer programmer Martin Frauendorf had been bludgeoned to death as in Part 4.

On August 13, I phoned the probation office as required by bail and left a message. My mother and I had moved into a basement rental unit in a south Vancouver house, and B.C. Tel issued a new phone number, (604) 323-8110, to replace my disconnected number (604) 734-0095 that had been on my November 30, 1992 fax note to Member of Parliament Kim Campbell.

Still I wasn’t conscious of the fact that the UBC Hospital clearance was issued exactly 6 months from my last psychiatric-committal discharge when Dr. James Harris had stated it would take 3-6 months for medications to work on a delusional disorder.

In the meantime I incurred criminal charges, with a guilty verdict on violence envisioned by, and one for forensic psychiatric treatment suggested by Harris, and incarceration for about half of the nearly 8 months, November 30, 1992 – July 27, 1993, including about 3 months since I came under Dr. Harris on January 20.

(Continuing to Part 8)