Since eviction from my former office at University of British Columbia’s Computer Science Department on July 2 by RCMP, I hadn’t returned to UBC campus. From time to time I did make phone calls to a few former colleagues to continue discussing my dispute with Computer Science Head Maria Klawe over her controversial management style – including her handlings of a tenure-track offer to faculty candidate Pascal van Hentenryck and a tenure-track application by me – but these were specific persons who didn’t show a problem with it. An exception was when once or twice I reached Department administrative manager Carol Whitehead – someone mentioned in Part 4 of this article – close to Head Klawe.
In fact, when I heard the door knocks I thought, “Here comes the Vancouver Police”. I was on hold on the phone with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Vancouver TV station, and several days earlier CBC had threaten me with a criminal charge for “harassing” them if I didn’t stop phoning about removing Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from the national leadership as called for in my press releases. Both my apartment and CBC Vancouver were in Vancouver Police jurisdiction.
Sgt. Brian Cotton said that RCMP hadn’t heard from me since I left UBC in July and would like to see how I was doing. So I invited the two officers in.
I told them that following RCMP advice I hadn’t been back to UBC and was focusing on a civil lawsuit to resolve the dispute so there should be no concern. Cotton seemed to concur, but showed curiosity that I was on the phone, so I said I had been seeking publicity for my lawsuit and was on hold with CBC.
Sgt. Cotton frowned, saying, “Is that how you spend your time?” I responded that it was not only about the lawsuit but about some important issues regarding Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership.
Sgt. Cotton asked if he could speak to the other person – I told him it was a news producer – on the line, I said I was on hold so he asked for the phone number and redialled, and someone answered and spoke with him, miraculously – the CBC phone holds for me typically lasted as long as I waited, and redialling would only lead to a new hold before I had a chance to say something.
After the phone conversation, Cotton turned to me and said that CBC had asked me not to phone them or I could get a criminal charge. I replied that I understood but there were urgent issues about PM Mulroney’s leadership that needed attention.
Sgt. Cotton then said, “You need to come with us for a psychiatric assessment at UBC Hospital.”
I was taken aback, and responded that I had not been back to UBC, was perfectly normal as assessed by private psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Remick in April while still at UBC – mentioned in Part 4 – and it made no sense for RCMP to interfere with my publicity efforts when Vancouver Police did not intervene.
Sgt. Brian Cotton said he would insist so I asked, “Do I have to?” He replied, “You have to. It’s a request from Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick of the B.C. Supreme Court.”
It’s a shock to me! Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick was just the wife of my former UBC senior colleague David G. Kirkpatrick who had been a mentor during my 4 years there, consulted by me on various issues including in my dispute with Head Klawe for which he contributed insightful clarifications. But as discussed in Part 4, in the end Kirkpatrick, and especially his new associate Jack Snoeyink and former graduate student Andrew Martin, had crucial roles in things sliding toward negative for me.
Still, I continued to trust David, and after my July 2 eviction the first lawyer I visited, a female associate as I recall by the name of Mary at the law firm of lawyer David Gibbons, was referred by Pamela. It was in early July, and the thriving, family-type clientele there in Gastown in downtown Vancouver didn’t show off the colorfulness of a prominent lawyer whom a decade later was blamed by RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass as a main obstructionist to its investigation of the Air India bombing case from 1985, that Gibbons – not publicly named – had prevented his client suspect, both of whom since died in 2004, from cooperating with RCMP as it would be bad for the lawyer’s business. (“RCMP Boss Talks About Defence Lawyers Hampering the Air India Probe”, by Kim Bolan, January 8, 2011, The Vancouver Sun; and, “Trial faced ‘major setbacks,’ RCMP boss says”, January 8, 2011, Vancouver Sun).
In early July David Kirkpatrick at first said things were now out of his hands, suggesting that private psychiatrist Ronald Remick had encouraged me to file a lawsuit. I tried to reach Remick but he was out of town so I asked only for sleeping pills from his stand-in, (the late) Dr. Kristin Sivertz of St. Paul Hospital. Then David gave me the referral to Gibbons law firm, and in a later phone conversation informed me of Pamela’s pending promotion to become a B.C. Supreme Court Justice, to sit in New Westminster just southeast of Vancouver.
When I came to UBC in 1988, Pamela Kirkpatrick was a practicing lawyer with the law firm McCarthy & McCarthy, and in 1989 was appointed a Master of B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, dealing with routine chamber matters (“Nine lawyers named to new judicial group”, by Larry Still, September 22, 1989, The Vancouver Sun).
That was a time of national mergers for Canadian law firms.
In 1988 when he was part of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s entourage to celebrate U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s upcoming retirement, Mulroney’s financial trustee and tax lawyer Bruce Verchere was identified by the media only as an attorney with the Montreal law firm Verchere, Noel, Eddy (“Gala guests feted in style”, by Bob Hepburn, April 28, 1988, Toronto Star). But as journalist Stevie Cameron’s book, Blue Trust: The Author, the Lawyer, His Wife and Her Money also noted, in 1989 Verchere merged his firm of 22 lawyers with the 116-lawyer Calgary law firm Bennett Jones to become Bennett Jones Verchere, a major national law firm under his “taxation expertise” (“Bennett Jones joins eastern law firm”, November 1, 1989, Calgary Herald; and, “Book Reviews”, ed. by Franki Elliott, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1999, Canadian Law Libraries).
As a result of this 1989 merger Bruce Verchere had taken under his wing Calgary lawyers like John Major, whom was then appointed by Mulroney to the Supreme Court of Canada on November 13, 1992 as in Part 5.
After Pamela Kirkpatrick moved to B.C. Supreme Court in 1989, in February 1990 her law firm McCarthy & McCarthy in Toronto and Vancouver merged with Clarkson Tetrault in Ottawa and Montreal to become the largest Canadian law firm, McCarthy Tetrault with more than 450 lawyers (“Lawyer quits firm over misuse of funds $200,000 paid to numbered company”, November 13, 1990, The Globe and Mail; and, “Law firms’ merger trend gains”, by Jeff Adams, January 5, 1991, Calgary Herald). It was from this law firm in August 1992 Concordia University counsel Richard Beaulieu sent a controversial threatening letter to engineering professor Valery Fabrikant days before the latter’s murderous rampages – a letter that may have contributed to stimulating Fabrikant’s violent urge according to an independent review quoted in Part 5.
Thursday, November 26, 1992, was when CBC first threatened me with a criminal charge if I continued phoning about deposing Mulroney, and my response was that in that case I would expose the issues in the criminal court.
It turned out that the next day, Friday, November 27, was the official start of Pamela A. Kirkpatrick as a Justice of B.C. Supreme Court (“Current Justices of the Court of Appeal”, The Courts of British Columbia). I had no idea of the coincidence, but on Saturday phoned David Kirkpatrick about the latest feedback from CBC – Pamela was there and I told her about the CBC warning.
So in this context it wasn’t only the timing of RCMP Superintendent D. G. Cowley’s promotion in November 1990 that coincided with a political ‘crackdown’. Ms. Kirkpatrick today sits on British Columbia’s highest court, Court of Appeal, where there is also Harvey Groberman who – as in Part 5 – in November 1990 was a B.C. government lawyer working with Supt. Cowley to end native blockades.
Thus the unexpected demand from RCMP Sgt. Brian Cotton on November 30, 1992, if not thought of as a ‘betrayal’ like with David Kirkpatrick at UBC, was certainly more powerful than I could free myself from. But I didn’t have that degree of sense yet, still optimistic that a psychiatric assessment would easily clear me like earlier with Dr. Remick so I should be back that evening to continue with publicity attempts against Brian Mulroney’s leadership.
Strictly speaking, the RCMP did not show anything that Justice Kirkpatrick acted in an official capacity to compel me to take a psychiatric assessment, but I decided to cooperate as it was clear that RCMP could take a further step of who knew what if I didn’t. There was a coincidence that Justice Kirkpatrick was appointed to the Westminster courthouse which supervised suburban cities south of Vancouver, including Richmond where the provincial courthouse had jurisdiction over the UBC area.
Before leaving, Brian Cotton showed interest in the papers lying on my dining table doubled as a desk, so I gave him a copy of my fax to Member of Parliament Kim Campbell that morning – my press releases and a cover note. Cotton also had his fellow officer take a peek into the bedroom.
Once outside, I noticed that Cotton and his companion had arrived in separate unmarked police cars and he now sent the other officer to another duty.
Over a decade later when I reviewed RCMP personal-information disclosure in 2003, I began to suspect that in that afternoon of November 30, 1992 when Sgt. Brian Cotton sent his Constable companion to another duty, they were attempting to intercept the fax I had sent in the morning to the local constituency office of MP Kim Campbell.
Here is one crucial piece of evidence supporting this scenario. The November 1992 press releases sent to MP Kim Campbell and disclosed by RCMP in 2003 are not from the copy I had given to Brian Cotton, but from the copy received at Kim Campbell’s office, as the bottom of every page bears a line of marking from my fax at “9:47” that morning, where “BROADOAKS” was the fax shop at Broadway and Oaks Street not far from my apartment. At the top-right corner of each page of the press releases there is a date-stamp,
“Attached ToThe stamp denoted the press releases as attachment to the fax cover note, which was a brief letter to Kim Campbell. I didn’t use that kind of stamp and obviously the fax service wouldn’t tamper with the client’s document, so a question is whether Kim Campbell’s office or the RCMP stamped them. That RCMP has a copy from the fax received isn’t a surprise, as it will be explained later that a copy was officially forwarded to RCMP. But if it was an RCMP stamp then on that same day RCMP got hold of a copy right away.
Nov 30, 1992”
In the second RCMP personal-information disclosure in 2008, I found a page the content of which has been withheld, but which has a date-stamp of the same type,
“Attached ToSo my conclusion is more likely it was an RCMP date-stamp, but only ‘more likely’ because November 18, 1992 happened to be the day when Justice Department filed a Statement of Defence – as in Part 5 – to counter my lawsuit claims so this ‘blank’ page could have come from Justice Department’s Vancouver office, whilst Campbell happened to be Justice Minister, and her MP office also could use the same kind of stamp.
Nov 18, 1992”
In Sgt. Brian Cotton’s car as he was about to drive towards UBC, I suggested that we instead go to Vancouver General Hospital only a few blocks from my apartment. I reminded him that my pending lawsuit against UBC and RCMP meant taking me to UBC Hospital would be a conflict-of-interest situation for them.
Cotton replied that it had already been arranged at UBC, and then placed a call in his car to the office of Albert McClean, UBC Associate Vice President in charge of legal affairs, to ask for direction for after arrival at UBC Hospital. Recall as in Part 5, McClean had investigated my grievance against Head Klawe on behalf of UBC President David Strangway prior to my job’s end on June 30 and my eviction on July 2, so now the entire table including the top level of UBC was turned against me.
Once at University Hospital – UBC Site, events were recorded in the records for my emergency admission and start of psychiatric committal.
At the emergency department with the RCMP officer present I went through waiting and various interviews for about 3 and 1/2 hours before being committed into a psychiatric ward after two doctors, Dr. Alexander Bruce Morrison, emergency physician (normally on duty at the hospital’s Shaughnessy Site), and psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Luz Testa Schwartz, wrote the necessary medical certificates under the B.C. Mental Health Act.
My attending hospital was considered voluntary as the Nursing Assessment noted, but the psychiatric committal was not. The Mental Health Act required any committal of longer than 48 hours to have two medical certificates state that in the professional opinion the patient had a mental illness, and that involuntary hospitalization was needed for the protect of the patient or others.
Dr. Morrison’s certificate stated:
“Feeling of Persecution. He’s been threatening people with violence.”Dr. Schwartz’s certificate stated:
“He has been “very stressed” since he lost his job last July. He feels there is a conspiracy against him by Brian Mulroney & that he has been “framed”. He has been harassing C.B.C. trying to get his story in the news. Over the weekend he made threatening calls to colleagues.”Both certificates marked that I was brought by a police officer “under the provisions of Section 24(1) of the Act”, which I believe was an older version of the current Section 28 (1) outlining the conditions under which a police officer could “apprehend” and “immediately take” a person to psychiatric examination.
But at no time had I been “apprehended” by Sgt. Cotton.
As demonstrated in Part 5, in my fax cover note to MP Kim Campbell I had alleged a political persecution, likely from PM Brian Mulroney due to my criticism of his leadership and call for his removal. I also expressed a similar feeling in my phone calls to former colleagues and my conversation with Justice Kirkpatrick.
But had I been harassing CBC? That was the assertion of a CBC executive producer.
Had I been threatening anyone with violence? Absolutely not, if anyone felt threatened it would have been over my intent to expose a “conspiracy”.
The “collateral info” from RCMP officer Brian Cotton and police file put it this way:
“Last few weeks has been repeatedly contacting colleagues by phone to discuss this conspiracy. Also recently has been ‘harassing’ the CBC News to get media coverage for his plight. In addition, now believes that the conspiracy is originating from Brian Mulroney as Pt. has been sending the CBC a number of ‘press release’ criticizing the PM and his policies. Pt. apparently was told by an executive producer at the CBC on Thurs that his situation ‘was not top priority news’, and was warned that if he continued to harass them, the police would be contacted.”Note that the CBC warning of involving the police was given on Thursday, i.e., November 26, the day before Ms. Kirkpatrick officially became B.C. Supreme Court Justice. RCMP made it clear that it was “Madame Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick” who communicated with RCMP over concern for safety of others:
“On Saturday, called the home of his colleague in Comp Sci Dr. Kirkpatrick; happened to speak with his wife – Madame Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick – and told her that he was going to do something that would make media headlines. Apparently Ms. Kirkpatrick was concerned somewhat about the safety of her family & the safety of other faculty members, & police were informed. In addition, the Comp. Sci. building was closed down over the weekend in light of the potential threats.”But what was the source of the allegation of violence that caused such “concern” about safety of others, which the medical doctors took for facts?
It was the same old UBC incidents – particularly on March 16 – as discussed in Part 4, involving heated arguments with persons like instructor Vince Manis and graduate students Christopher Healey and Andrew Martin. Here is the RCMP info regarding that history:
“Well until earlier this year, when noted to make a few aggressive & compulsive gestures towards other faculty members in the Dept of Computer Science at UBC. Police has a statement from another faculty member dated Mar 16th, in which Pt. walked past him, swore, then threw a coffee cup for no apparent reason. Pt. then pushed faculty member, who was urged by colleagues to file a formal complaint with police, so this had occurred previously but had not been officially documented.”As I recall that would have been Andrew Martin extending his arm to block my path as if to pick a fight after I had tossed out water in my coffee mug but not toward him, and I pushed his arm away to walk past.
In Part 4 some email exchanges with various Computer Science persons have been discussed, most noticeably those dated March 16 with Chris Healey. Did I appear aggressive or use foul words in some of them? Foul words were used, but in the proper context of the political situation I was only expressing anger in a righteous manner, without the intent of aggression or violence.
But my temper tantrums, provoked by certain UBC persons with grievous agendas, were then used as the pretence to involve the police and to falsely accuse me as violent and mentally ill. As in Part 5, Cpl. Nancy McKerry and her RCMP superiors further fabricated facts and redefined the incident of my July 2 arrest to perpetuate the myth of mental instability and potential violence – partly at the urging of UBC to heighten the fear and bundle me with multiple murderer Valery Fabrikant of Concordia University in Montreal.
What else was new in Justice Kirkpatrick’s concern for “the safety of her family & the safety of other faculty members” as referred to in a quote above? Not that I am aware of regarding me, as I had known Mrs. Kirkpatrick since 1988 and was never given any impression of concern. On the other hand, as noted earlier in August her former law firm McCarthy Tetrault’s Richard Beaulieu had sent a threatening letter to Valery Fabrikant on behalf of Concordia University that may have helped trigger Fabrikant’s violent urge – a real source of concern.
But UBC would go to great length to suppress the wrong person, using a fake doctor’s referral to make the psychiatric committal appear legitimate: Dr. Morrison stated in the Emergency Record and Admission Note that a “Dr. J. Linesley [?]” phoned in a message to refer me to psychiatry in arrangement with a Computer Science faculty member. I had no knowledge of such a doctor, my family doctor was Dr. James Lai, and UBC had no right to impose a medical referral from a doctor who hadn’t seen me.
Another major concern is the Admission Note’s stating that on Wednesday, i.e., November 25, I had found out that my “Professor of Philosophy” father in China was hospitalized for “heart disease”. Father and son were now both hospitalized – father had to in China but that didn’t mean son had to in Canada.
As indicated in Part 5, RCMP Commissioner Norman Inkster has just been acclaimed INTERPOL president on November 10 – the same day when I first sent out press releases – after a Chinese candidate had withdrawn in his favor, and Alberta Justice John Major had just been appointed Supreme Court of Canada Justice on November 13, who happened to share his annual birthday with my father and share certain law firm connection with Mulroney the public were not aware of.
“Paranoid ideation” appeared to be what RCMP officer Brian Cotton alleged from the outset as recorded in the Admission Note, and so the main diagnosis was “Paranoid Delusional Disorder”, with differential diagnoses of “manic depression”, “adjustment disorder”, “schizophrenia” and “organic psychosis”.
That would mean a lot of life-endangering, false medical disease hunts.
Fortunately, after my transfer to the psych ward the diagnoses there eased considerably. The psychiatrist who interviewed me first at Ward 2 West, Dr. Peter Chan, gave his diagnosis as “Delusional Disorder, Persecutory Type”, clearly identifying it with my political mindset, which might not have perceived reality correctly but to an intellectual professional was not “paranoid” as to RCMP.
Nonetheless, I was prescribed the anti-psychotic medication Haldol that had very discomforting and risky side effects, and Ativan to counter some of them.
I was then interviewed by the ward’s supervising psychiatrist, Dr. Laura Chapman, who immediately tried to increase the severity of the diagnosis:
“This man is suffering from a psychotic illness which appears to be most probably a Delusional Disorder of persecutory type with a differential diagnosis of Schizophrenia.A delusional disorder was likely a temporary mental misperception of reality, but schizophrenia was a disease of the brain that normally couldn’t be cured and the psychiatric means could be permanent to override my political interests against my “desire”.
He has persecutory delusions relating to the Head of Computer Science – Dr. Crowley who he believes dismissed him unjustly. He has the desire to “retaliate” stating he will do so by notifying the media of her “wrong doings”, notifying his MP and also his lawyer. He believes Dr. Crowley has been harassing him by sending the RCMP to his home.”
Was that Dr. Chapman’s honest medical opinion? Her note above didn’t show anything medical about the situation, with her diagnosis based on what I desired to do politically, all peaceful and within my rights to do: contacting the media, my Member of Parliament and my lawyer.
Was her diagnosis of possible schizophrenia politically motivated then?
There are signs in these notes to suggest so. Sgt. Brian Cotton had misquoted Computer Science Head Dr. Maria Klawe’s name as “Dr. Maria Calway”, and here Dr. Chapman referred to Dr. Klawe as “Dr. Crowley”. But there was no one of such names I knew of, and a UBC department head had no power “sending RCMP” to my home.
On the next page of notes Dr. Chapman wrote:
“– collateral: RCMP & Dr. Cowley.”Again there wasn’t a Dr. Cowley, but as discussed in Part 5 RCMP Vancouver Subdivision commander in 1992, Superintendent D. G. Cowley, was involved in decisions against me, particularly over my civil lawsuit filed in October.
So it looks like Dr. Laura Chapman misused a name referring to the authority, and that is now very revealing: she kept the option of “schizophrenia” diagnosis open likely at a request from a higher political level, probably through Supt. Cowley, so that more permanent psychiatric means would be available for political suppression.
Dr. Chapman then made a phone call to Staff Sergeant (J. B.) Jansen of UBC RCMP, whose “collateral info” also confirmed the political motive of this RCMP-led psychiatric intervention.
So-called“quasi-violent” behavior on campus was the reason RCMP went to my apartment according to S/Sgt. Jansen, behavior such as throwing an ashtray at someone -- These had been the same kind of allegations from March, and reviewed by Cpl. McKerry prior to my July 2 arrest and then by Jansen on August 25 who concluded it was essentially a civil dispute, as in Part 5. As for the ‘ashtray’, I didn’t smoke and had none.
Jansen admitted there were no weapons in my apartment, no restraining order against me, and he was not aware of any specific threat against others –- In that case, Jansen’s conclusion in August was right that my situation was unrelated to Valery Fabrikant’s at Concordia University and shouldn’t be stretched further into this psychiatric intervention.
Jansen stated I phoned CBC frequently, and phoned UBC Computer Science Department members who “apparently “welcomed” these” –- So clearly I only kept contact with former colleagues who “welcomed” it, and the “violence” allegations were from some others to smear me politically.
Jansen said I phoned Justice Kirkpatrick, and that I accused PM Mulroney of retribution:
“Feng was talking about PM Mulroney being involved in a conspiracy & that P.M. was personally involved in taking retribution on him.”That I think was the real reason RCMP officers suddenly went to my apartment on November 30 after I had faxed documents critical of Mulroney to MP Kim Campbell.
Jansen stated that it was RCMP decision for “hospitalization for assessment” on my “level of agitation”:
“Feng’s level of agitation has ↑ over past 2-3 moAs the earlier quotes have shown, RCMP officer Brian Cotton and possibly Supt. D. G. Cowley wanted real psychiatric diagnoses and got them.
∵ RCMP felt that hospitalization for assessment was warranted.”
Two days after my initial psychiatric committal, Pamela Kirkpatrick’s November 27 appointment as B.C. Supreme Court Justice was officially reported on December 2, as announced by Justice Minister Kim Campbell (“2 city women among 3 judges to be sworn in to B.C. Supreme Court”, December 2, 1992, The Vancouver Sun):
“Pamela Kirkpatrick, is appointed to the court in New Westminster. She replaces Justice Thomas Fisher, who has become a supernumary judge, meaning he hears cases on a part-time basis.Besides supressing my accusations of Prime Minister Mulroney in a political scandal, blocking my civil lawsuit was another RCMP objective, which Supt. Cowley had expressed on October 14 as in Part 5.
…
The appointments, which pay an annual salary of $147,800, were announced in Ottawa by federal Justice Minister Kim Campbell.
Kirkpatrick graduated from the University of B.C. law school in 1977 and was called to the bar a year later. She practised with the law firm of McCarthy and McCarthy before she was appointed a Supreme Court Master three years ago. Masters preside in chambers hearings.”
Dr. Alexander Bruce Morrison’s notes on November 30 recorded that I had contacted my lawyer over the weekend – the same weekend when I spoke to Justice Kirkpatrick about political persecution in a “conspiracy” – who then spoke to UBC lawyer but the latter instead accused me of threatening UBC staff.
So now on December 3 my lawyer Brian Mason received a phone call, and a letter on December 4 from Dr. M. O. Agbayewa, Officer-in-Charge at UBC Hospital Department of Psychiatry, to notify him of my involuntary committal, noting that I could appeal to a Review Panel:
“We must, of course, discharge him if a Review Panel or other legally constituted body orders his discharge irrespective of our perceptions regarding his readiness for community care. Dr. Gao has been made aware of his rights to appeal the Medical Certificates to the Review Panel …”On the day of this December 4 letter from UBC Hospital to my lawyer, RCMP S/Sgt. (Norman) Medley who had signed for Supt. D. G. Cowley on October 5 to terminate the investigation for my public complaint about the July 2 arrest as in Part 5, now added a footnote to that document:
“Dec – 4 1992 – update of civil suit.”Obviously UBC Hospital had up-to-date consultation with RCMP about me. There was no other lawsuit activity given my committal.
The mental-health laws were not Brian Mason’s specialty and I was short of money, so I applied to Community Legal Assistance Society and B.C. Civil Liberties Association and was appointed Bert Haughian from CLAS and K. Turkson from BCCLA as my advocates, who were given record access by Anne McCarthy in Dr. Agbayewa’s office on December 17, a day before the panel hearing on December 18.
In the meaning time, I tried another to way to counter the psychiatric oppression, by writing a letter to Member of Parliament Kim Campbell – possibly also addressing her as Justice Minister – to complain about it as political persecution from the Mulroney government.
Dr. Peter Chan recorded on December 7:
“Faxing letter to Kim Campbell, delusions of persecution by ‘political higher powers’ and ‘the government’ involved in conspiracy to keep him here.”To this day I have not been able to locate a copy of this second letter to Kim Campbell in any of the personal-information disclosures, unlike with my November 30 fax which the RCMP later disclosed a copy to me in 2003. I recall that this December 7 letter was faxed to lawyer Brian Mason who immediately forwarded it to Kim Campbell’s local MP office.
Dr. Chan’s interviews also touched on personal issues, such as personal friendship, or the lack of:
“– Friends:
:
– Girlfriend:
:not difficult to get along with others
but hard to become ‘deeply involved’ with people
lasted 4-5 years in China, began age 20
ended because Feng moved.
– Canadian citizen since July/92”My complaint about political persecution targeting me aside, some of my criticisms of Prime Minister Mulroney’s approach to constitutional reform have been reviewed in my 2009 blog posts on Canadian politics, where I discussed the disagreeing perspectives between Mulroney and his Constitutional Affair Minister Joe Clark (“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 9)”):
“In spite of its shortcomings, the Pearson accord was an important milestone in the Canadian constitutional saga: as the first constitutional agreement – since the failed Meech Lake accord – between the federal government and all provinces except Quebec, all territories and official aboriginal representatives, it greatly surpassed the Meech Lake accord and opened new horizons; it would significantly extend the 1982 Constitution – which did not have Quebec’s consent either – albeit somewhat unconventionally in its enshrinement of specific rights for specific ethnic/cultural minorities; most importantly, the Pearson accord was only a blueprint to be revised and refined by an expected first ministers conference to reach a final accord.Mulroney’s personal supervision of the final constitutional negotiation, turning the July 7 Pearson Accord reached under Clark which Quebec was not part of into the August 28 Charlottetown Accord with Quebec in the agreement, had a sabotage role as I felt in November 1992.
But prime minister Brian Mulroney was not that happy that an accord was reached with him away at the G-7 summit in Munich, Germany, although it was not unexpected to him that the premiers were – in his words – going “to effect a compromise situation”; he was described as “taken aback”, especially that the accord included a Triple-E Senate (really a 2.5-E Senate as previously discussed) when he had made clear that it would not be his choice, be it Equal or Effective (as in real Senate power); according to a press story, former Australian Prime Minister Robert Hawke had convinced Mulroney that a powerful Senate could paralyze the House of Commons.”
As in my blog post, B.C. MP Chuck Cook in Mulroney’s Tory party had openly expressed fear of Mulroney’s machination:
“Chuck Cook, Tory MP for North Vancouver, B.C., became openly critical of both Mulroney and Bourassa for what might be in the works between them, saying he was “scared to death”:An episode of events in Quebec during the Charlottetown constitutional referendum campaign from September to October 1992, then showed that despite the Charlottetown Accord being touted as a major concession to Quebec and a credit to Mulroney’s leadership, some important Quebec negotiators felt it was sabotaged.
“I’m scared to death of this,” Cook (PC-North Vancouver) said. “I fear what Mulroney and Bourassa will come out with. I fear it could blow the whole agreement apart.”
… ”
This episode also had an eerie air of coincidence to what would happen to me later on November 30.
A phone conversation between Diane Wilhelmy and Andre Tremblay, Quebec constitutional-affairs officials under Premier Robert Bourassa, was leaked to the media. It was very critical of the final negotiation and certain negotiation tactics, using words like “national disgrace” and “humiliation” to describe what happened to Quebec at the negotiating table. Their laments included calling Ontario constitutional-affairs official David Cameron “profoundly hypocritical”, who curiously happened to be anti-corruption journalist Stevie Cameron’s husband. Before the phone conversation was widely reported in Quebec, a lawyer for Wilhelmy applied to the court to prevent its publication.
The press ban attempt didn’t succeed but the lawyer, Gerald Tremblay, was with the same law firm where Concordia University counsel Richard Beaulieu was, and B.C. Supreme Court Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick had been, i.e., McCarthy Tetrault (“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)”):
“If one wonders whether Brian Mulroney was mindful, then and later, of how some Quebecers loathed David Cameron’s role in the 1992 Charlottetown constitutional process, and of the fact that Cameron’s wife Stevie Cameron was a journalist-author writing about corruptions in his government, one can take note of the following fact which seems to have been overlooked: Mulroney not only publicly acknowledged during the October 1992 referendum campaign for the Charlottetown accord that the prospect of its passing was hurt by the Wilhelmy affair, but when the Airbus Affair became the top news story in November 1995 partly thanks to publicity from Stevie Cameron’s second bestselling book, On the take: crime, corruption and greed in the Mulroney years, Mulroney would choose lawyer Gerald Tremblay of the law firm McCarthy Tetrault as his lead lawyer for the $50 million defamation lawsuit against the RCMP and the Canadian government – the same lawyer previously representing Diane Wilhelmy in September 1992 trying to get a court injunction to prevent the phone conversation tape (and its transcript) from being aired by the media in Quebec (a partial transcript quoted above had been published in Ontario).”As the above quote indicates, Gerald Tremblay later became Mulroney’s lawyer in the 1995 Airbus Affair.
But unlike with the Wilhelmy affair, I didn’t attempt to air criticisms of Mulroney’s constitutional-affairs conduct until after the Charlottetown Accord had been defeated in the October 26 national referendum.
The choice of University Hospital – UBC Site, for the RCMP-led psychiatric intervention despite my suggestion of Vancouver General Hospital contradicted the alleged basis of the use of involuntary psychiatry, namely that I was threatening UBC staff with “violence”. Shouldn’t I be kept far away from that university then?
There might be a more malignant agenda behind the apparent contradiction. by December 9-10 I was allowed to walk around the campus as no violent intent was observed, but with a precautionary reminder not to go to Computer Science Building. Visiting the main library I ran into David Kirkpatrick, namely husband of Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick, and as cautioned I didn’t go to Computer Science Building.
I recall David Kirkpatrick saying to me at the time that I should accept what had happened.
But what kind of arrangement was it, that someone persistently accused by certain others in a university department as having had “violent” or “quasi-violent” behavior and a source of concern for violence like a murderer had done at another university, would be brought to the campus as a psychiatric patient against his will “for the safety of others”, where he could walk around, and even go to that department against psychiatrists’ advice had he chosen to?
In my mind it was an escalating ‘trap’ possibly to activate ‘institutional violence’ against me: had I gone to Computer Science Building it would have generated a harder complaint by some about the ‘danger’; given my status as an involuntary mental patient brought in by police in consultation with a court justice, ‘electroshock’ could be next.
A modern version of that, a police taser, as discussed in Part 5 killed Robert Dziekanski on October 14, 2007, who looked “largish” but turned out to have a “pre-existing heart condition” (“Report Following a Public Interest Investigation into a Chair-Initiated Complaint Respecting the Death in RCMP Custody of Mr. Robert Dziekanski: Appendix T – Medical Assessments”, Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP).
In November-December 1992 my father had been hospitalized for “heart disease” as per the UBC Hospital notes, so the scheme was more than “hypocritical” but could be diabolical.
It begs the question of what the factors were behind the politics that made it so nasty in the preference of some persons, when it wasn’t even a matter of violence but management behavior and political-leadership conduct in my perspective.
In Part 3 I have outlined intriguing cases of deadly violence in my environments dating back for many years, including with victims in the UBC Computer Science community: the unresolved murder of Rick Sample in 1989, and later the brutal murder of Martin Frauendorf in 1993. But I have not presumed these deaths to have direct relations to the politics of my focus.
There were however, unbeknown to me, additional political intrigues beyond UBC and RCMP when in October 1992 I switched to the venue of civil legal action.
I went through many Vancouver law firm from July through September before meeting lead lawyer Brian Mason of Maitland & Company, who was essentially the only one to agree to do it – with RCMP also as a defendant at the advice of some lawyers I had met.
On October 6 on our way to file the lawsuit, Mr. Mason who had UBC double-major degrees in Math and Physics mentioned with great conviction a favourite scientist of his, Richard Feynman. I was familiar with Feynman’s role inquiring into the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster but not with his involvement in the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb, and I didn’t know that Mason had worked at Atomic Energy Canada Limited – like former UBC Computer Science Acting Head Jim Kennedy and later Mulroney’s financial trustee and lawyer Bruce Verchere as in Part 4 – though only as a summer intern in the year Feynman received Nobel Prize in Physics. (“Richard Feynman and the Challenger Explosion”, in Melvin Joesten, Mary E. Castellion and John L. Hogg, The World of Chemistry: Essentials, 2007, Thomson Books; and, “Brian Alan Mason”, Maitland & Company)
Afterwards, I said to Mason that my priority now was to get publicity for the lawsuit, as I viewed it as a management-style issue and I also had opinions about Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership which I wouldn’t mind also raising.
Mason responded that he had represented a lawsuit against earlier B.C. Premier Bill Vander Zalm’s former principal secretary David Poole, and it was a front-page story. But he quickly added that I would have to do my own publicity, and I replied that my goal was only to get it into the serious news section.
I knew who David Poole was, not because I had a former UBC Computer Science colleague by the same name, originally from Australia via University of Waterloo in Ontario, who back in 1988 was a fellow new faculty member with me, incoming Department Head Maria Klawe and her husband Nicholas Pippenger.
But I didn’t know that the 1987-89 case Brian Mason represented, on the sideline of the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute, was the first public challenge to Bill Vander Zalm’s premiership, featuring former cabinet minister Jack Kempf as a star witness and including then B.C. Deputy Attorney General Ted Hughes as a defendant (“Vander Zalm lied on talks, Kempf charges”, by Keith Baldrey and Phil Needham, November 25, 1989, The Vancouver Sun):
“Premier Bill Vander Zalm lied publicly about not knowing of “secret” talks between former forests minister Jack Kempf and a U.S. lumberman on lumber tariffs and ordered an investigation that was nothing more than a “charade,” B.C. Supreme Court was told Friday.As if an ominous sign for my case later, the Ted Hughes portion of the legal claims was quickly dismissed by the court, and the entire lawsuit was subsequently dismissed in late 1989 after all the media publicity.
…
Asked by plaintiff’s counsel Brian Mason if he could comment on Kuehne’s testimony without breaching cabinet confidentiality, Kempf said: “Cabinet confidentiality be damned.
“The premier and cabinet knew about my calls to and from Mr. Kuehne. I’m sure that (David) Poole (Vander Zalm’s principal secretary at the time) knew because he sat in on practically every cabinet meeting - so much for confidentiality.
“To emphasize my point, the premier on a TV newscast lied to the people of B.C. with respect to not knowing of my conversations on the phone and of a meeting in Mount Vernon with Mr. Kuehne.”
The testimony went far afield of the issues in the trial, defence lawyer Peter Butler complained, but B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lloyd McKenzie allowed Mason to elicit the evidence.
Mason is representing Peter Griffiths, a former independent logging operator who wrote a freelance column on forestry in Equity magazine from 1984 to 1987.
Griffiths claims he was defamed in statements by Poole to the press alleging he was misrepresenting himself as Vander Zalm’s personal emissary while monitoring the softwood-lumber dispute between the U.S. and Canada. Griffiths also claims deputy attorney-general Ted Hughes tried to restrict his access to the premier.
…
Vander Zalm asked then-attorney-general Brian Smith to obtain details about the alleged secret negotiations and report back to him with any recommendations. Smith directed Hughes to conduct an informal investigation.”
Ironically, when Premier Vander Zalm – an ex-Mayor of Surrey where not only RCMP Cpl. Nancy McKerry as in Part 5 but lawyer Brian Mason were residents – was then embroiled in the Fantasy Gardens scandal over the private sale of his family’s Richmond theme park to Taiwanese Filipino tycoon Tan Yu, and resigned in late March 1991 after some of his business practices were publicized, a key factor forcing him to step down was a critical investigation by Ted Hughes, the first Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner Vander Zalm had recently appointed on October 1, 1990. (“Conflict launches Hughes’ new career”, by Vaughn Palmer, October 2, 1990, The Vancouver Sun; and,“Ex-premier holds his ground; Vander Zalm says Hughes’ investigation was ‘intimidating, strange’”, Keith Fraser, February 3, 2012, The Province)
Vander Zalm was outed by Chinese Canadian realtor Faye Leung for pocketing $20,000 small cash for the multi-million dollar deal. At the time Leung was near bankruptcy, under pressure from an RCMP fraud investigation and from a lawsuit initiated by her former business partners Chien Hsuing Lin and Chung Chu Lin, which forced the money for her share of the Fantasy Gardens sale commission to be sent to the court instead. (“Faye's fall: Ambitious real-estate agent hustled the deal of a lifetime, then saw her career crumble”, by Gordon Hamilton, February 16, 1991, The Vancouver Sun; “The much-commended and mercurial woman who has plenty to say about B.C. Premier William Vander Zalm and his involvement in Fantasy Gardens is proud of her connections Agent cherishes role of ambassador”, March 25, 1991, The Globe and Mail; and, “The rise and fall of Bill Vander Zalm”, by Ken MacQueen, March 30, 1991, The Gazette)
The Lins’ lawyer who launched the lawsuit on October 10, 1990 was Scott Griffin, who kept a low profile in court proceedings and in the media but in fact was with Justice Kirkpatrick’s former law firm McCarthy Tetrault: for example his address for his clients in the Van's Nurseries Inc. v. Leung case at the B.C. Court of Appeal, heard in court on August 20, 1992 – around the time when McCarthy Tetrault’s Richard Beaulieu in Montreal sent a controversial threatening letter to Valery Fabrikant as in Part 5 – was #1300, 777 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, which has long been McCarthy Tetrault’s address in Vancouver.
That was curiously interesting, because from my knowledge visiting Vancouver law firms in 1992, #1300 is an office tower’s 13th floor which many of the Vancouver Downtown office towers skipped due to ‘bad luck’ superstition; but apparently McCarthy Tetrault liked Number 13.
At the time I was familiar with the Bill Vander Zalm-Faye Leung-Ted Hughes stories as in the media, but not the Jack Kempf story lawyer Brian Mason had tried to get out, or any McCarthy Tetrault connection to the Vander Zalm saga.
I was also aware of a claim by then B.C. Lieutenant Governor David Lam, another famous Chinese Canadian, that if Vander Zalm hadn’t resigned he was prepared to fire the premier at that point (“Former B.C. Premier Bill Vander Zalm defines ‘unrepentant’”, by Vaughn Palmer, February 11, The Vancouver Sun). After my July 2 eviction, UBC Faculty Association’s vice president for legal affairs suggested that I take my grievance further to the Lieutenant Governor in his role as Visitor to the university by British law. I tried and had a phone conversation with Mr. Lam’s executive secretary whose name I recall as John Roberts, who let me know that Lieutenant Governor Lam typically would not intervene in cases like mine.
Another provincial organ at which I filed a grievance was Ombudsman’s Office, which at the time had its first woman at the helm, Ombudswoman Dulcie McCallum (“Our Honorary Patrons: Dulcie McCallum, Shelagh Rogers, Margaret Trudeau”, British Columbia Division, Canadian Mental Health Association ), and that office quickly determined that my case fell outside its jurisdiction.
Both attempts were found futile prior to the October 1992 filing of my civil lawsuit.
As in the above quote, in the 1989 legal litigation against David Poole by independent logging operator and journalist Peter Griffiths, Poole’s side was represented by lawyer Peter Butler, who was a flamboyant business lawyer at Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy, one of Vancouver’s oldest elite law firms.
By late 1991 Peter Butler became Bill Vander Zalm’s defence lawyer and in late June 1992 – days before my UBC eviction – won an acquittal from B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice David Campbell for a criminal charge stemming from the Fantasy Gardens scandal, the first “breach of trust” charge for any premier in the British Commonwealth. (“Ex-B.C. premier not guilty Vander Zalm no criminal: judge”, by Ken MacQueen, June 26, 1992, The Spectator).
In October 1992 UBC chose Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy as its lawyer, after lawyer Brian Mason and I filed my lawsuit. UBC’s statement of defence was filed by Jack Giles, a lawyer as successful and nearly as prominent as Peter Butler.
Jack Giles was much more controversial, to the point of being notorious.
As in Part 3 I had arrived in Vancouver, i.e., in Canada, on August 24, 1988 to start work at UBC, unaware that it was an anniversary date of the Sterling Hall Bombing at the University of Wisconsin in the anti-Vietnam War era, for which Leo Frederick Burt, one of America’s Most Wanted, fled to Canada and has never been caught.
Four years later the Valery Fabrikant murders at Concordia University discussed in Part 5 also occurred on August 24.
The very day I arrived happened to be when then B.C. Ombudsman Stephen Owen issued a public report condemning Premier Vander Zalm’s government for intrusive spying on a pro-abortion group, spying supervised by Jack Giles and his firm Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy reporting to B.C. Attorney General Brian Smith and Vander Zalm’s principal secretary David Poole (“Watchdog condemns B.C. for spying on pro-choice group”, August 25, 1988, The Globe and Mail):
“The Ombudsman found that former attorney-general Brian Smith used “questionable judgment” in employing a law firm and private investigators last year to gather information about the Concerned Citizens for Choice on Abortion, and he did not place adequate regulatory controls on them.So these were the kind of powerful ‘nemeses’ my former colleague and mentor David Kirkpatrick and his wife, new Justice of B.C. Supreme Court Pamela Kirkpatrick were drawing me into facing, while underhanded tactics were deployed against me by Kirkpatrick’s associates who appeared like “members” of political activism as in Part 4.
…
What complicated the investigation, Mr. Owen said, was that Mr. Smith’s instructions to lawyer Jack Giles were made orally, as were the reports by Mr. Giles to Mr. Smith and by Mr. Smith to Mr. Vander Zalm’s principal secretary, David Poole.
…
The investigators, hired by the Vancouver law firm of Farris, Vaughn, Wills and Murphy, became members of the pro-choice group and over a period of several months obtained membership and donor lists as well as tape recordings made at public meetings.”
On December 16, two days before the Mental Health Review Panel hearing on my appeal of the psychiatric committal, Kirkpatrick’s former graduate student Andrew Martin wrote another letter to accuse me of being violent and mentally ill, this time at the request of Computer Science Head Maria Klawe and sent to Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy – as in Part 4 Martin had written one in April to UBC Associate Vice President Albert McClean to counter my grievance against Klawe.
This December 16 letter from Andrew Martin was addressed to lawyer Keith Mitchell, who years later would succeed Peter Butler as the lead lawyer for that law firm. It accused me of throwing out water from my coffee mug across his path in the Computer Science Building hallway, and speaking toward him using words like “f**k” and “dog”.
As a result of this Andrew Martin letter and other UBC documents from the Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy lawyers, my Review Panel hearing was postponed for several days. Fortunately they didn’t succeed in keeping me under forced committal more permanently.
Some appearances of political conflict of interest in this law firm were quite startling, which I have noticed studying the lawyer profiles, but which have apparently been overlooked by the community.
While Peter Butler and Jack Giles at Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy served as henchmen for the former Vander Zalm government and for some of the very controversial business practices in British Columbia and in Canada, their law firm partners Frank Murphy and Keith Mitchell were long-time fundraisers and representatives for the federal Liberal party in British Columbia, including under Jean Chretien who would defeat Brian Mulroney’s successor Kim Campbell in 1993 to become Prime Minister.
So while the political persecution involving psychiatric measures would last, on and off, until August 1995 and I wouldn’t be employed until June-July 1996, I read press stories like the following about how cozy Keith Mitchell was with Prime Minister Chretien, and how much the Liberals’ ties to the mental-health field went back to “Pierre Trudeau times” (“Chocolate swans ended ‘welfare bash’”, by Malcolm Parry, March 14, 1996, The Vancouver Sun):
“JUST DESSERT, PLEASE . . . Anyone having a baby or looking to make bail Monday night would have found a doctor or lawyer among 2,200 or so professional-looking types joining provincial Liberal leader Gordon Campbell at a $250-per-plate dinner of wild-mushroom salad and steelhead with saffron scallops.One of the others mentioned along with lawyers Murphy and Mitchell, David McLean (David G. McLean), was a former Chairman of UBC Board of Governors.
Tables were loaded with B.C. wines donated by Calona, Peller, Jackson Triggs and Sumac Ridge, though not Cedar Creek, whose owner, Ross Fitzpatrick, stepped down recently as Prime Minister Jean Chretien's B.C. lieutenant. That was soon after Campbell gave the Ottawa cabinet and caucus a behind-closed-doors bashing at their recent Vancouver get-together.
Some of the federal Grits who showed up Monday speculated Fitzpatrick will have two successors, one of them to be picked from well-connected longtime party hands David McLean, David McPhee, Frank Murphy, Keith Mitchell or possibly Doug Leung. The other is likely to be Burnaby Association for the Mentally Handicapped development director Ethel Cherneski, whose ties go back to Pierre Trudeau times.”
Such reminds me of the ‘togetherness’ of Queen’s University’s 2004 honorary-degree ‘bash’ for Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney’s in-law Lewis Lapham and Maria Klawe, among others at Andrew Martin’s alma mater as covered in Part 5.
Despite the concerted efforts involving some within RCMP, UBC and its law firm to maximize the psychiatric oppression, a relatively positive psychology consultation report was helpful for my Review Panel appeal. I was interviewed on December 15 by psychologists Dr. J. Lenz and Dr. W. J. Koch:
“He spoke English with a Chinese accent, but his grammar was impeccable, and his vocabulary was extensive. His presentation and his history both indicated a man of very high intelligence, and he demonstrated a good understanding of differences between Chinese and North American cultures.Among the psychologists’ conclusions was an interesting social comment:
…
Mr. Gao evidenced no disorder of thought process. He denied hallucinations or perceptual abnormalities, and he was able to converse on most subjects without any indication of psychopathology. However, when discussing his former job or the university or Canadian politics, his conversation strongly indicated the presence of a nonbizarre delusional system involving his persecution by the Chair of the Computer Science Department subsequent to disagreements over departmental hiring practices. … He reported that he believes his current hospitalization has been brought about by his enemies in order to discredit him and encourage him to withdraw his lawsuit against the university. Mr. Gao evidenced an ability to listen to alternative points and alternative explanations concerning his difficulties; however, he is deeply convinced that his interpretation is correct, and he remains certain that he is suffering from no mental disorder.”
“Mr. Gao’s personality style has clearly predisposed him to emphasis on societal rules and thereby to his conviction that leaders who harm others must be confronted. In addition, it has been described that immigrants have an increased risk of developing delusional disorder. …”Political conviction and immigrant background could add up to delusional disorder – well, at least not like “paranoid ideation” in the opinion of RCMP officer Brian Cotton.
In addition to Delusional Disorder of Persecutory Type, the psychologists suggested Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder.
A delayed Review Panel hearing was held on December 21 and the decision was for my discharge. Psychiatrist Dr. Laura Chapman prepared a discharge report, which contained interesting details.
The evidence in it showed that I was in fact quite normal:
“Feng was quite cooperative and reasonably accessible. He had quite a forthright manner and talked with great conviction about his concerns of corruption in the government and the university. There were no abnormalities of speech, eye contact, or psychomotor activity. … As mentioned, he expressed persecutory delusional ideas for which there was no evidence in reality. There was no perceptual disturbance and he had minimal insight and somewhat impaired judgment.”Obviously my allegations about Head Maria Klawe couldn’t have been all correct given that I didn’t even know there was RCMP Supt. D. G. Cowley involved. Assuming Dr. Chapman knew as she had used the name “Cowley” for “Klawe” in her December 1 notes, hiding it from me wasn’t an issue as it was RCMP’s decision anyway but attributing my ignorance of it as psychiatric “delusion” was unprofessional.
The discharge report also showed that there was no violent intent even when I tried to be disruptive:
“Feng was initially certified because of the concern regarding dangerousness, particularly to faculty members. When first admitted to the ward, Feng stated that he would “create a disturbance” on the ward by yelling and disturbing the other patients. He was therefore placed in seclusion and given one dose of intramuscular neuroleptic. The next morning he was more subdued and cooperative, and was able to come out of seclusion after approximately twelve hours.”I was given tranquillizer and isolation-cell confinement right at the beginning just for saying about “yelling and disturbing the other patients”. Later allowed to stroll outside the hospital, had I gone to Computer Science Building and gotten fingered for “dangerousness”, what would the ‘next level’ of anti-psychotic penalty have been, like something Robert Dziekanski would take in 2007?
Because UBC Hospital was a teaching-and-research hospital, the psych ward didn’t show an atmosphere of coercive restraint a psychiatric hospital would, and the solitary cell was the most coercive object within the ward. But on December 9, the day I was first allowed to walk on campus but given a reminder not to go to Computer Science Building, I was also administered a CT head scan by “Dr. Flak”; walking between the ward and the lab with Dr. (Borys) Flak through semi-underground tunnels snaking among hospital buildings, I would be surprised if there weren’t an ‘electroshock unit’ somewhere behind a closed door.
It was a dangerous ‘trap’ that would at least drag me away from my focus, which at the time was to go home and continue phoning Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
“… Feng again eloped from hospital and returned to his apartment to continue placing calls to the CBC. He continued to express the idea that if he were only persistent enough, he would be able to get a National News interview as well as organizing an emergency sitting of Parliament to review the Mulroney government’s corruption.”There are two issues in the above quote, namely my persistence at getting a “National News interview”, and at “organizing an emergency sitting of Parliament”, that should be clarified here.
If my focus on the national media venue CBC was a reason for my being “delusional” or full of “paranoid ideation”, then such a view reflected a shortcoming and pitfall of psychiatry’s personal- and community-based angle looking at politics. Would Kitsilano News – a community newspaper mentioned in Part 5 – be more appropriate for my ‘level’? Quite the contrary in my view. When a community media venue held up the local authority’s opinion in very high regard as in Part 5, on August 26 extensively quoting UBC faculty association president William Bruneau who falsely labelled my July 2 arrest as “violent” and profusely pinpointed the fear for job loss due to Reaganism and Thatcherism as a cause of deadly violence like Valery Fabrikant’s murders of Concordia colleagues, this media venue would only go farther down that trail rather than becoming open-minded and objective.
If larger issues should not be tried at larger media venues by individuals, i.e., individual news seekers should focus on local interests – such as the cellphone video on RCMP tasering of Robert Dziekanski – which might generate greater public interest, would that adequately reflect the public of a nation?
Besides, I had spent much time phoning British Columbia Television as well, whose staff patiently listened to me – rather than playing ‘on-hold’ games like CBC did to report my frequent calls to police – and made genuine efforts before telling me that BCTV normally didn’t cover controversial national politics.
In my 2009 blog posts I have recalled what BCTV did at my prompting to give support to B.C. Tory MP Stan Wilbee who had been requesting a review of Mulroney’s leadership and as a result was in danger of losing his B.C. Tory caucus chair position (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 5)):
“As it happened, I also sent a copy of this press release to BCTV (then part of the CTV network, today part of the Global TV network). In the morning of the day of the B.C. Tory caucus meeting to discuss the fate of Stan Wilbee as caucus chair (November 17, 1992 as per press archives), who had drawn up a letter of resignation to hand in for his challenge of Mulroney, I phoned BCTV to follow up on my press release and told a news staff member about the caucus meeting in Ottawa, who replied that BCTV would send a camera crew there; later that day when I called again (likely in the afternoon) the same staff member said the camera was there right now; but when I called back the day after I sensed disappointment on the part of this BCTV news staff member, probably because it wasn’t as I had told him that the B.C. Tory MPs might turn against Mulroney’s leadership.”But it was my local MP Kim Campbell, Mulroney’s Justice Minister, who was demanding Wilbee’s resignation as B.C. Tory caucus chair, saying that Wilbee’s view didn’t represent other B.C. Tory MPs’, and Campbell herself was in the process of securing Mulroney’s favor to succeed him as the leader, as reviewed in the above blog post.
In that critical time period, sending press releases and a note critical of Mulroney’s leadership to MP Kim Campbell meant I fell into a big political ‘trap’.
As for an emergency meeting of Parliament to discuss Mulroney government’s problems, my initial intent had been to generate a public outcry about Prime Minister Mulroney’s leadership conduct, as I had said in my first press release on November 10:
“The existent political process of this country has failed the people. We, the people of Canada, must now take the destiny of the country into our own hands. We must speak our mind loud and clear, and force the politicians to face reality, to hold Mr. Mulroney accountable for his irresponsible actions, and to remove him from the leadership position of the country immediately.”To remove the leader of a majority party government in an immediate fashion, the only realistic option was through a revolt in the party’s caucuses. So my supplementary press release on November 10 aimed at that, the same as what I prompted BCTV on November 17 to send a camera crew to cover at B.C. Tory caucus meeting in Ottawa:
“Mr. Stan Wilbee, MP for Delta, B.C., has spoken out publicly, criticizing Mr. Mulroney’s leadership and requesting a province-by-province Tory leadership review. The B.C. Tory MPs should speak out now in support of Mr. Wilbee, reaffirm their confidence in him as the B.C. Caucus chair, and defy Mr. Mulroney’s threat of retaliation by means of cabinet restructuring on by any other means.”That B.C. Tory caucus meeting was not a completely lost cause as reviewed in my 2009 blog post; the MPs did reaffirm their confidence in Stan Wilbee as caucus chair in spite of his open opposition to Mulroney, although obviously the meeting didn’t turn into a revolt as I had hoped:
“Regardless, I was disappointed that BCTV did not report on the caucus meeting it had camera footage on. Brief press reports indicated that Stan Wilbee’s resignation was rejected by the caucus and days later Dr. Wilbee, a medical doctor and chair of the House of Commons subcommittee on health issues, also launched a parliamentary investigation on the HIV-tainted blood supply issue.”It was after I had been taken to UBC Hospital psychiatric committal that I began to feel that given my local MP Kim Campbell’s likely cooperation with RCMP in suppressing me, appealing to B.C. Tory MPs was no longer a workable option while appealing to the people directly through the media became unrealistic. Parliament seemed a good choice, then.
The reality was that the Canadian media generally weren’t too open to sensitive political issues even if public sentiments at the level of disgruntlement and disillusionment were routinely given coverage. In October 1992 as one of my first media-contact attempts I phoned The Vancouver Sun newspaper, and was told that it would only accept materials from my lawyer but not myself; I had Mr. Brain Mason fax in the lawsuit document on my behalf, and later never sent this venue any of my press releases.
The different outcomes of my publicity efforts with The Vancouver Sun, BCTV and CBC clearly demonstrated that a media venue’s handling of my contact attempts had an influential effect on the approach I would then adopt to communicate with the venue.
Earlier in her December 1 notes, Dr. Chapman had listed “Schizophrenia” as a differential diagnosis to “Delusional Disorder of persecutory type”. Now in the discharge report written on December 22, she instead noted “Avoidant, schizoid, and obsessive personality traits” as in addition to “Delusional disorder – persecutory type”.
That might not look like a diagnosis of “Schizophrenia”, but a personality trait would be quite inherent of a person and could be an organic basis of a disease.
The use of psychiatry to suppress political dissent is not a phenomenon that existed only in the former Communist countries. In my first blog article in 2009, I made the point that the intriguing and mysterious life story of the mathematician John Nash, recipient of Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 and subject of the Oscar-winning movie “A Beautiful Mind”, had been diagnosed and treated as a schizophrenic since 1959 at least in part due to his political thoughts, which included his claiming that The New York Times articles had coded messages for him (“Greeting the New Millennium – nearly a decade late (Part 2)”):
“Now there could indeed be something there in 1959, meaning that the talented young mathematician might have in fact been capable of figuring out some crucial politics ahead of time – his credibility bolstered by his prior background of doing research at RAND. One can look at it this way: in January 1959 Fidel Castro’s revolution was winning in Cuba, an island just a stone’s throw across the water from the United States, and North Vietnamese communists were also adopting a path of “armed struggle” to unify with the South against the backdrop of increasing U.S. military assistance to South Vietnam; it was not like signs of warning did not exist for the turbulent decade ahead, and ten years later by 1969 when the Vietnam War was in full force and the St. Stephen’s Day-born American leftist William Ayers was founding the militant-resistance organization Weather Underground to engage in a series of high-profile, violent bombings in the United States for radical causes, John Nash’s thoughts by then could have been viewed as a borderline, nonviolent precursor to these later actions of Ayers and his associates; but by then Nash’s expressions had already been concluded as thoughts of “madness” by some (but not all) psychiatrists, and by the authorities.In 2009 after my above blog post and my others on Canadian politics, on October 31 there was the incident of New York City police officer Adrian Schoolcraft being forcibly sent to psychiatric committal because his superiors wanted to suppress his whistleblowing on illegal arrests and manipulation of crime statistics within NYPD (“An Officer Had Backup: Secret Tapes”, by Jim Dwyer, March 13, 2012, The New York Times).
What else would be a better explanation than the above – beside Nash’s own brash behavior and his habit of convoluted language – that a mathematician of original thinking and prolific production who has now been recognized as having made fundamental contributions to the mathematical economic theory, and who has been called “the greatest numerologist the world has ever seen” (i.e., someone better than anyone else at the use of numbers in astrology and other human affairs) by the Princeton mathematician William Browder, was “mentally ill” when it came to his thinking about politics? Recognizing credibility in Nash’s political thoughts is like accepting his mathematical brilliance without automatically overriding any legitimate medical issue there might have been.”
But one of the saddest stories was that of James Vincent Forrestal, the United States’ first Secretary of Defense, who had a fallout with President Harry Truman, lost the job and was in a low mood in March 1949. Accepting the advice of government psychiatrists brought to him by his high-level political friend and confidante Ferdinand Eberstadt, Forrestal voluntarily entered the psych ward at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland in early April, only to be found dead on May 22 after a fall of 13-storey height from his 16th-floor room window in the darkness of the night, and treated as a piece of suicide statistics. (Jeffery M. Dorwart, Eberstadt and Forrestal: A National Security Partnership, 1909-1949, 1991, Texas A&M University Press; “Admiral M.D. Willcutts Report on the Death of James V. Forrestal, 1949”, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University (HTML version, ariwatch.com); and, “Historians Support Inquiry into the Death of James Forrestal”, by Hugh Turley, May 29, 2009, George Mason University’s History News Network)
My situation turned out to be not as hopeless, as my November 30, 1992 fax note and attached press releases to MP Kim Campbell, and the psychiatric oppression suffered right afterwards, were not a complete waste.
On January 6, 1993, RCMP Director of Enforcement Services, Assistant Commissioner J. W. B. McConnell, issued a letter to Commanding Officer of “E” Division in British Columbia, to the attention of Officer-In-Charge, Criminal Operations, in regard to my complaint about the July 2 arrest:
I had never sent any complaint to the Solicitor General who supervised the RCMP, about the July 2 arrest or anything else.
“Subject: Dr. Feng Gao
Complaint Concerning his Arrest
by University Detachment Members
The enclosed correspondence from Dr. GAO was received by the Solicitor General and sent to us for attention.
Correspondence has been prepared for the Minister’s signature advising Dr. Gao that the CO “E” Division or his delegate would examine his concerns as they relate to his arrest and imprisonment and would respond to him direct.
Please provide us with a copy of your response for completion of our file.”
The only things I had sent to the Canadian political high level had all been sent to local Member of Parliament Kim Campbell.
First was the fax on November 30, where the cover note was about my accusations on Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s conduct in the Charlottetown constitutional process and on forthcoming retaliatory political persecution against me, and only the first of the three attached press releases including my lawsuit documents mentioned the July 2 arrest by RCMP. When RCMP officer Brian Cotton came to my apartment to take me to a psychiatric assessment at UBC Hospital, I gave him a copy but my copy is not among the RCMP personal-information disclosures whereas a copy received by Campbell’s local office is, which was stamped on November 30, possibly by RCMP as discussed earlier.
Then while in psychiatric committal I sent another letter to Kim Campbell complaining also about the RCMP-led psychiatric committal as political persecution, which may have also addressed her as Justice Minister, but this second letter is not among RCMP’s or any organization’s disclosures I have been given so far.
It was quite possible that Campbell forwarded my documents to Solicitor General as a complaint from me, but given that the only RCMP-disclosure copy, received at Campbell’s office, was likely RCMP-processed on November 30, 1992, the person who provided them to Solicitor General could have been inside RCMP.
I do remember receiving a short letter from then Solicitor General Doug Lewis, a former Justice Minister before Kim Campbell, acknowledging receipt of my complaint.
But as A/Comm. McConnell’s letter specified clearly, my complaint was defined only as about my July 2 arrest, even though the attached documents criticized UBC Computer Science Head Maria Klawe much more than RCMP, and most importantly the overwhelming amount of contents were criticisms about Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership conduct, including about upcoming political persecution against me.
RCMP Director of Enforcement Services didn’t want to deal with it any further than receiving for the file a copy of “E” Division’s direct response to me. But as required the “E” Division Commanding Officer or his delegate would need to examine my concerns and respond to me on that.
The letter was received on January 8 by Criminal Operations at “E” Division, and forwarded to and received by Contract Policing on January 11.
On January 13, Chief Superintendent P. M. Cummins, Officer-In-Charge, Contract Policing Branch, sent a memo to Chief Superintendent M. K. M. Clegg, Officer-In-Charge, Administration & Personnel, recommending that the matters be looked after by Civil Litigation handling my civil lawsuit:
The suggestion appeared most likely that there would be no separate investigation for this complaint forwarded from Solicitor General, but only a response to RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa that a civil lawsuit was already in place.
“DR. FENG GAO – CIVIL ACTION
COMPLAINT OF FALSE ARREST
Please find attached correspondence received from the Director Enforcement Services, HQ concerning Dr. Gao’s complaint of false arrest by members of University Detachment on July 2, 1992. A check of PIRS indicates that Civil Litigation Section currently has a file open on this matter and rather than duplicate our efforts I would ask that they forward the appropriate response to the Director Enforcement Services. …”
The memo was written to the attention of Corporal Dennis Garrett, the officer “monitoring” my lawsuit as Sgt. Frank Kelley had indicated back on October 14, 1992.
That was clearly a mixed-up violation of basic professionalism. A complaint should be examined independently and objectively, rather than be handled by RCMP civil-litigation personnel – in this case under an intimidating Sergeant Frank Kelley as in Part 5 – whose objective was not to investigate but to defend RCMP.
Moreover, at this time I had gone through an RCMP-led UBC psychiatric committal and been labelled as suffering from Delusional Disorder of Persecutory Type, thus any statement by me not liked by UBC or RCMP could be categorized by psychiatrists as “delusional”, and my lawyer had also been exerted pressure by Department of Justice and UBC lawyers. Now that a complaint with broad subject matters had gone all the way up to the federal government minister responsible for RCMP but was defined as limited to the July 2 incident only, while RCMP could continue to use psychiatric measures since November 30 to suppress or control me and not be subjected to examination, the complaint was essentially powerless.
That this was RCMP’s plan is also seen in RCMP internal documents to complete termination of investigation for the public complaint I had filed in August and then withdrawn in September 1992 as discussed in Part 5. They were coordinated in timing with the arrival and processing of the new complaint acknowledged by Solicitor General.
On January 7, the day after A/Comm. McConnell’s letter from Ottawa was issued, Insp. W. B. Vye in charge of “E” Division’s Complaints & Internal Investigations Section, sent the final documents for closing the public complaint to the same C/Supt. Clegg in charge of Administration and Personnel, with the comment:
“Compl of false arrest – etc. Compl disturbed at the time of his arrest and now willing to terminate his compl.”Then on January 14, the day after C/Supt. P. M. Cummins’s memo was written to him to suggest that Civil Litigation Section respond to Ottawa for the new complaint, C/Supt. M. K. M. Clegg sent me a letter officially notifying the end of my earlier public complaint.
The January 6 letter from Ottawa referred to my new complaint as about my arrest (and imprisonment), while Insp. Vye on January 7 referred to my old complaint as about “false arrest”, saying I had been disturbed, namely using a ‘mental-illness’ argument. Then in the January 13 C/Supt. Cummins memo about responding to letter from Ottawa, the July 2 incident was also referred to as “false arrest” – presumably Cummins also got the idea that I had been “disturbed”.
C/Supt. M. K. M. Clegg quickly finished rest of the work shoving the new complaint under a lawsuit litigation that was already stalled and under control by RCMP-led psychiatric measures.
In his letter to me dated January 25 to acknowledge RCMP receipt of my complaint through Solicitor General, C/Supt. Clegg stated:
“As you are aware, this matter is currently before the courts and accordingly I am unable to comment at this time.”On the same day a handwritten note was sent to Cpl. Dennis Garrett, stating:
“Please ensure a copy of our letter, with suitable overview of circumstances, is sent to Director Enforcement Services as requested. Copy also to O-i/c Contract Policing, please.”The signature in this note, when handwriting is compared to that on C/Supt. Clegg’s letter to me, seems to read “CAP”, which presumably stood for Clegg’s initial plus those of Administration & Personnel.
On January 29, which happened to be my birthday, a letter was written from C/Supt. Clegg to RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa in reply to A/Comm. J. W. B. McConnell’s letter. Taking what appeared like a neutral stand describing the UBC dispute as “a long standing feud between Dr. GAO and the university”, Clegg explained that regarding RCMP’s assistance in the July 2 arrest there had been a public complaint from me, an internal investigation commenced and then my complaint withdrawn, and there was now a lawsuit in place and a Department of Justice counsel assigned “to represent the force and our interests in this continuing action”.
Rather oddly, this January 29, 1993 C/Supt. Clegg letter in RCMP disclosure is a “COPY” that was marked “INFO: OIC CONTRACT POLICING, “E” DIVISION”, but was unsigned, instead stamped “Originally Sign By”.
This “copy” of the response letter was received by Contract Policing on February 3, and by C/Supt. Cummins on February 5.
“Contract Policing” and “Federal Policing” were the two categories of RCMP policing as indicated in an RCMP Public Complaint Statistical Report among the documents for my withdrawal of public complaint.
In that statistical report form, sent him for completion by Cpl. D. Blommaert of the “E” Division Complaints & Internal Investigation Section and received also on January 29, S/Sgt. Medley, assistant of Officer Commanding Vancouver Subdivision Supt. D. G. Cowley, in February 1993 marked off both categories of my complaint about the July 2, 1992 RCMP arrest, “Improper Attitude” and “Oppressive Conduct”, as “Unsupported by evidence” – even though as discussed in Part 5 when my complaint was withdrawn in September 1992 no real investigation had been carried out.
(Continuing to Part 7)
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