Newspaper clippings: Elijah Elieff, Susan Eagle, and the Cheyenne Apartments (1989 – 1997)

 All, Newspaper Clipping
Sep 301993
 

1993-09-30.elieff-conspiracy-thumbDescription:
On November 16, 1992, an Ontario Human Rights Commission Board of Inquiry commenced a 10 day hearing in the matter of Chippheng Hon v. Elijah Elieff (COM. No. 20-1775). Hon was a tenant of Elieff’s apartment buildings. Hon was originally from Cambodia, and Elieff was originally from Macedonia. Each had difficulties with the English language. In her complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Hon alleged that Elieff had subjected her to harassment due to her “ethnic origin”. Although her complaint was initiated in 1989 – three years before the hearing began – counsel for the commission was allowed to add “race” as a basis of harassment on day 1 of the hearings. She was also permitted to add as a respondent the owner of the apartment buildings, which was not Elieff, but a corporation in which Elieff was a shareholder. Freedom Party president Robert Metz took an interest in the hearings, which were being held in London, Ontario, so he attended them. He quickly grew concerned by what he witnessed.

Freedom Party’s Jack Plant (later to be party leader) researched the press coverage of Elieff and his Cheyenne Apartments at London’s public library, and made photocopies of the London Free Press articles that he there found about the subject. The articles would assist Metz in his successful defence of Elieff. These are the articles that Plant copied, and upon which Metz relied. A number of post-hearing articles are included below, also, having been added to Freedom Party’s newspaper clippings file for the Elieff matter. Continue reading »

Transcripts: Chippheng Hon v. Elijah Elieff (Ontario Human Rights Commission Board of Inquiry, 1992-93)

 All, HRTO Transcripts
Nov 051992
 

1992-11-16.elieff-transcripts-thumbDescription:
On November 16, 1992, an Ontario Human Rights Commission Board of Inquiry commenced a 10 day hearing in the matter of Chippheng Hon v. Elijah Elieff (COM. No. 20-1775). Hon was a tenant of Elieff’s apartment buildings. Hon was originally from Cambodia, and Elieff was originally from Macedonia. Each had difficulties with the English language. In her complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Hon alleged that Elieff had subjected her to harassment due to her “ethnic origin”. Although her complaint was initiated in 1989 – three years before the hearing began – counsel for the commission was allowed to add “race” as a basis of harassment on day 1 of the hearings. She was also permitted to add as a respondent the owner of the apartment buildings, which was not Elieff, but a corporation in which Elieff was a shareholder. Freedom Party president Robert Metz took an interest in the hearings, which were being held in London, Ontario, so he attended them. He quickly grew concerned by what he witnessed. On the fifth day of the hearings – February 2, 1993 – Metz was acknowedged by the Tribunal to be Elieff’s agent. Ultimately, largely thanks to Metz’s assistance, Elieff was found by the Tribunal not to have discriminated against Hon or his other Cambodian tenants. Along the way, Metz uncovered what can only be called a conspiracy that was an attempt to use a human rights complaint as just one part of a campaign to smear and financially ruin a landlord so that another entity affordably – and with taxpayer money – could take-over his buildings. It is a story that involves a local politician, a daily newspaper, and a major organized religion…and it’s all evidenced by the transcripts of the testimony of those involved.

These are transcripts of the proceedings of all 10 days of the Board of Inquiry’s hearings of the matter, as recorded by the official court reporter in the matter. In Freedom Party’s physical archive, the transcripts are bound together in two binders or “books”.
Continue reading »

News (June 12, 1988): Marc Emery Released from Jail

 All, FPO Featured
Jun 121988
 

1988-06-12.emery-released-thumbVIDEO – DESCRIPTION:

On June 12, 1988, TV London News reported the June 10, 1988 release of then Freedom Party of Ontario Action Director Marc Emery from the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London, Ontario. He had been jailed for approximately 4 days for refusing to pay a $500.00 fine, which was imposed upon him because he intentionally staffed his book store (City Lights) with more than three individuals on a Sunday, contrary to Ontario’s then-existing laws against retail business on Sundays (a law imposed in 1975 by Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party). Continue reading »

Robert Metz and Marc Emery on Asset Seizure (Operation Zero Tolerance, 1988)

 All, FPO Call-in
May 011988
 

1985-fpo-radio-thumbAUDIO – DESCRIPTION:
In March of 1988, the U.S. border patrol began seizing cars, boats, other vehicles, and their contents, in situations where illegal drugs were found in the vehicle. On her “Talkback” program (Radio 98), host Ann Hutchison wanted to know whether people thought asset seizure to be “fair”. Both Freedom Party president Robert Metz and Freedom Party Action Director Marc Emery called in to share their thoughts on the matter.

 

 

 

Robert Metz Excerpt

Marc Emery Excerpt

Complete Recording
Continue reading »

Wake Up Western – Street Parties: Have they gone too far?

 All, FPO Panelist
Nov 071984
 

1984-11-xx.radio-western-gatewood-thumbAUDIO – DESCRIPTION:

On October 19, 1984, in London, Ontario, revellers in the Gatewood Crescent area (most thought to be students of the University of Western Ontario) smashed beer bottles on the street and driveways, and urinated on lawns, gardens, and automobiles. Local residents found themselves virtually helpless against the collective onslaught of over 1000 party-goers. Despite police attempts to disburse the crowd by using tear-gas, verbal and physical onslaughts against residents continued into the hours of dawn. On a Wednesday (it’s not clear which Wednesday) in November of 1984, the radio station at the University of Western Ontario broadcasted a one-hour discussion about the Gatewood riot. Panelists included Freedom Party of Ontario’s Action Director, Marc Emery. Emery found himself having to pronounce explicit moral judgement against those who did not seem to have any regard for, or understanding of, the property rights of others.

NOTE: This recording was featured at pages 11 to 12 of Issue 4 of “Freedom Flyer”, the September to December 1984 issue of Freedom Party of Ontario’s official newsletter.

Continue reading »

Marc Emery on the dangers of criminalizing the speech of the prejudiced

 All, Pre-FPO Call-in
Oct 251983
 

1980-xx-xx.emery-thumb2AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:
It’s 1983. Freedom Party of Ontario has not yet been founded. At least two high-profile historical revisionist deniers of the Holocaust in Germany have been making headlines for their anti-Semitic behaviours. In Alberta, Jim Keegstra has lost his teaching job for telling his students a number of false allegations concerning Jewish people (he alleges a world-wide conspiracy, denies the Holocaust, etc.). Meanwhile, in Toronto, another anti-Semite, Ernst Zundel (a man hailing from Germany, originally) is distributing literature alleging that the number of Jewish people murdered by the Nazis has been exaggerated by Jews in an effort to get money from the German government. Understandably, therefore, there is concern that such false allegations will cause people to turn against Jews in Canada.

On October 11, 1983, four-members of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) testified to a Canadian Parliamentary Committee on Racial Minorities. They, proposed, among other things that the word “wilfully” be deleted from the criminal code provisions relating to hate speech (i.e., so that a person could be found guilty whether or not he “wilfully” did what he did, in order to make findings of guilt easier). So, on October 25, 1983, London (Ontario) talk radio host Wayne McLean invited the Chair of the Steering Committee for the Canadian Jewish Congress, Sharon Wolfe, to be his guest.

After discussing the CJC’s concerns and recommendations, McLean took calls from his listeners. He then spoke with Roy McMurtry (then Ontario’s Attorney General), who said that anti-Semitism was on the rise. He said that there is more anti-Semitic literature around, apparently because of the “aftermath…continuing occurrences in Lebanon” (a reference to ongoing terrorist activity in Lebanon, involving the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, and their Iranian and Syrian backers. NOTE: just two days prior to this broadcast, an American Marine barracks and a French barracks in Lebanon were each truck-bombed by a group calling itself the Islamic Jihad, killing 299 American and French soldiers).

After speaking with McMurtry, McLean took more calls from listeners, including Marc Emery. Emery, who had interviewed Jewish victims of the Holocaust and had written about the Holocaust in his London Metrobulletin newspaper, calls in to explain the dangers of criminalizing even false and hurtful speech. When McLean asks if Emery wishes that it had been possible to pass a law to stop the expression of hate speech in Germany, Emery points out that they did have such a law in Germany: a law that banned speaking ill of Nazis.

After taking calls from Emery and others, McLean also spoke with Alan Borovoy (general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association), who, like Emery, spoke against the criminalizing of speech.

Marc Emery Excerpt:

Complete Recording:
Continue reading »

 Newer Entries