CUFOA

Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association
Association canadienne des propriétaires d’armes sans permis

Thursday, 18 November 2010

The Honourable Don Morgan Q.C.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
355 Legislative Building
Regina, Saskatchewan S4S 0B3

109 – 3502 Taylor St. E.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7H 5H9

Dear Mr. Morgan,

Re: Petition for your Assistance for Bruce and Donna Montague in Ontario

I would like to call your attention to the enclosed copy of a letter I sent to your counterpart, The Honourable Chris Bentley, Attorney General of Ontario.

As I note in that message, our associate, Bruce Montague, is in prison in the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre, Ontario, having been convicted, among other related charges, of violating Criminal Code section 92(1), “Possession of a Firearm Knowing its Possession is Unauthorized”. This offence, you may recall, is the Criminal Code violation initiated by the licensing mandate of the Firearms Act that over the past seven years we in CUFOA have been vigorously fighting to have repealed or declared unconstitutional.

Bruce is now “paying the price” for joining CUFOA in our use of open, honest, peaceful, non-violent civil non-compliance to oppose the licencing mandate of the Canadian Firearms Act.

We based all our actions on The Theory of Justice, by former Harvard professor John Rawls who stated:

Being an appeal to the moral basis of civic life, civil disobedience is a political and not a religious act. It relies upon common sense principles of justice that man can require one another to follow and not upon affirmations of religious faith and love which they cannot demand that everyone accept … it is … the principles of justice, the fundamental terms of social cooperation between free and equal persons, that underlie the constitution. Civil disobedience … is derived from the public conception of justice that characterizes a democratic society. Civil disobedience is part of the theory of a free government.1

Bruce is accepting of his imprisonment. But the Government of Ontario seems intent now on confiscating Bruce and Donna’s home. As my daughter commented:

This is one hundred percent an abuse of power; in taking the Montagues’ home they are saying, “Shut up!”

Mr. Morgan, if my adult, Liberal-minded daughter - who rarely agrees with me - can see the injustice of what the Government of Ontario is trying to do, I trust that you also can see where the problem lies.

I respectfully would like to ask you to encourage Mr. Bentley to heed Professor Rawls admonition:

Yet if justified civil disobedience seems to threatened civic concord, the responsibility falls not upon those who protest but upon those whose abuse of authority and power justifies such opposition. For to employ the coercive apparatus of the state in order to maintain manifestly unjust institutions is itself a form of illegitimate force that men in due course have a right to resist.2

I would deeply appreciate your efforts in saving Bruce and Donna Montague’s home.

Sincerely,

Edward B. Hudson DVM, MS
Secretary

1. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Belknap Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971, p. 385

2. ibid, pp. 390/1

CC: Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
Premier Dalton McGuinty; Premier Brad Wall
Members of Parliament and MLA’s

Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association
Association canadienne des propriétaires d’armes sans permis
402 Skeena Court Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7K 4H2
(306) 242-2379 (306) 230-8929
edwardhudson@shaw.ca
www.cufoa.ca

*** ***

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

The Honourable Chris Bentley, Attorney General
Ministry of the Attorney General
McMurtry-Scott Building
720 Bay Street, 11th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M7A 2S9

Dear Mr. Bentley,

Re: Please Stop the Seizure of Bruce and Donna Montague’s Home

I am appalled that the provincial Government of Ontario is using the Civil Remedies Act to seek a court order against the home of Bruce and Donna Montague.

Having been directly involved with securing bail for Bruce immediately after his arrest on 11 September 2004 in Dryden, I am well aware that the Government of Ontario is extremely displeased with the actions of Bruce and Donna. But I believe using the Civil Remedies Act against this couple brings the “administration of justice into disrepute”.

The Montagues are not the sociopaths some would have us believe; they are responsible, loving parents, and hard working citizens. Bruce and Donna, like many thousands of responsible firearms owners in Canada, encountered a law that they sincerely believe to be unjust, and they very intentionally and very conspicuously proclaimed their refusal to submit to its demands. Bruce and Donna joined the Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association (CUFOA) at its conception and together we used open, honest, peaceful, non-violent civil non-compliance to oppose the licencing mandate of the Canadian Firearms Act.

Bruce and Donna were an integral, supportive part of our CUFOA activity. On our cross-country demonstrations we were welcomed in their home for meals, lodging, and discussions. In December 2002 Bruce guided us through northern Ontario to Ottawa where Bruce publically posted CUFOA’s grievances on Parliament Hill on New Year’s Day 2003. In the summer of 2003 on CUFOA’s Sea-to-Sea Liberty Rally Bruce was again a significant part of our demonstrations as we presented affidavits directly to each provincial Attorney-General that we possessed our rifles and shotguns without a federal licence. At the Ontario Legislative Assembly at Queen’s Park in Toronto on 11 July 2003 Bruce presented our affidavits directly to the Ontario Attorney General’s office. And in May 2004 Bruce and Donna openly participated in CUFOA’s May Day Firearms Seminar in Saskatoon, with Bruce speaking on the gun control laws of the United Kingdom.

We are all well aware, and all understood, that we would be subject to severe legal sanctions for our part in CUFOA’s peaceful, non-violent civil non-compliance to the licencing mandate of the Firearms Act. Bruce is now ‘paying the price’ at the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre. We, however, regard the Ontario Government’s legal assault on the Montague’s home as a complete perversion of justice.

If Bruce and Donna have benefitted from the “proceeds of unlawful activity”, the OPP should have arrested several of us CUFOA members when we were in Toronto for the Montague’s appeal, for we all have benefited from the Montague’s hospitality.

The Government of Ontario has punished Bruce and Donna sufficiently. Any further legal action against them will debase what little remaining respect we have for our so-called justice system and will only strengthen our resolve to fight harder for our Rights and Freedoms.

In closing my appeal to you, I would like to quote what former Harvard professor John Rawls said about civil disobedience during the protest to the military draft during the United States’ war in Viet Nam:

Civil disobedience arises only within more or less democratic states for those citizens who recognize and accept the legitimacy of the constitution. At what point does the duty to comply with the laws enacted by a legislative majority cease to be binding in view of the right to defend one’s liberties and the duty to oppose injustice? This question involves the nature and limits of majority rule. For this reason the problem of civil disobedience is a crucial test for any theory of the moral basis of democracy.1

I earnestly pray that Ontario and Canada pass the test.

I appeal to your sense of honour to treat Bruce and Donna with the respect they deserve; please trouble them no further in their home.

Sincerely,

Edward B. Hudson DVM, MS
Secretary

1. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Belknap Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971,
p. 363

CC: Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
Premier Dalton McGuinty, Premier Brad Wall
Members of Parliament and MLA’s

Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association
Association canadienne des propriétaires d’armes sans permis
402 Skeena Court Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7K 4H2
(306) 242-2379 (306) 230-8929
edwardhudson@shaw.ca
www.cufoa.ca