LAWYERS AND COURT REPRESENTATION OF ORGANIZED PSEUDOLEGAL COMMERCIAL ARGUMENT (OPCA) LITIGANTS IN CANADA.

I. INTRODUCTION

Ignorantia juris neminem excusat: ignorance of the law excuses no one. (1) This principle or maxim has an operational corollary. If you argue a law that does not exist, then you do so deliberately. After all, you know the law. Why else would you argue "not-law"?

Another cornerstone principle of law, or more accurately, common sense, is that people are "presumed to have intended the natural consequences of their acts." (2)

Combining these two concepts defines what might be called "bad litigation". If you argue not-law in court, then you must do so deliberately. The natural consequence of arguing not-law is the waste of court and other court participants' time and resources. Presumably, if you argue not-law, you do so with the intention to cause harm.

This end thesis oversimplifies a much more substantial and complex problem. Law is not truly all that knowable. Legislation is complex. The common law is a cumulative weighing of countless court decisions running back centuries into what is, at best, a recorded oral history.

Sometimes conflicting or inconsistent approaches lurk beneath an apparently placid surface.

Lawyers argue not-law all the time, and self-represented litigants [SRLs] even more so. Some people litigate because of mental disorder and argue not-law because of their delusions. Others argue not-law out of apparently sincere religious or political convictions. (3)

This paper examines the role of lawyers in a specific category of not-law, what Associate Chief Justice Rooke of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench in Meads v Meads called Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments [OPCA]. (4) "Pseudolaw" is a highly stereotypic and conserved set of legally false concepts. Pseudolaw superficially appears to be law, or related to law, and usually uses legal or legal-sounding language, but is otherwise spurious. Some pseudolaw is Canadian in origin, but much was imported into Canada from the United States around 2000. (5)

OPCA are "Commercial", as these schemes are products invented and sold by a leader/teacher caste of laypersons ("gurus"), who are the focii of social communities, ("OPCA movements"). (6) OPCA movements, such as the Freemen-on-the-Land, Detaxers, Sovereign Citizens, and Moors, are collections of people who endorse pseudolaw and share similar and typically marginal social, economic, and political perspectives. (7) This is an "Organized" activity; sociologists who have studied this phenomenon draw parallels to cults and anti-authority networks. (8)

OPCA not-law is a replacement law. Gurus claim their not-law is the true, but suppressed or concealed, law that is in competition with "conventional" law and its institutions. (9) In theory, OPCA knowledge offers advantages ("cheat codes") to work around, bypass, or nullify the conventional law that would otherwise apply.

Politics or ideology often underlay and motivate this competition of laws. (10) Some persons who buy into and use pseudolaw perceive government, courts, law enforcement, and institutional actors in a profoundly negative, conspiratorial light, to the point that their beliefs and actions mimic mental illness. (11) Their secret law is a weapon intended to fight back and achieve "justice" against a dark design, its minions, and their "sheeple" stooges. (12) This, rather than force, is their principle means to effect change, (13) and, for example, cause a radical restructuring of Canadian government and law. (14)

OPCA ideas cause harm in many ways. When pseudolaw inevitably fails, it leads to incarceration and financial penalties, psychiatric detention, aggravated debts and foreclosed homes, and loss of children. (15) Pseudolaw legitimizes violence, which is far from unknown. (16) Law enforcement justifiably views persons who advocate and/or practice pseudolaw as a threat. (17) That said, this conflict has primarily been a "paper war" fought in courtrooms, or sometimes between "conventional" and vigilante courts. (18)

Courts in Canada and other countries are hostile to and highly critical or persons who appear and argue OPCA concepts. These are vexatious litigants who waste court time and resources. (19) The Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal in Fiander v Mills (20) concluded that simply employing several of the most common pseudolaw concepts indicates a litigant is in court for an improper, ulterior purpose, warranting preemptive steps to interdict and terminate their litigation. Similarly, Ontario Rule 2.1 is used to require OPCA litigants "show cause". (21)

The in-court conduct of OPCA litigants is often problematic. (22) As Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Master Schulz observed in Pomerleau v Canada (Revenue Agency)," [s]ome OPCA litigants are 'a handful'." (23) Some academic commentary describes pseudolaw as a SRL phenomenon. (24)

Combined, these facts suggest an OPCA litigant would seem an unattractive or impossible client. Lawyers have a professional responsibility (25) and duty as officers of the court (26) to not engage in wasteful, futile litigation, and should instead only advance legally plausible arguments. Advancing OPCAs breaches those responsibilities. (27)

This paper is the first investigation of how lawyers represent OPCA litigants. Review of reported Canadian court and tribunal decisions that involve or are related to OPCA disputes identified 179 decisions where lawyers represented a person who employed OPCA concepts, 19.6% of the total. Lawyers' activities may be divided into three general categories:

1. conventional, legitimate representation;

2. exploration of legally suspect but potentially viable concepts that fall into a pseudolaw "Grey Zone"; and

3. rogue representation, where the lawyer advocated known, identified, and rejected OPCA ideas.

Even though OPCA litigants advance vexatious and abusive concepts, some have obtained and benefited from ethical legal representation. This is important. Lawyers should be aware that not all OPCA litigants operate in the same way or have the same objectives and motivations.

Some are simply greedy or on the "defensive", attempting to avoid jail or debts. With clients such as these, lawyers have provided valuable "damage control" after OPCA concepts were deployed but then abandoned. This leads to efficient dispute resolution that minimizes trial expense and use of court resources.

Political and ideological beliefs drive another subpopulation. These are more difficult clients, as many view lawyers with mistrust. (28) Nevertheless, these individuals have sometimes retained lawyers for a discrete task, such as to argue a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (29) issue, or apply for judicial interim release (bail).

Another and now largely historical role for lawyers in OPCA litigation is within the Grey Zone of questionable or experimental pseudolaw arguments. Much of this litigation was conducted by a single British Columbia lawyer, Douglas Christie, and resulted in important income tax-related precedents.

The preceding types of OPCA-related lawyer activities are compliant with professional lawyer obligations and provide a general social benefit, but the same cannot be said for a small but disturbing collection of Canadian lawyers who fully embraced OPCA not-law in a revolt against legal, professional, and court orthodoxy. These are "vexatious advocates", and have been the subject of sharp court criticism and professional discipline.

This review explores how lawyers have interacted with and assisted persons whose unusual political and personal features make them a professional challenge. The rogue lawyers identified illustrate how, like Icarus, some lawyers have flown too close to the pseudolaw and have been burned. There is, however, a very significant difference between that mythical figure and the renegade lawyers documented in this paper: Icarus harmed only himself, while these lawyers' misconduct cascaded through the legal apparatus to harm clients, other litigants, and the courts themselves.

II. METHODOLOGY

Prior investigation (30) identified 911 reported Canadian court and tribunal decisions that:

1. either had a litigant:

a. employ OPCA concepts; or

b. display OPCA litigation indicia; or

2. reported on a proceeding where OPCA concepts or indicia were identified.

This set of decisions is the "OPCA Decision Dataset".

Review of the OPCA Decision Dataset determined who appeared or made submissions on behalf of 99.4% (906/911) of the OPCA litigants. The remaining five decisions had no record on representation.

The Dataset was organized into three categories, where the OPCA litigant was:

1. self-represented, represented by a family member, or was a corporation represented by a non-lawyer;

2. represented by a layperson but not an immediate relative; or

3. represented by a lawyer.

Self-represented and family-represented litigants were grouped because OPCA affiliates sometimes use their immediate relatives--usually spouses--as litigation proxies. (31) If no one appeared, the OPCA litigant was classified as self-represented.

If an OPCA litigant's representative appeared to be a lawyer, then that name was first compared with provincial law society indexes of lawyers in that jurisdiction. If no match was found, as occurred in certain historical cases, the status of the representative was further evaluated by review of reported cases for other instances of court representation by that putative lawyer. This two-step methodology was very effective to confirm candidate lawyer representatives.

Decisions where a lawyer represented an OPCA litigant were then reviewed in detail to evaluate the submissions advanced and other litigation conduct. Court file materials were sometimes obtained to further investigate a lawyer's activities.

Decisions where the OPCA litigant was either represented by a lawyer or a non-relative representative were examined for arguments or other fingerprint indicia that identified the OPCA litigant either as part of a known OPCA movement, or the source of the OPCA concepts employed. (32) A preliminary assignment of this kind was not feasible for 11 (4.5%) of the represented decisions in the Dataset.

III. RESULTS--LAWYER PARTICIPATION IN OPCA-RELATED DISPUTES

Figure 1 illustrates the frequency on a year-by-year basis of self-representation, representation by a lawyer, or representation by a non-lawyer for decisions in the OPCA Decision Dataset.

Figure 2 shows PreDetaxer and Detaxer OPCA litigants were more likely to use both lawyer and guru representatives.

A hundred and six different lawyers or articling students represented litigants in OPCA-related disputes. Most (94 of 106, 89.5% of the total) were involved with only one OPCA litigant client. (33) Table 1 summarizes the activities of the remaining 12:

This data strongly suggests very few Canadian lawyers work repeatedly with OPCA clients.

The 29 non-relative layperson representatives identified in 74 decisions were cross-checked with known OPCA gurus, which showed a high correspondence (20 of 29: 69% of the total). Every non-lawyer litigation representative who appeared in two or more reported decisions was a known guru. The most active gurus were David Kevin Lindsay (26 judgments, 35% of the total), John Ruiz Dempsey (6 judgments, 8% of the total), and Van Gale Dumont, aka "Steemas" (5 judgments, 7% of the total). Meads details Lindsay and Dempsey's activities. (34) Most of Dumont's OPCA representation activity occurred after Meads was released. Dumont was associated with the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State [ITCCS] vigilante common law court, (35) and died in 2014. (36)

The preceding data has restricted value to establish quantitatively what kinds of OPCA activities and lawyer representation have actually occurred in Canadian courtrooms.

First, the process to accumulate the Dataset all but guarantees the Dataset is incomplete and that there remain many additional reported, but as of yet unidentified, Canadian OPCA decisions. (37) OPCA jurisprudence is not easily located by conventional database search methodologies. Many decisions were detected by atypical language, unusual references, or via information gleaned from other sources, including media reports, OPCA community communication, court documents, and tips. (38)

Second, reported decisions are unlikely to be a representative and random sample of actual OPCA activities in Canadian courts and how lawyers are involved in OPCA litigation. Reported judgments are only a fraction--and often only a small fraction--of court jurisprudence. Reported judgments are a non-random sample in that certain levels of court, such as appeal courts, issue reported judgments at a much higher frequency than trial courts. Similarly, interlocutory and ancillary judgments are under-represented.

Perhaps even more critical is that a written decision is more likely where a judge faces a legal or factual dispute that requires careful analysis. Lawyer representation plausibly alters whether a decision is complex, or "cut and dry". Hypothetically this, may then lead to an overrepresentation of written OPCA decisions where a lawyer was involved.

These issues preclude meaningful statistical analysis. However, the one strength of this study is that the same methodology was applied in a consistent manner across the sample time frame. That creates some confidence that year-to-year variations may reflect actual changes in OPCA litigation patterns.

IV. LEGITIMATE REPRESENTATION

Many lawyers involved in OPCA-related litigation engaged in ethically appropriate, conventional activities which take a number of forms. However, with some OPCA litigants, ideology and philosophy, conspiratorial belief, and a lack of realism makes lawyer representation all but impossible. The following three examples illustrate how litigant characteristics have a deep effect on the role lawyers can play in OPCA disputes.

A. FISCAL ARBITRATORS

Lawyers sometimes provide "damage control". A person adopted and advanced OPCA strategies which has negative legal consequences. The OPCA strategies were then abandoned, and a lawyer was retained to minimize the repercussions.

The OPCA litigant population can be divided by their motivation and behavior into several functional subclasses. (39) This classification is distinct from OPCA movements, which are unified and distinguished by political and cultural belief.

First, "Fighters and Believers" use OPCA strategies for personal advantage, but are also immersed in a conspiratorial and paranoid social space, the OPCAsphere. (40) For these individuals OPCA litigation is an expression of personal ideology and political belief.

A second and probably largely hypothetical subtype are "Accidental" OPCA SRLs, who happen on OPCA schemes, perhaps through Internet searches for legal resources, and are unaware this information is legally incorrect. True Accidental OPCA Litigants are unlikely because pseudolaw materials describe themselves as secret, conspiratorial, concealed knowledge, and are distributed by amateurish online videos and websites. (41)

A third subpopulation, "Mercenary" OPCA litigants, are individuals who adopt OPCA strategies purely for their promised end results. The spike in OPCA lawyer representation in 2016 is one such event. "Fiscal Arbitrators" [FA] (42) was a short-lived OPCA Detaxer scheme which ran between 2007 and 2009. (43) The Detaxers are a now largely extinct OPCA movement that operated from 1995 to the late 2000s. Detaxer pseudolaw focused almost exclusively on strategies to avoid or evade income tax. (44)

The FA scam created large but spurious tax refunds via fictitious business expense claims based on a purported contract between the taxpayer and their imaginary all uppercase letter name "Strawman" entity. (45) Hundreds of taxpayers purchased FA services. (46) FA prepared their clients' income tax documents and correspondence. The clients did little more than sign their name.

Once the Canada Revenue Agency [CRA] identified and rejected the FA scam, the overwhelming majority of FA customers did not contest those business expense claims were false. Only two appeals applied OPCA techniques. (47) Neither involved a lawyer.

Instead, the large number of reported FA cases (48) focus on a single "conventional" issue: whether the FA customer should pay gross negligence penalties for their false tax return. This is an additional amount equal to 50% of the tax that should have been self-assessed. (49) While gross negligence penalties were confirmed in most FA appeals, a small number of taxpayers did successfully challenge that penalty. (50) The low success rate indicates the difficult fact-specific character of these appeals, and the stringent legal test involved.

The lawyers who conducted the FA appeals explicitly rejected the "Strawman" contract scheme, though two appeals feature a perhaps equally bizarre concept: an argument advanced by now disbarred lawyer Joel Allen Sumner (51) that discovery procedures are literal torture, and therefore any evidence obtained in that way is inadmissible per Criminal Code, section 269.1(4). (52)

The critical factor that triggered interest in FA was often that an acquaintance or relative disclosed that FA got them a large tax refund--typically years of total tax payments and deductions. (53) Most FA customers paid little attention to the pseudolegal mechanism employed. They just wanted the promised money and therefore blindly followed instructions, signing paperwork and returns without any review. (54) Others pointed to trusted advisors, with varying degrees of plausibility. (55) At least one FA customer "turned" and cooperated with the CRA once the underlying OPCA scheme came to light: "This is goddamned garbage ... I am a citizen of Canada. I have been paying my taxes for 40 years. This is absolute nonsense. I won't go along with this." (56)

These mercenary OPCA litigants did not display the unusual political and conspiratorial beliefs held by communities like the Freemen-on-the-Land. Operationally, the FA appeals were non-OPCA, OPCA litigation. The overall result was efficient. Litigation was restricted to potentially valid issues. The gross negligence penalty appeals were adjourned until a Federal Court of Appeal test case was completed. (57) Once that appeal judgment (58) was released, many FA actions were discontinued without a court appearance. The outcome was obviously not what the FA customers had hoped for, but, nonetheless, this litigation is a clear example where lawyer participation in OPCA-related proceedings had a beneficial effect.

B. FREEMEN-ON-THE-LAND

The Freeman-on-the-Land OPCA movement was founded around 2000 by Robert Arthur Menard, a street comedian turned guru. Menard reframed US Sovereign Citizen and Canadian Detaxer concepts in a new conspiratorial context that proved highly attractive to a pre-existing anti-establishment and conspiratorial population with leftist, Green, neo-Hippy, Occupista, marijuana advocacy, New Age, alternative health and food, and anti-police beliefs. (59)

Since the collapse of the Detaxer movement in the late 2000s, most Canadian "Fighters and Believers" exhibit the Freeman-on-the-Land political/conspiratorial belief profile.

The social profile of this counterculture is distinct and usually readily apparent. While the pseudolaw practiced by Freemen is very similar to, and often indistinguishable from, other OPCA movements, the Freeman community occupies a separate intellectual and philosophical space. For example, the predominate US OPCA movement, the Sovereign Citizens, are right wing libertarians who are traditional or fundamentalist Christians, and fear perceived oppressive intrusion by foreign and/or clandestine agents who aim to restrict personal beliefs, economic self-determination, and access to firearms. (60) The other major US OPCA movement, the Moors, can be fairly summarized as black separatists. (61)

All three of these host populations exhibit what political scientist Michael Barkun calls "improvisational millennialism", a pattern of conspiratorial belief which does not arise from a single ideological tradition or conceptual focus, but instead scavenges a collage of conspiracy from diverse, typically borrowed, sources, and "stigmatized knowledge". (62) What is common between the Freemen, Sovereign Citizens, and Moors is that these groups believe someone hidden is in charge, bad times are coming if not already here, and that the hidden hand pulling the strings is not readily apparent or even knowable, hidden behind layers of proxy actors. These conspiratorial beliefs usually extend to lawyers, who are seen as enemy agents. (63)

Many Freeman-related cases are criminal prosecutions. Interestingly, very few decisions report a lawyer representing a Freeman-on-the-Land. Even when a Freeman retains a lawyer, it is often in a minimal, restricted role.

In 2014, Geoffrey Chandler pled guilty (64) to dangerous driving and assaulting a police officer while resisting arrest. Chandler refused to stop when followed by police vehicles that had their lights and sirens on. (65) Ultimately, Chandler's vehicle was pinned against a guard rail. Chandler had to be extracted from that vehicle by force. Chandler was represented at sentencing. His counsel argued Chandler should receive a conditional discharge. The Crown sought a 90-day community or an intermittent sentence. Chandler self-identified as a Freeman, and on this basis claimed a "God-given-right to operate a motor vehicle." (66)

The pre-sentence report and other evidence shows Chandler could serve as an archetype for the typical Freeman. He was 25, vegan, a practicing Rastafarian, and after becoming depressed and losing his girlfriend, he decided to reduce his "footprint in society" by "eco-friendly construction" of homes and furniture using salvaged and reclaimed wood. (67) Chandler grew his own marijuana despite being refused a medical marijuana licence, and attributed the plant with many spiritual and pharmaceutical properties, including curing cancer. (68)

Chandler had a valid motor vehicle licence at the time of the chase; he simply chose not to respond to police. (69) However, once his licence was suspended Chandler continued to drive, which led to further arrests, and, ultimately, a four-day jail sentence. (70) While Chandler agreed he had done a "stupid thing" which he regretted, he nevertheless minimized his misconduct and argued police had overreacted. (71) The Court ordered a 90-day conditional sentence, one-year driving suspension, and community service.

Freeman Daren Wayne McCormick's 2012 criminal prosecution is documented in three reported decisions. (72) A jury convicted McCormick of threatening to kill police officers, possession of a restricted firearm without a licence and while prohibited from having any firearm, and having a firearm for a purpose dangerous to the public. (73)

McCormick is yet another marijuana activist. He perceives state prohibition of marijuana products as oppressive. (74) Like many Freemen, McCormick has a lengthy history of criminal misconduct, including impaired driving, setting fires, drug production, and careless use of a firearm. (75) He had breached terms of a conditional sentence. (76)

McCormick's 2012 convictions were the result of him carrying a loaded black-powder revolver, which he claimed was his absolute right as a Freeman-on-the-Land and supported by a notarized "Notice of Understanding and Intent and Claim of Right" document. (77) He confronted police with that firearm, saying he had a right to use it against them. (78) He would shoot any police officer who entered his yard. (79)

McCormick self-represented at trial, and advanced a combination of OPCA and conventional legal arguments. (80) McCormick received a three-year, 150-day sentence. (81) He then retained counsel to apply for pre-appeal bail. (82) McCormick's lawyer, Stanley W MacDonald, QC, advanced conventional arguments concerning the definition of an antique firearm, jury instructions, and whether the trial judge should have evaluated the constitutionality of a mandatory minimum sentence. (83) MacDonald's appeal met the threshold of being non-frivolous, but, despite able argument, Beveridge JA concluded McCormick's history and rejection of Canadian law and state authority meant he might not appear. (84) His detention was necessary for the public interest. McCormick's appeal is unreported but appears to have been unsuccessful. (85) McCormick's social media websites confirm he continues to hold beliefs typical of the Freeman population. (86)

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull's child sexual abuse prosecution (87) is another example of a Freeman (88) offender intermittently retaining counsel. Seagull appears to have been represented at trial, where he was convicted of the sexual assault and exploitation of twin teenaged boys. (89) The facts of this case are disturbing. Seagull had romanced the twins' "neo-hippy" mother and then took on parent-like and employer roles with the boys. They were naive and inexperienced after years of living in isolated circumstances. This led to protracted abuse where Seagull plied the teens with alcohol and physically dominated them. Seagull minimized his misconduct, which he described as consensual. At trial, defence counsel argued the victims' evidence was unreliable, the sex was consensual, and Seagull was not in a position of authority. (90)

The OPCA aspect of this litigation emerged in the sentencing judgment. A psychiatric examination was ordered, but Seagull responded with a fee schedule (91) and was otherwise uncooperative. (92) His lawyer withdrew when Seagull refused to provide valid instructions. (93) Seagull did not attend the scheduled sentencing hearing and was arrested. (94) At his next hearing duty counsel reported he could not assist because Seagull insisted on a Freeman defence. Ultimately, Seagull and duty counsel presented separate arguments; Seagull claimed the court had no jurisdiction over him. (95)

Seagull received two year concurrent sentences and probation. (96) In his reasons Justice Blok emphasized that Seagull's OPCA beliefs were a negative indicium for rehabilitation. (97)

Seagull then conducted an unsuccessful conventional appeal where he was represented by lawyer. (98) The appeal focused on a voir dire that evaluated whether a statement to police by Seagull was involuntary or made while Seagull was detained. The latter appeal ground had at least some merit, since the RCMP interview approach was "discomforting", (99) but nevertheless the trial result was confirmed.

After release Seagull continues to hold and advance Freeman OPCA concepts. (100)

Freeman gurus have also used lawyers. After 15 months of pre-trial detention, multiple unsuccessful court challenges, and several collateral attacks, (101) Freeman-on-the-Land guru Dean Clifford retained a lawyer and obtained judicial interim release. (102) The lawyer then withdrew, and Clifford represented himself at trial, where he was convicted and received a three-year sentence for drugs and weapons offences. In 2015, the father of Freemanism, Menard, was arrested in Ontario for personation of a peace officer. (103) Menard retained a lawyer and obtained bail, but then absconded. (104) He, too, conducted a self-represented collateral attack on his criminal proceedings. (105)

The small number of Freeman lawyer representation scenarios has a number of alternative potential explanations. One is a possible bias in the OPCA Decision Dataset. Many Freemen end up in court after having committed relatively minor offences, such as traffic offences, or drug possession, production, or trafficking. These matters are potentially less likely to result in a reported court judgment.

Money is a second explanation. Many Freemen appear to live a less affluent or marginal existence, or receive some form of government support. Succinctly, Freemen may not be able to afford legal assistance.

Ideology is another potential explanation. The Freeman OPCA sphere is the quintessential improvisational millennialist culture, and, as a consequence of their distorted and paranoid perspectives, Freemen may simply be unwilling to ever work with conventional authorities, including lawyers. Freeman litigants' underlying subcultural and pseudolegal beliefs appear unaffected by litigation failure and social sanction. Their OPCA beliefs are enmeshed with a larger anti-government social perspective. This feature distinguishes Freemen from Mercenary OPCA Litigants such as the FA Detaxers. OPCA theories that any cooperation with state actors creates government jurisdiction, "joinder", do not help. (106)

C. PARADIGM EDUCATION GROUP

The recent criminal prosecutions of the Paradigm Education Group [PEG] educators provide some illustrative and interesting examples where conventional and effective legal representation was possible with Fighter and Believer OPCA litigants.

PEG was a large-scale multilevel Detaxer tax evasion scam that operated from the early 2000s to around 2009. (107) PEG was developed and organized by Russell Anthony Porisky, (108) who began his tax resistance activities in the 1990s, (109) and in 2000 was acquitted of failing to file tax returns. (110) Porisky then leveraged this unusual success to found PEG.

Reduced to its conceptual kernel, PEG taught that only corporations are required to pay income tax. "Natural Persons" could "opt out" of any tax obligation. This restatement belies the sophistication of the PEG operation. PEG developed a large range of educational and training materials, including texts, videos, and audiobooks. (111) Porisky hired and trained at least 30 "educators", who then taught PEG techniques. (112) Educators held formal classes, often weekly. The PEG curriculum included standardized teaching materials and exams. The total number of persons who attended PEG seminars is not known; however, at least 800 individuals contracted with Porisky or his educators for the full PEG program. (113)

PEG had a highly formal structure. Students andeducators entered into detailed written contracts with PEG that mandated monthly payments, typically 7% of gross student income. PEG in turn promised legal and litigation support. PEG maintained detailed financial records, which ultimately proved very helpful to establish the scope of PEG's criminal activity. Until this point, most Detaxer education occurred via day long or weekend seminars. PEG went much further, even promoting a PEG lifestyle with social gatherings and parties. (114)

Operationally, PEG was all but the opposite of FA. FA handled everything on behalf of their customers, but PEG required deep involvement, if not indoctrination, into the PEG scheme. That is even more true for the educators who actually taught these concepts. These are "die-hard cadres"; subsequently, two have become OPCA gurus in their own right. (115)

Despite their strong anti-tax perspectives, certain upper rank PEG members employed lawyers in their criminal defence litigation. Unlike Freemen, some PEG members willingly operated within the court apparatus.

Porisky and his wife/collaborator Elaine Gould self-represented at their first 2012 trial. Both were convicted. (116) Each had separate counsel prior to the trial but those lawyers subsequently withdrew. (117) Trial defences included that the PEG scheme was legally correct, (118) but also a more legally plausible, though unsuccessful, argument that where two legislative schemes permit a search then the Charter requires the most "searchee friendly" alternative is used. (119)

Porisky and Gould appealed. Both were denied judicial interim release. (120) Their initial conviction appeals argued that PEG theories were correct, a claim Chaisson JA concluded was "frivolous" as Canadian jurisprudence had rejected analogous "Natural Person" arguments. (121)

Now the appeal underwent a marked change in trajectory. Porisky retained a lawyer, Martin Peters, who filed an application for a further judicial interim release review that introduced a new ground for appeal: the trial judge had provided inadequate assistance to Porisky and Gould as SRLs. (122) Chief Justice Finch granted a panel review of the issue.

The next hearing was before a five-member panel to resolve inconsistent approaches for pre-appeal judicial interim release. (123) Porisky was represented by two new lawyers, Patrick M McGowan and Kyle A McCleery. While Porisky's initial appeal was "prolix, unfocussed and tainted by the nonsense of the "natural person" theory", Porisky's counsel now advanced new grounds, including: that counselling declaring no income was not fraud; the limits of mens rea for counselling as an offense; and a number of trial fairness issues, including qualification of an expert, admission of PEG documents, and the inadequate SRL assistance argument. (124) Porisky received judicial interim release, but was warned by the Court that although he had a right to represent himself, he may require lawyer assistance to "competently argue the points discovered by counsel". (125)

Porisky heeded that warning, and at the appeal proper was represented by McGowan and McCleery; Gould was represented by Peters. (126) The appeal was decided on only one issue: whether the trial judge conducted a judge-alone proceeding without giving Porisky an opportunity to elect a jury trial. At trial, Porisky and Gould were uncooperative SRLs. They refused to attend unless "certain matters were addressed to [their] satisfaction", and when arrested and brought into court, they made confusing statements. (127) The British Columbia Court of Appeal majority concluded that Porisky was denied an opportunity to elect a judge and jury trial, and a jury re-trial was ordered for both appellants. (128)

Porisky and Gould represented themselves at the retrial and were convicted on all tax evasion and counselling fraud charges. (129) Gould received a six-month sentence, taking into account time served. Porisky received a five-and-a-half-year total sentence. Porisky subsequently filed an appeal as a SRL. He chiefly complains that the jury cannot have acted judicially in convicting him given certain evidence, and because the jury only took five hours to reach its verdict. (130)

Appeal counsel were clearly useful to Porisky and Gould. Not only did they identify additional issues but they obtained a re-trial for their clients. Ultimately this only delayed the result, (131) but nevertheless illustrates that even "die-hard" OPCA gurus may be effectively and ethically represented by counsel.

Porisky and Gould are not unique. PEG Detaxers Douglas Preston Amell, Heidi Lynne Keyzer, and Robert Lawrence Amell were not represented at trial. Douglas Amell presented their case. He reported the accused could not locate a lawyer who would advance their intended defence. (132) This is unsurprising because the accused argued stereotypical PEG OPCA concepts. All three defendants were convicted. They then retained lawyer Douglas Christie who advanced conventional grounds for appeal at the Saskatchewan Courts of Queens Bench and Appeal. (133) The latter appeal was partially successful. A retrial was ordered for Keyzer as she was absent from apart of the trial proceeding due to a medical emergency. (134)

PEG educator Donald Grant Baudais retained lawyer Christopher Maddock (now Judicial Justice Maddock) after a jury convicted Baudais of tax evasion and counselling fraud. (135) Baudais received an unusually lenient six-month conditional sentence due to his remorse, and because Baudais was the primary caregiver for his spouse, who was suffering from brain cancer. (136) While Maddock cannot be explicitly linked to Baudais' atypical sentence, the reported judgment does indicate that the offender's sentencing arguments were effective and that relevant and useful jurisprudence was advanced.

Not all PEG Detaxers were pragmatic, rational actors. Some operated on a purely ideological OPCA basis. For example, educator Gerald Blerot claimed that, as a "natural person", he was outside any court authority; courts only have jurisdiction over legal persons. (137) Blerot failed to attend proceedings, was disruptive and abusive following his arrest and detention, and ultimately was restrained by the RCMP. (138) Similarly, PEG educator, and now OPCA guru, Michael Spencer Millar's criminal defence operated perpendicular to conventional principles of law and procedure. (139) Unsurprisingly, Millar was convicted and received a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence.

Others, such as Denise Eddy, represented themselves and mounted conventional and sometimes impressively competent defences. (140) Once Eddy's numerous voir dire Charter applications were dismissed, she pled guilty, offered to cooperate with the Crown in its prosecution of other PEG accused, and negotiated a joint submission for a two-year-less-a-day conditional sentence. Eddy's litigation conduct was, however, far from spotless. She made a spurious Charter challenge to preliminary hearing procedures and engaged in collateral attacks on decided issues. That led to sharp criticism, (141) and ultimately, the very unusual remedy of a cost award against a criminal accused. (142)

The PEG community exhibited unusual cooperation and collaboration. For example, at one hearing Baudais appeared with another PEG educator, Edwin Siggelkow. Siggelkow assisted with an argument that the Tax Court of Canada has jurisdiction over tax offences as only it can calculate the quantum of income tax due. (143) Siggelkow had earlier (unsuccessfully) made the same argument in his own criminal proceedings, (144) where Wilson J observed Siggelkow's submissions were logical, impressive, and "better written than many written submissions that the court has received from experienced lawyers". (145)

The PEG Detaxers shared information and litigation strategies. For example, other educators used Porisky's Charter search warrant argument. (146) Several PEG Detaxers demanded the Crown provide disclosure about an alleged CRA scheme or project dubbed "Operation Fable". (147)

Thus, when faced with criminal prosecution many members of PEG exhibited a degree of sophistication. Their capacity to engage in detailed research and argument was considerable, if not impressive. Sometimes they retained lawyers where doing so could offer a benefit. Other times they self-represented, either out of necessity, or for tactical advantage. PEG Detaxers Terry and Robert Steinkey, and Debbie Anderson (discussed below) went a step further, and collaborated with both rogue and ethical lawyers. (148)

The PEG Detaxers are thus very different from the typical "freeman" guru or rank and file follower. Freemen operate in a rote, almost ritualistic manner, and exhibit no real knowledge of law or procedure. In contrast, the PEG Detaxers were an almost worst case scenario for Crown prosecutors: a group of organized and determined SRLs who combined both orthodox arguments and strategies with pseudolaw, supplemented by legal professionals.

V. THE GREY ZONE

OPCA concepts are generally developed or invented by persons outside the legal mainstream. These ideas are then tested in court and rejected. However, the merit or arguability of pseudolaw varies. Some concepts are immediately false and frivolous, but other pseudolegal arguments only crystallize as legally incorrect after being rejected in court. Therefore, when pseudolaw is first employed a window might exist where a lawyer could ethically argue an unorthodox interpretation or scheme. This is a "Grey Zone" of implausible, dubious, but arguable issues.

Table 1 shows that very few lawyers specialize in OPCA litigation. Most engaged in only a few OPCA disputes; several exceptions conducted ethical FA appeals. One particular Canadian lawyer dominated the Grey Zone of questionable OPCA litigation: prominent Canadian criminal defence lawyer, Douglas Hewson Christie Jr.

This analysis will first examine what potentially viable concepts fall into the Grey Zone, and then use Christie's criminal defence litigation to investigate how the Grey Zone has contracted over time.

A. SOME OPCA CONCEPTS ARE ARGUABLE

OPCA schemes range across a spectrum of legal plausibility, from alternative but coherent interpretations of legislation and case law, to magic-like ceremonies meant to compel courts by illogical means. (149)

Two contrasting examples illustrate this variable. The preamble to the Charter states: "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law". (150)

Certain OPCA gurus point to the preamble and argue that the "supremacy of God" phrase indicates that Canadian law is founded on religious principles or texts, and that religious belief, typically comprising of Christian concepts or rules, has a constitutional or supra-constitutional impact. (151) This "supremacy of God" argument is reinforced by the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada has deemed the preamble legally relevant in decisions discussing the importance of the "rule of law". (152)

A "supremacy of God" argument was therefore a Grey Zone concept, at least until the "supremacy of God" phrase was explicitly rejected by Canadian courts as irrelevant. (153)

The ubiquitous "Strawman" scheme is at the other end of the spectrum. (154) This OPCA myth claims that individuals have two aspects, a physical "flesh and blood" human being, and a contractually linked invisible "legal person", a sort of "Strawman" doppelganger. The "Strawman" half is supposedly created by birth documentation and is associated with a secret bank account which contains large, if not huge, sums. The "Strawman" and human are distinguished by how their names are spelled: the "Strawman" uses all uppercase letters (ROBERT ARTHUR MENARD), while human names use mixed or lower case and contain punctuation (Robert-Arthur: Menard). Humans are allegedly subject only to "common law" a spurious OPCA variation on the term better described as "natural law". Only the "Strawman" is subject to legislation and government authority. The "Strawman" concept claims that governments, which are only corporations, have no inherent rights over human beings, but instead obtain their authority by chaining a contractual relationship through the "Strawman" and the birth documentation contract. Breaking the "Strawman" birth certificate contract purportedly frees one from any government control.

Though the "Strawman" duality is framed in legal-sounding language and concepts, it is a myth, nothing more. The "Strawman" narrative is riddled with errors and impossibilities that are obvious to anyone with legal training. Governments are not corporations. A person's identity and status before the law is not separate from his or her physical character. Birth documentation is not a contract. If the "Strawman" worked, it would not liberate, but would instead create a slave. (155)

OPCA concepts are, by their very character, frivolous and vexatious. (156) However, these two examples illustrate that the abusive and legally incorrect nature of an OPCA scheme does not necessarily emerge when the concept is first employed. The "supremacy of God" argument is now unambiguously rejected by Canadian courts. A person, including a lawyer, who deploys that strategy cannot expect success. This is an example of an argument that moved from an uncertain, but arguable status, to being hopeless and frivolous.

However, some OPCA concepts are never plausible. No legally trained person could ethically advance a "Strawman" argument. Courts do not need to first reject the "Strawman" duality because it is entirely incompatible with the history, evolution, and principles of Commonwealth common law. (157)

B. CONTACT BETWEEN PSEUDOLAW AND THE COURTS

Canadian pseudolaw has two sources: domestic constructs that largely relate to jurisdiction and "legal loopholes", and concepts imported from the US Sovereign Citizen community. (158) For whatever reason, most fantastic and implausible pseudolaw has been imported, rather than "made in Canada". Many of the earliest Canada-sourced examples of pseudolaw started in the Grey Zone. Viewed objectively, some of these arguments ask very interesting legal questions. What follows is one example.

One early OPCA motif claimed that legislation is only enforceable if it exists in a discrete, official, up-to-date, and accessible form. Members of the now extinct Detaxer movement (159) argued the Income Tax Act [ITA] is only binding if it exists in a complete, amended, and certified form. (160) One common strategy was to demand the Crown provide a document of this kind to satisfy its disclosure obligations under section 7 of the Charter. (161) Other Detaxers argued a defence of due diligence. Their attempts to locate the true ITA were unsuccessful. (162)

While this "show me the law" argument was rejected, it certainly has a degree of intellectual merit. How can someone be held accountable when they cannot readily identify and know the law? For example, Frank Bruno argued he should not be forced to rely on privately published consolidations of the ITA, (163) such as Stikeman Income Tax Act Annotated, (164) because those books disclaim their own reliability. A decade ago validating legislation might require a not at all simple archaeological excavation through strata of government Gazette publications.

When Detaxers raised this argument, they were not engaged in a sincere attempt to access and better understand the law. This was a loophole to escape tax obligations. Nevertheless, their challenge raises genuine issues of policy and practicality. Advances in information technology and the development of public domain law information resources make this defence a historical anachronism. The CanLII database (165) represents a nearly perfect answer to the Detaxers' expressed concerns. Even highly complex legislation, like the ITA, is now available to the public in accessible, updated, and searchable forms.

C. OPERATING IN THE GREY ZONE

Christie is best known for representing persons accused of Nazi war crimes, (166) racist or anti-Semitic hate speech, (167) and neo-Nazi activities. (168) Less appreciated is that Christie was deeply involved with the OPCA phenomenon as it first emerged in Canada. Christie defended members of the Detaxer community, which is not particularly surprising since the Detaxers and their precursors also sometimes espoused racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. (169)

Some of this litigation is strictly "conventional", such as the acquittal of Detaxer guru Felipe Marcel Naudi, a.k.a. "Bruce Stellar", on the basis that Naudi was not adequately linked to his social insurance number. (170) Other litigation involved much more unorthodox concepts.

1. WHAT IS AN INCOME TAX RETURN?

Christie's Grey Zone activities start with the original Canadian pseudolegal tactic: gaming the minimum income tax return that a taxpayer must file to satisfy the ITA. (171) This strategy was first employed in the 1950s by Gerald Hart, a Winnipeg electronics shop owner. Hart filled in his tax returns with non-responsive statements, or simply drew messages or cartoons on his tax forms. Hart claimed that satisfied his income tax return obligations. (172)

In 1996 David George Strang was convicted for failing to file a tax return. Strang had entered spurious data; for example, his gross business income was: "MY BUSINESS, NOT YOURS". Christie conducted the subsequent appeal. (173) While Christie correctly abandoned Strang's hopeless claim that income tax was unconstitutional, (174) Christie nevertheless persisted in employing Hart's gibberish income tax return argument which, unsurprisingly, was rejected. The Court relied on an earlier Alberta decision against a key PreDetaxer guru, Murray Gauvreau, which provided a general test: a valid return permits CRA evaluation of the taxpayer's taxation self-report. (175) Responding to an item with "ZILCH" might be acceptable, but stating total income was "NO BEADS ON ABACUS" was not a valid response.

Christie subsequently re-encountered the Gauvreau test for an adequate return during his 2005 defence of a Detaxer guru, Nigel Stephen Smith. Smith argued that a letter to the CRA which stated that Smith's income was zero satisfied the requirement to file a tax return. (176) However, the Court rejected Christie's argument. This was just a variation on the minimum tax return gambit; Smith's letter was "bafflegab and sophistry". (177) Smith's other claim that he could not identify what "prescribed" income tax form to use was "preposterous", (178) and his due diligence defence was equally suspect: "[t]he only diligence used by Mr. Smith has been in his effort to avoid compliance." (179) On both subsequent appeals, the prescribed form and "what is a tax return" arguments were rejected as "specious", dismissed by binding court authorities, or fell outside the Court's jurisdiction. (180)

By this point the alternative tax return arguments were essentially spent, and this concept became extinct. (181) Instead, the Detaxers and Christie re-oriented to a new concept, the "natural man" argument that human beings are not subject to income tax.

2. MENS REA OF TAX EVASION AND THE "NATURAL MAN"

The CRA and Windsor Ontario optometrist Dr. Jack (Johannis) Klundert have been engaged in an OPCA tax dispute for over two decades. Throughout this dispute Christie has advanced a succession of novel tax-related concepts.

Klundert adopted Gauvreau PreDetaxer concepts in 1993, stopped paying income tax, and filed nonsense returns. (182) Christie represented Klundert at a 2004 jury trial where Klundert was acquitted of tax evasion. Klundert's OPCA concepts were by this point thoroughly rejected, but instead, Christie focused on the mens rea of tax evasion. Tax evasion requires intention: a person must have "wilfully, in any manner, evaded or attempted to evade" payment of tax. (183) Christie's defence centered on whether Klundert had honestly believed he had no obligation to pay income tax. Christie argued that an honest belief meant the mens rea for evasion was missing.

This issue is the focus of the extremely important 2004 Ontario Court of Appeal R v Klundert decision. (184) The Court observed that since the ITA is "necessarily and notoriously complex", a layperson might incorrectly and illegally understate their tax obligation, but do so honestly and without the intention to evade tax. (185) That, however, is not what Klundert had done. He claimed the government had no jurisdiction to tax; however, the Court concluded that Klundert's claim was not a kind of mistake of law that could provide a freestanding excuse for the commission of a crime. (186) Christie, however, successfully cross-appealed Klundert's trial conviction for filing a false return as an inconsistent verdict. (187) A re-trial was ordered.

Christie's parallel defence of Detaxer Paul Joseph Ricci was effectively doomed by the 2004 Klundert #1 decision. (188)

Christie and Klundert's collaboration continued. Klundert was acquitted of tax evasion at a second jury trial. The Crown appealed. This time Klundert argued he was not a "person" or a "taxpayer" and therefore had no income tax obligation. (189) This is a variation of Porisky's "natural person", and one of many related Detaxer schemes which were adapted from the US "Strawman" concept. (190) Christie did not deny the "natural person" scheme was false, but argued instead at the 2008 appeal that Klundert had not claimed he was exempt from income tax. Rather, Klundert had tried to understand the ITA and, erroneously but honestly, concluded he had no obligation to pay because he was, by definition, not a taxpayer.

MacFarland JA called this a "rather transparent" attempt to re-frame Klundert's defence to avoid the 2004 decision analysis. The mens rea defence identified in the 2004 Klundert #1 decision is only for "those who are attempting to obey the law, but are mistaken in their belief." (191) The trial judge had incorrectly instructed the jury on this point. A third trial was ordered.

This time Klundert was convicted. Christie appealed. (192) Klundert then testified that his refusal to pay tax was intended as a social protest, and not evasion. Laforme JA rejected this argument as an attempt to work around the 2004 and 2008 decisions, but substituted a conditional sentence for the custodial sentence ordered at trial. (193)

The Klundert mens rea decisions were adopted throughout Canada (194) and are something of a bugbear for OPCA litigants, since any claim to be a "tax protestor" or otherwise outside the income tax scheme is, by definition, tax evasion.

Christie last defended Klundert in a 2011 tax evasion prosecution for tax years 2000-2005. (195) Christie advanced arguments concerning a defective information, operation of the Canadian Bill of Rights, and a novel argument that Klundert could not be liable to pay tax on amounts intercepted by a garnishee order. Klundert was convicted and fined. (196)

Christie is also a key figure in PEG's history due to his defence of a dentist, Dr. Eva Sydel, in PEG's first test case. (197) Some of his conduct was problematic. One defence was that Porisky's "natural person" theory was correct, which was a Grey Zone argument, and a weak one at that. Judge Meyers disposed of it by reference to appellate authority. Porisky's concepts were not novel; a detailed rebuttal "would serve no useful purpose." (198) The Court disposed of a long-rejected and incorrect OPCA defence that Canada had no authority to pass income tax legislation in the same manner. (199) Christie argued Sydel lacked mens rea, but evidence against that was overwhelming. (200)

However, Christie made other potentially effective arguments. He attempted to enter video and witness evidence of PEG concepts, but Judge Meyers initially and without argument ordered he did not have to listen to these materials. (201) Christie objected that this decision was premature; Judge Meyers agreed. Christie then brought a mistrial application, arguing that the premature decision raised a reasonable apprehension of bias. That was rejected, but Judge Meyers stressed that it was good and appropriate defence advocacy: "it is difficult 'to stand up to' a judge". (202)

Post-trial, Christie unsuccessfully applied for a stay, advancing a novel argument that the CRA operates as an administrative tribunal, and alleging that the CRA correspondence with Sydel was an abuse of process. Judge Meyers focused only on the government/taxpayer interactions, concluding that Sydel had tried to impose a reverse onus on the state actor, which had no obligation to respond. (203) Christie argued that Sydel should receive a conditional sentence, but instead she was fined and imprisoned for 18 months. (204)

Sydel self-represented in her subsequent litigation, which ultimately devolved into claims that she was the victim of a judicial Freemason conspiracy. (205)

Christie's remaining OPCA litigation illustrates how the Grey Zone was narrowed by the accumulating anti-O PC A jurisprudence. During the 2009 tax evasion prosecution of James Balla, (206) Christie focused his arguments on whether the CRA had linked the accused to employment and corporate records, and satisfied elements of the tax evasion offence. Balla was found guilty; his actions met the Klundert criteria. Christie then conducted a conventional, though unsuccessful, appeal that challenged admission of evidence and proof of the elements of the offence. Christie's 2012-2013 defence of the Amells and Keyzer was conventional. (207)

Christie died in 2013.

D. THE GREY ZONE TODAY

Lawyers occasionally still advance Grey Zone concepts, for example testing the limits of the Klundert mens rea rules, (208) but other borderline litigation requires considerable suspension of disbelief. For example, one abortive attempt to initiate a Federal Court class action (209) appears to be based on thoroughly discounted "consumer purchase" Bills of Exchange Act arguments, (210) besides having been advanced in the wrong court.

The past decade has seen little pseudolegal innovation in Canada. Most novelties are either attempts to reframe old concepts, (211) or "money for nothing" schemes that would be laughable, were it not for the tragic consequences to those who use them. (212) This crystallization of OPCA motifs means that the Grey Zone is almost gone. However, the emergence of truly novel pseudolaw could reverse this process, establishing a new territory where lawyers could explore and litigate.

VI. ROGUE LAWYERS

While some lawyers have trodden a fine line arguing marginally viable legal concepts, others have plunged into the OPCA deep end. This review identifies four lawyers who have abused the courts by arguing vexatious OPCA concepts on behalf of their clients.

A. RICHARD DE SERRE

A cluster of OPCA-based "money for nothing" litigation occurred in Quebec from 2011-2014. Litigants employed either the same or closely related variations of "accepted for value", or "A4V", a "Strawman"-based OPCA scheme where a human and their "Strawman" are associated with an alleged secret government-operated bank account that contains very large sums of money. This "birth bond" bank account is linked to a humans birth documentation, which also creates the "Strawman".

A4V gurus claim that, with the appropriate paperwork, a person may access the birth bond bank account for his or her personal use. This is purportedly a source of free money. Many variations on A4V have been promoted in the US and Canada. (213)

Needless to say, the purported "Strawman" birth bond bank account is a fiction. Despite their consistent failure, A4V schemes have now been in circulation for nearly 20 years in the form of books, tutorials, and no end of YouTube videos.

The Quebec A4V scheme is detailed in a 2014 decision of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, Bosse v Farm Credit Canada. (214) Jules and Anne Bosse operated and secured a company which purchased a number of woodlots in 2007, but ceased making payments in 2010. (215) The woodlots were foreclosed and sold, and Farm Credit Canada then pursued the Bosses for the remaining debt. (216) The Bosses responded with a collection of documents which the Bosses argued discharged their obligations. These are reproduced in the New Brunswick Court of Appeal decision, and illustrate how the Quebec A4V scheme would supposedly operate.

The New Brunswick Court of Appeal bluntly rejected the Bosses attempt to "zero" their debt. Their scheme "defies logic" and "the Bosses knew it"; the Court therefore had "a duty to denounce this type of preposterous conduct". (217)

The court also identified 10 Quebec decisions that respond to and reject the scheme employed by the Bosses. (218) Disturbingly, two foreclosure decisions identified in that group report a lawyer, Richard De Serre, had argued A4V.

First, a March 2012 decision (219) reports De Serre defended a Noe'lla Petrin. Petrin obtained a property from her husband, Gabriel Hebert, but ceased making payments in March 2011. (220)

A "Gilles Dion" (221) then filed "certain English-language documents which... did not constitute any defense whatsoever" (222) on behalf of Hebert (who claimed to be Petrin's lawyer), including a "Notice of abatement of hearing and motion to close the account." (223) These stated money to pay the debt was available from the US Treasury. (224) These OPCA documents were struck out, and Petrin was given the opportunity to file a valid defence. (225)

Petrin's responded with more spurious documents, said she had provided funds to pay for her mortgage, and challenged the documents the bank said established the debt. (226) The Court adjourned the matter to permit Petrin a final opportunity to pay.

De Serre made his first appearance, seeking and obtaining a further one-week adjournment. (227) At the subsequent 23 February 2012 hearingDe Serre argued Petrin had fulfilled her legal obligation to pay any debt. The Bills of Exchange Act (228) released Petrin from all obligations. The Court rejected this argument and ordered foreclosure. Petrin's documentation did not constitute payment.

Petrin's subsequent unrepresented appeal was rejected in toto and without analysis. (229)

De Serre's next OPCA clients were Yves Langlois and Pascale Groleau, (230) who failed to pay municipal taxes and defaulted on their mortgage. At his first appearance on 23 January 2012, De Serre claimed the bank could not foreclose because the value of the real property exceeded the mortgage debt. (231) De Serre subsequently acknowledged that defence was frivolous, but then advanced the same A4V scheme employed in the Petrin action. The debt was paid by a "Private registered set off bond". (232) The Court inquired why De Serre should not be personally responsible for costs where the purported payment was nothing more than a copy of a document probably found on the Internet; De Serre had no valid answer for that. (233)

Dumas J ordered the bank had title; Langlois and Groleau must vacate the property. (234) Counsel for the bank was instructed to report De Serre to the Barreau du Quebec for his failure to comply with his most basic ethical obligations. (235)

De Serre does not appear to have been involved in any subsequent OPCA litigation.

De Serre was admitted to the bar in 1995. As of 2017 the Barreau du Quebec lists De Serre as retired. Investigation failed to identify other relevant information about this lawyer.

B. CLARENCE JUSTIN GRIFFIN

De Serre is not the only Canadian lawyer to employ A4V debt elimination strategies. In 2008 Ontario lawyer Clarence Justin Griffin was disbarred for acting as a lawyer after being suspended by the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2006 for not making his annual filing. (236) Griffin, aka "ah'she hodeeheehonto", did not attend the 2008 hearing. He claimed to be outside the Law Society's jurisdiction because of the Charter, treaties, and because "the Turtle Island Authority Registry" had "enacted legislation" that permitted him to act as a lawyer. (237) "ah'she hodeeheehonto" then sought judicial review, which was dismissed as premature because Griffin had a right to appeal, though the panel concluded the Law Society's action was, in any case, correct. (238)

A 2008 media interview with Griffin provides more background. (239) Griffin claimed he was "appointed as a legal counsel" by the "Sovereign Anishinabe Nation" in February 2006. That put him outside the Law Society's jurisdiction. The Sovereign Anishinabe Nation is a fictitious Detaxer entity operated by now deceased Saskatchewan resident Lawrence Agecoutay, aka "Sovereign King KaneeKaneet", who offered "full Indian title" for pay. (240) That, purportedly, immunized against Canadian laws. A subsequent 2009 letter from Griffin to the International Criminal Court in the Hague confirms this link to KaneeKaneet. (241)

Though suspended, Griffin continued in a range of litigation. Some were aboriginal disputes. Griffin represented a Mohawk protestor, Trevor Miller, on charges that resulted from Miller attacking television cameramen and hijacking a US Border Patrol vehicle. Griffin claimed Miller was "a prisoner of war." (242) Griffin also represented the "stewards of the Haldimand Treaty", a Mohawk group who in 2007 sued the Haudenosaunsee Six Nation Confederacy and other tribes and individuals for $4.4 trillion for "mental anguish, pain and suffering deliberately inflicted on the heirs and descendants of the Mohawk Nation of the Grand River" and $3 trillion in aggravated and punitive damages. (243) "Conventional" Mohawk authorities denounced the action as "frivolous" and a "cash-grab". (244) One of the "stewards" was Miller, but he denied authorizing Griffin to initiate this action. (245) Unsurprisingly the "stewards" action was discontinued. (246)

Griffin also employed OPCA debt elimination schemes. In 2007 Griffin acted as counsel for Burkhard and Cathy Wegner, who attempted to evade repayment of their mortgage and credit card debts. (247) The Wegners and Griffin deployed two different A4V schemes. In March 2007 the bank was sent $300 billion US "Private Discharging and Indemnity Bonds" for "Amaa-Hanak, dba CATHERINE MARY WEGNER[c][TM]" and ": qwlqin. and: Axwt, dba BURKHARD WEGNER[c][TM]" that would purportedly be paid by the US Department of the Treasury, along with "Certified Promissory Notes" that 10 days after receipt were "payment in full" via "tacit consent".

The second A4V payment was a "Bonded Promissory Note" for $350,000.00 from notorious US Sovereign Citizen guru "Winston Shrout acting as agent for WINSTON SHROUT", (248) sent July 2007. This document also purportedly authorized funds from a fictitious US Treasury Department account. Unsurprisingly, the bank accepted neither payment. Griffin ultimately withdrew from this file, and the Wegners' home was sold under power of sale.

In 2008 the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce obtained a default judgment against Griffin personally for an outstanding $1,343.92 credit card debt. (249) Griffin, as ah'seh hodeeheehonto, "indigenous man of this Land under the Great League of Peace" (250) and "Third Party in Interest Under Injury", (251) denied he was "GRIFFIN, CLARENCE JUSTIN" (his "Strawman"), (252) and explained he had returned his New Brunswick birth certificate for destruction. (253) He was "unshackled" from government authority; he had removed his "person" "legal entity", and he claimed that the bank should instead pursue New Brunswick. (254) Griffin also claimed his debt was paid by an A4V process, and threatened he would file a private information to initiate criminal proceedings unless the bank reimbursed all his credit card payments. (255) Because Canadian courts were corrupt, Griffin would "seek damages pursuant to the Uniform Commercial Code within the jurisdiction of the Parent Corporation, the united states of AMERICA CORPORATION." (256)

Griffin's correspondence to the International Criminal Court (257) also described an unsuccessful attempt to represent James Bradford and Sheri Karen Medd in a 2009 tax evasion criminal prosecution. (258) A "Strawman" defence was employed.

Griffin's last identified litigation activity is as ah'she hodeeheehonto, "Trustee for the living man, rahontsi (aka HERBERT DONALD TRIPP)", in a 2010 action in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. (259) The double name for Tripp is an obvious "Strawman" reference. Griffin's exact role here is unclear. He is identified as "appearing in person", but his relationship to Tripp is not made explicit, beyond that he is a "Trustee", per the style of cause.

The underlying dispute is, however, detailed. (260) The Grand River Indian Band purchased land which it intended to add to the reserve. After the purchase, Tripp and another person occupied that land and constructed tax-free "smoke shops" without permission of the Band or the local municipality. Tripp and the other interloper were evicted. (261)

Griffin then entered the fray, and applied for an injunction against the eviction order prior to an impending judicial review. He atgued Tripp (or himself) were not subject to Canada's laws, the illegally occupied land was a disputed land claim, procedural justice defects, the Band's actions were unauthorized, and this was already Indian land. (262) Tumbull J denied the application; there was no serious issue to be tried. Indemnity costs were ordered. (263) Tripp's smoke shack was demolished in 2011. (264)

Contemporaneous media reports indicate Griffin also represented Tripp in a separate criminal action; Tripp was facing 27 firearms-related charges including possession of prohibited firearms and removing firearm serial numbers. (265) The court refused Griffin as Tripp's representative; Griffin responded this was "an act of treason". (266)

Griffin appears to have been admitted to the Bar in 1995. (267) He previously worked as a teacher and parole officer. (268) Griffin's pre-suspension litigation is conventional. Interestingly, he both represented the Brantford Police Service and persons who alleged misconduct by that organization. (269) He appears to have conducted a conventional criminal defence in Saskatchewan while suspended. (270)

Griffin died of cancer in 2011. (271) His social media website does not exhibit indicia of OPCA affiliation or OPCA movement beliefs. (272) Whether Griffin was aboriginal is unclear, though he researched that subject after being disbarred. (273)

C. JEUNESSE LEELAWATIE HOSEIN

In 2014 an Ontario lawyer, Jeunesse Leelawatie Hosein, surrendered her lawyer's licence during a disciplinary proceeding in the Law Society Tribunal of the Law Society of Upper Canada. The decision (274) which reports this step and supporting file documents describe Hosein's OPCA activities.

While the license surrender was a joint submission, Hosein did not cooperate with the Law Society investigation. The Tribunal concluded Hosein had engaged in "serious conduct unbecoming a barrister and solicitor", "has shown serious disrespect for the judiciary and court system, used tactics that harm that system and access to it" (275) and Hosein's "use of language that resembles OPCA tactics is egregious" and has "brought serious discredit on the legal profession." (276)

In 2012 Hosein responded to a credit card collection action with a fee schedule, the "banks create money from thin air" defence, (277) and a $ 1,003,262,503.44 counterclaim. Hosein feigned unfamiliarity with court processes, but Van RensburgJ noted she was a lawyer, and ordered summary judgment. (278) An appeal was abandoned.

Hosein also provided "notary" services to a Canadian, Franzie Colaco, a kingpin in a $ 15 million 1099 OID OPCA fraud (279) against the US Internal Revenue Service. OPCA theory holds that notaries have greater authority than judges and may issue binding judgments. (280) Colaco conducted a large scale OPCA scam where 961 Canadians filed US tax returns which in total sought "three quarters of a billion dollars in fraudulent refunds." (281) Colaco was extradited, convicted, and sentenced to nine years in prison. (282) In correspondence to the extradition judge, Hosein claimed that she, as "lawyer, notary", sent Colaco's fingerprints "for use in full payment and complete satisfaction". (283) This is a typical "notary judgment" A4V variation where payments from the secret birth bond bank account purportedly discharge criminal obligations. This US A4V variant was taught by the president of the "Republic for the united States of America" (284) James Timothy Taylor, where a long form birth certificate with fingerprints is a necessary ingredient in the A4V process.

Hosein directed foisted unilateral agreements that claimed $42,927.82 in damages against the judge involved in her credit card debt litigation. Hosein then responded to correspondence from the regional senior justice with materials from the Gold Shield Alliance OPCA debt elimination scam. (285) This included warnings that uncooperative Ontario judges "will be entered into the new International World Court database of lawbreakers for your criminal offences against humanity". (286)

Hosein answered the Law Society of Upper Canada complaint by sending the investigator another fee schedule. Hosein was generally uncooperative during that investigation. Her correspondence with investigators exhibited many OPCA motifs.

Around the time Hosein adopted OPCA strategies she also was involved in a mortgage and tenancy dispute. (287) Hosein defaulted on her condo mortgage in 2012, but then signed a five-year lease on the property to her daughter, Meera Boodhoo, on what Benotto JA of the Ontario Court of Appeal described as "very favourable" terms. (288) That meant Boodhoo's rent came nowhere near the mortgage payments due. The lender's application to terminate the lease was granted. Hosein did not appear and was ordered to pay $15,000.00 in costs. Boodhoo shares her mother's OPCA interests, (289) and advanced an OPCA defence and counterclaim against her own credit card debts. (290)

A CV posted by Hosein (291) indicates she was admitted to the Ontario Bar in the early 1990s, and spent most of her legal career as a provincial offence prosecutor. She moved into general practice after 2008 and became a sole practitioner in 2010. Investigation did not identify any post-2014 OPCA activities.

Hosein holds unusual health-related beliefs, and contributed to a self-help text, Unbreakable Spirit: Rising Above the Impossible. (292) An associated website identifies her as a "psychosomatic therapy practitioner, transformational speaker and author" who offers "self-empowering techniques to change these limiting beliefs that have been impacting your life at a cellular level." (293) Hosein's CV identifies the "Australasian Institute of Body-Mind Analysis and Psychosomatic Therapy" as the source of her expertise. (294) Hosein also subscribed to the "Dinar ReValuation" conspiracy theory popular in OPCA circles. (295) This is a scam used to sell Iraqi Dinars, and claims that currency will dramatically increase in value ("RV") at some point in the very near future, which, unsurprisingly, is always somehow delayed. (296)

D. GLENN PATRICK BOGUE

Ontario lawyer Glenn Patrick Bogue has advanced OPCA concepts in four different litigation disputes.

1. POLYGAMOUS FAMILY GROUP

Bogue's first OPCA activities involve an extremely unusual polygamous family group (297) centred around a self-proclaimed Mohawk medicine man. This man made extraordinary claims, including that he raises the dead (including himself), he discovered a cure for HIV which he shared with the Dalai Lama, and he was shot in the head at a protest in 1969. (298) This last claim was substantiated when an x-ray located metal fragments in his skull. (299) This individual was accompanied by three women, his "surrogates", who provided him children so that his medicine man DNA would continue. The family's beliefs and behaviour were highly unusual. A mental health assessment concluded the father was a charismatic but paranoid and delusional leader; he controlled the women, who were brainwashed. (300)

This group was first detected near Calgary with seven undocumented children, all fathered by the male group leader. The children were distressed, exhibited atypical behaviours, and several had serious untreated medical and dental conditions. (301) The children were seized, and permanent state guardianship was ordered. (302) The group relocated to Ontario, where three more children were born and seized by child welfare authorities. (303) The family consistently denied Canadian governments had any jurisdiction over themselves and their children. (304)

Bogue then appeared and filed a 1 February 2016 Federal Court statement of claim which fuses two apparently unrelated actions. (305) The polygamous family component challenged the child seizures and demanded "$2 Quadrillion" in damages from Queen Elizabeth II, Canada, and banks for "rent" of "native soils", "theft of natives' identity as Domestic Sovereigns", and the rape, murder, and inhuman treatment of "native people". (306) The statement of claim explains that Canada is a corporation with no legitimate claim to Canadian territory occupied by "living, sentient beings living on said lands", which has trapped the people of Canada with "artificially-created non-gold backed debt", so "[i]t's now up to the Federal Court to lead the way out." (307) The statement of claim for no apparent reason attaches the statement of claim for a lawsuit that challenges Canadian monetary policies. (308) The other half of this action on behalf of "Sir Andrew miracle" is discussed separately below.

The docket record reveals irregular activities such as attempts to conduct an ex parte hearing, collateral attacks on Alberta and Ontario child custody judgments, demands defence counsel personally pay damages, and an affidavit rejected because it was commissioned by "Skype". (309) Bogue demanded the case management prothonotary recuse herself, which was refused. Unsurprisingly, the action was struck out. (310)

This, however, did not end the matter. Bogue, on behalf of the family group, pursued an appeal of the Ontario child custody decision. The appeal was struck out for delay, but only after an abortive habeas corpus application, a premature appearance at the Court of Appeal, and an additional habeas corpus application to the Supreme Court of Canada. (311) Bogue persisted, but the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected arguments that these child custody matters could only be "heard in a court of equity" before a chancellor who "would respect the rights of Aboriginals" and "apply Aboriginal law". (312) The Supreme Court of Canada denied leave and awarded costs against the family. (313)

Bogue also filed a civil action in Ontario that sued children's aid societies, lawyers, Alberta and Ontario judges, law firms, the Attorney General of Ontario, and Queen Elizabeth II for $60 million due to crimes against humanity, i.e., the family losing custody of their children. (314) Bogue advanced a range of OPCA concepts, such as: "the common law of the land" is a form of supra-constitutional authority; governments are corporations; the father as "sovereign" had "an allodial land claim that reaches back to the Saxon kings and Magna Carta"; and Canada is "null and void" because the Queen had been convicted in 2013 of murdering thousands of Aboriginal children. (315) Aboriginal allodial land title is purportedly superior because land interests follow "the female mitochondrial trail, now proven by the National Geographic Society to be much more dependable than the Patrineal DNA enforced by the Vatican." (316) Bogue would "empanel a Common Law jury" to address this matter. (317)

Unsurprisingly, this proceeding was struck out as an abuse of process. (318) A subsequent appeal was quashed as in the wrong forum; full indemnity costs were ordered. (319)

2. SIR ANDREW CLIFFORD MIRACLE

"Sir miracle", the second participant in Bogue's hybrid Federal Court action, is "the Ambassador for the Grand National Council of Confederated Indian Nations, who has been knighted by Lynda Prince (who has attained a Sovereign Title of Grand Chief in North America (equivalent to the Vatican Pope)". (320) Miracle is in a dispute over ownership and occupation of Mohawk lands. (321) The 2016 Federal Court action was a collateral attack on that dispute.

Bogue claimed the Indian Act and Canadian constitutions are ultra vires, and all Canadian lands are "owned Allodially by the natives", Miracle "is free to open a public bank" on the disputed lands, and appeared on behalf of himself and as Ambassador for "all peoples native to North America." This was the basis for damages and declarations. (322) The Miracle facet of the Federal Court action appears to have been terminated along with the family group component.

Bogue subsequently represented Miracle at the Ontario Court of Appeal in an attempt to interdict enforcement of the land dispute result, (323) and in a lawsuit by Miracle against Miracle's son, daughter-in-law, and a bank, that also demands striking down of the Indian Act. (324) Bogue's call for "a decree of default judgment" and referral to "a court of equity as it existed prior to 1881" were rejected as "entirely lacking in any legal foundation". (325)

3. TERRY LYNN AND ROBERT DALE STEINKEY

PEG Detaxers Terry Lynn and Robert Dale Steinkey elevated the flexible PEG approach to legal representation to a new level. The Steinkeys alternate between using lawyers and arguing OPCA concepts as SRLs and/or with Bogue's assistance.

During their criminal prosecution, the Steinkeys were initially represented by experienced criminal defence counsel who advanced conventional legal arguments in a number of unsuccessful pre-trial voir dires. (326) The Steinkeys entered tax and GST evasion guilty pleas on 7 December 2015. (327) The Steinkeys' lawyers and the Crown negotiated a joint submission for a conditional sentence and fines. (328)

The Steinkeys then fired their lawyers and at their sentencing hearing applied to re-open the guilty pleas, claiming they were tricked into those pleas only because their lawyers had failed to disclose to them certain principles of equity. (329) That application was denied.

During this period, the Steinkeys attempted to send Judge Valgardson what appears to be OPCA documentation via irregular channels, but Judge Valgardson refused to consider this material. Terry Steinkey, who generally spoke for the couple, said that these documents were "private". The Crown had no right to see these items. The documents could only be viewed by the trial judge in her chambers. (330)

Bogue was then retained in late 2016 and represented the Steinkeys at their Provincial Court of Alberta sentencinghearing. (331) He argued that the Steinkeys' outstanding income tax obligations had been paid. That was a mitigating factor. When Crown counsel attempted to enter evidence of that alleged "payment" (OPCA paperwork the Steinkeys had sent the CRA), Bogue argued the validity of those payments was outside the Provincial Court's jurisdiction.

The Steinkeys' litigation has since bifurcated. British Columbia lawyer Barclay Johnson is conducting a conventional appeal in Alberta Courts to set aside the Steinkeys' guilty pleas and reduce their sentence. (332)

Bogue, however, initiated a collateral attack on the Provincial Court conviction in Federal Court, claiming that the Steinkeys had "settled the case" with "PRIVATE INDEMNITY BONDS" delivered to the Attorney General of Alberta. (333) That ended the criminal prosecution. Prothonotary Lafreniere (as he then was) concluded this was an obvious vexatious OPCA foisted unilateral agreement strategy, struck out the Federal Court action, and reported Bogue to the Law Society of Upper Canada for implementing "a vexatious litigation strategy." (334)

4. DEBBIE ARLENE ANDERSON

PEG educator Debbie Arlene Anderson also mixed self-representation and lawyers during her tax evasion and counselling fraud prosecution. (335) Anderson, a "private woman commonly known as Debbie", represented herself at the preliminary hearing, but at a pre-trial voir dire application supplemented her own submissions with those of an articling student, Jeremy Maddock, and notorious Detaxer guru David Kevin Lindsay. (336)

Anderson advanced a range of OPCA and conventional arguments, including that Porisky's "Natural Person" theories are correct, (337) the Coronation Oath and Canadian Constitution combine to create an absolute right to property, (338) the counselling tax evasion offense breaches section 2 of the Charter if a person expresses "an honest, good faith political opinion", (339) the ITA cannot be enforced as it is "too vague, ambiguous, and far too complex", (340) the PEG Tax Court of Canada jurisdiction argument, (341) as well as alleging that search warrant and disclosure deficiencies. (342) The Court rejected these challenges.

Bogue was then retained and sought an adjournment of the Anderson proceeding so that Bogue could "apply for an order that this court relinquish jurisdiction... to a Clan Grandmother of the Metis... ASMIN Clan Grandmother Ikway Michine." Anderson had invoked her UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Persons right to self-government; (343) the trial judge should recuse himself so that a "chancellor" or judge "with experience in Aboriginal law" could hear this application. (344)

Bogue's application is dubious in a number of ways, ranging from his incorrect argument that treaties have a supra-constitutional status, (345) to claims that Canada is an American corporation, to "Strawman" motifs. (346) Bogue did not even correctly name the relevant British Columbia courts. (347) Bogue's claims that Canadian courts have no jurisdiction (348) expand on those in the polygamous family civil action. Quoted passages are deeply conspiratorial, for example:

Furthermore, Mary Elizabeth Windsor arranged in 1982 to have Canada
"borrow" monies from the private Bank of International Settlements
(BIS) in Switzerland, which spawned various of her private banks on
Turtle Island like HSBC, RBC, CIBC, Scotia Bank and BMO.... Private
Banks like HSBC have been fined internationally for illegal activities
that amount to Crimes Against Humanity, and HSBC is implicated, with
the Vatican in ritual sacrifice of children in Montreal. (349)

Brown J correctly identifies these as "Freeman-on-the-land" concepts, immaterial, of extreme or conspiratorial nature, without merit, and ordered the Anderson prosecution continue to trial. (350) Bogue's subsequent appeal that Clan Mother Ikway Michine had jurisdiction over the Anderson prosecution was quashed as a premature interlocutory appeal. (351) At that hearing Bogue's demand that Groberman JA recuse himself and be replaced by a female Aboriginal judge so that "Matriarchal issues might be more properly and fully addressed" was denied. (352)

Anderson was convicted on all counts and sentenced to four and a half years' incarceration. (353) At her sentencing hearing, Anderson argued that court documents were "fraud" because they had printed her last name in all capital letters, which indicates American Sign Language, and not English or French. (354)

5. BOGUE'S PERSONAL BACKGROUND AND OTHER LITIGATION

Bogue's other reported litigation activities are, at least at a basic level, conventional, though consistently unsuccessful. (355) His professional address appears to be a residence. Bogue studied at Osgoode Hall, was called to the Bar in 1985, but was an active lawyer only from 1985-1986, and 2015 onward. (356)

He seems to have spent considerable time in the US working as a building contractor, which led to a tax court conviction that Bogue appealed to the US Supreme Court. (357) During this action Bogue advanced presumably OPCA arguments that the US income tax system was unconstitutional.

On 12 April 2017, the Law Society Tribunal suspended Bogue on an interim basis because his OPCA activities are a "significant risk" to the public, and "[t]he possible harm to the administration of justice of... [OPCA] tactics is well-recognized". (358) Bogue was subsequently ordered to undergo psychiatric examination. (359) The Tribunal observed that "[a] lawyer has a duty as an officer of the court not to advance arguments that are out of touch with reality" and that Bogue's OPCA arguments are a "vexatious litigation strategy founded on pseudolegal rants and nonsensical arguments." (360)

Subsequently, Bogue applied to have the Law Society Tribunal abandon jurisdiction of his disciplinary hearing in favour of an "Indigenous Tribunal", comprised of a "Clan Mother", and three other Indigenous persons appointed by the Clan Mother. At the 11 January 2018 hearing, Bogue demanded that the disciplinary hearing chair recuse herself for not exhibiting an appropriate response during "the hearing ceremony... and the presentation of gifts" by the "Clan Mother and Grand Chief". (361) The tribunal concluded that conduct of the hearing did not raise a reasonable apprehension of bias. (362)

Bogue is a former Olympic athlete, (363) ran for mayor of Toronto in 2014, (364) and expresses a range of atypical beliefs. Bogue appears on Internet broadcasts (365) as an expert in a branch of "Ancient Aliens" theory where the "Annunaki", who are conventionally identified as Mesopotamian deities, were instead aliens who created humans via genetic manipulation. Bogue's ideas are also expressed in his Five Books of Isis series (four published to date). (366) Describing the range and depth of unusual concepts expressed in Bogue's books is beyond the scope of this paper, though perhaps a representative indication is Sacred Sex and the Menopausal Woman, a sex guide, which describes how precious metals are accumulated in female bodily fluids, with astonishing effects:

In her Holy of Holies (her womb) the female is capable of producing the
wondrous Ormus molecule, which has the quantum capability to not only
reverse disease and raise intelligence; it can actually open the
Stargate to the Universe!

Bogue's internet videos indicate this is not meant as a metaphor.

E. CONTROL OF ROGUE LAWYERS

Rogue Canadian OPCA lawyers are obviously unusual. The same seems true in the US. (367) The small sample identified precludes anything but preliminary observations. All were sole practitioners at the time they argued pseudolaw. Each had been lawyers for some time (years post-admission: De Serre--17; Griffin--11; Hosein--about 20; Bogue--31), though Bogue was inactive for many of those years.

Three (Griffin, Hosein, Bogue) appear to belong to larger improvisational millenarian conspiracy communities that host pseudolaw (Griffin and Hosein--US Sovereign Citizen; Bogue--Freeman-on-the-Land). They were therefore peers to their clients and emerge from a common population.

Three (De Serre, Hosein, Bogue) were reported to law societies (directly or indirectly) by courts. Griffin effectively declared his rogue status before engaging in OPCA litigation. While a court complained about De Serre within only several months of him advocating A4V, Hosein and Bogue engaged in overt OPCA activities for some time prior to their court complaints (Hosein: June 2012-June 2013; Bogue: February 2016-February 2017). Bogue's first non-court complaint was on 18 March 2016. (368)

The lack of speed and efficacy of the Law Society of Upper Canada's response to Griffin, Hosein, and Bogue is troubling. De Serre, Griffin, and Hosein operated as rogue OPCA lawyers prior to the Meads decision, so arguably courts, lawyers, and law societies had a reduced awareness of the abusive character of their arguments. That does not, however, explain how Griffin continued his persistent lawyer activities while suspended and after being disbarred, and why Bogue was permitted to continue his OPCA activities for over a year after his first complaint.

The potential harm that a rogue lawyer can cause is difficult to overstate. Courts presume lawyers act in good faith, and legal training facilitates exploitation of court procedure. Worse, a rogue lawyer provides false re-assurance to their OPCA client against warnings that pseudolaw is hopeless. In that sense, the rogue lawyer digs a grave for two.

The usual court response to lawyers who abuse court processes is to order costs paid by the lawyer, personally. (369) While the threshold for lawyer-paid costs is high, (370) advancing known, identified, and rejected OPCA schemes should be a basis for that step. However, a cost award response only occurs after abusive litigation has injured involved parties. Two of the identified rogue lawyers were evading debts (Hosein, Griffin), which suggest costs may be both an ineffective deterrent and remedy.

A potential alternative is that Canadian courts adopt a more aggressive response to rogue lawyers. The courts' authority to deny access to rogue lay representatives is well established: (371) "[e]ach court has the responsibility to ensure that persons appearing before it are properly represented... and to maintain the rule of law and the integrity of the court generally." (372) Since courts have a parallel but separate jurisdiction to supervise lawyer conduct, (373) a court that encounters a rogue OPCA lawyer arguably does not have to wait for professional disciplinary proceedings, but may instead intervene once obvious OPCA-related misconduct has emerged, and remove a lawyer from a file. (374) This inherent jurisdiction is also the basis to remove lawyers who have a conflict of interest. (375)

VII. CONCLUSION

The OPCA phenomenon is often described as the court interacting with SRLs, but this investigation shows OPCA litigants retain lawyers in many different ways: some beneficial, others problematic.

Lawyers may be apprehensive about engaging OPCA litigants due to their very negative reputation. OPCA litigants report obtaining legal representation is difficult. (376) The fact that courts have uniformly denounced OPCA concepts as vexatious and abusive should deter an ethical lawyer from advancing known OPCA concepts.

Solicitor-client privilege means we can only guess at what goes on inside these relationships, but some patterns are apparent.

First, meaningful, effective, and ethical legal representation of OPCA litigants is clearly possible. Lawyers need to understand the OPCA litigant population is not uniform. The FA Tax Court of Canada litigation illustrates effective representation is possible for ex-Mercenary OPCA litigants. Their motivation was an anticipated benefit, and they have little intellectual or emotional attachment to OPCA concepts. Not even one reported FA case had a taxpayer fire their counsel and revert to pseudolaw.

The diehard Fighter and Believer subpopulation may not be easy clients, but even these individuals have obtained real benefits where a solicitor-client relationship was established. Some evidence suggests this population may not immediately commit to OPCA ideas. Early intervention is unexpectedly effective. (377)

One obstacle is the OPCA litigant's belief that lawyers actively conspire to conceal the true hidden "common law". Fighters and Believers often have negative, if not surreal, beliefs about the legal profession. One American conspiracy theory is lawyers are members of the British aristocracy because lawyers append an "Esquire" suffix to their names. Purportedly, those "Esquires" are then automatically stripped of their American citizenship by a historical but allegedly suppressed amendment to the American constitution. (378) A common Canadian motif is that lawyers belong to the "British Accredited Registry", "British Accreditation Registry", or "BAR", a concealed supranational organization of lawyers based in London, England. (379) Purportedly, lawyers are agents or officers of the courts. Retaining a BAR lawyer puts one into a court's jurisdiction--hiring a lawyer is a trap.

Needless to say, these paranoid and conspiratorial perspectives may lead to a stormy solicitor/client relationship. For example, an Alberta Freeman-on-the-Land, ANB, engaged and dismissed multiple lawyers through his civil and criminal litigation. (380) More recently a criminal accused, Carlo Berg, (381) partway through his trial fired his lawyer, declared that he was a human being and an "Indigo Adult", and presented the Court with a large package of OPCA materials. However, when Berg's trial resumed a month later he had retained a new defence counsel.

The PEG Detaxers employed lawyers in a highly tactical manner. The motivations of Freemen are more difficult to evaluate, but even Freemen OPCA gurus use lawyers, sometimes with success.

Thus, lawyers do have a potential role in any OPCA litigation, even where their client is entirely embedded in the conspiratorial matrix of the OPCAsphere. No professional complaints from OPCA clients were identified. (382) Payment in advance or via legal aid is likely very prudent, given OPCA litigants' fondness for "money for nothing" and debt elimination strategies.

Rogue OPCA lawyers will likely remain uncommon. OPCA lawyers are also unusual in the United States, where pseudolaw has a much longer history and deeper roots. The keystone concepts for most OPCA schemes are so notoriously false that no lay litigant, let alone lawyer, can advance these schemes in good faith. (383) Other OPCA ideas, like A4V, defy logic and common sense. (384)

In that way representing an OPCA client is relatively straightforward. If the client insists on arguing pseudolaw, the lawyer should withdraw rather than engage in vexatious and abusive litigation. Any lawyer who chooses to operate in the increasingly restricted Grey Zone likely should be very cautious, since known and rejected OPCA arguments will predictably attract a very strong and negative court response.

Pseudolaw injures its users. Some OPCA litigants are essentially victims drawn from a population that seems highly vulnerable to "snake oil", be it political, religious, health, or pseudolaw. Attempts to communicate with these people can be a peculiar, alien experience, particularly for professionals like lawyers who are trained and habituated to operating in a highly-structured framework.

Still, talking to these people is worthwhile. An hour might save much misery and wasted court resources, if not worse tragedies. Not all are diehard fanatics. Calling their ideas ridiculous may be less effective than establishing how gurus are conmen. A simple database search shows gurus fail again and again when they appear in court, so many avoid doing that. The same approach applies to false but catchy pseudolegal "maxims" that are allegedly absolute legal rules. Show the OPCA litigant that Canadian courts have never heard of the rule that "an unrebutted affidavit is truth in commerce". Then inquire: "Why?"

Criminal defence lawyers have an easy alternative. Ask the accused: "Do you really think Canada's defence lawyers would conceal a 'get out jail free card' from our Hells Angels clients? Don't you think that would be a very unhealthy career and life choice ?"

But there is an even more basic point. Law should be rational and functional. Pseudolaw, on the other hand, defies common sense. Step back and point that out. Lawyers should be well positioned, if not ideally positioned, to indicate that and explain why.

Taking a little time to do so may save everyone a great deal of grief.

DONALD J NETOLITZKY ([dagger])

([dagger]) Donald J Netolitzky (PhD Microbiology, University of Alberta, 1995, LLB, University of Alberta, 2005) is Legal Counsel for the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author, and not those of any other member of the Court of Queen's Bench, or the Court itself.

(1) R v Jorgensen, [1995] 4 SCR 55 at para 5, 129 DLR (4th) 510.

(2) Starr v Houlden, [1990] 1 SCR 1366 at 1407, 68 DLR (4th) 641.

(3) E.g. R vJaser, 2014 ONSC 3885, 120 WCB (2d) 339.

(4) Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571 at para 1, 543 AR 215 [Meads]. This broadly cited decision is generally recognized in Canada and internationally as they key authority for this subject. See e.g. Crossroads-DMD Mortgage Investment Corporation v Gauthier, 2015 ABQB 703 at paras 45-46, 28 Alta LR (6th) 104 [Crossroads].

(5) Donald J Netolitzky, "The History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument [OPCA] Phenomenon in Canada" (2016) 53:3 Alta L Rev 609 at 613 [Netolitzky, "History"].

(6) Ibid at 611-12; Meads, supra note 4.

(7) Ibid ax 612, 635, n 209; Barbara Perry, David C Hofmann & Ryan Scrivens, "Working Paper Series No 17-02: Broadening Our Understanding of Anti-Authority Movements in Canada" (Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, August 2017 at 13-18,28-33; Donald J Netolitzky & John D Rooke, "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument [OPCA] Litigants: New Challenges in the Internet Age" (Paper delivered at the CIAJ National Roundtable on the Vexatious Litigant, Toronto, 10 March 2016) at 89-96 [Netolitzky & Rooke].

(8) Perry, supra note 7; Stephen A Kent & Robin D Willey, "Sects, Cults, and the Attack on Jurisprudence" (2013) 14:2 Rutgers JL & Religion 306.

(9) Susan P Koniak, "When Law Risks Madness" (1996) 8:1 Cardozo Stud L & Literature 65 at 104-105.

(10) The exact purpose varies between OPCA movements. See Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5; Donald J Netolitzky, "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments [OPCA] in Canada; An Attack on the Legal System" (2016) 10 JPPL 137 [Netolitzky, "Attack"]; Netolitzky & Rooke, supra note 7.

(11) Jennifer Pytyck & Gary A Chaimowitz, "The Sovereign Citizen Movement and Fitness to Stand Trial" (2013) 12:2 Intl J Forensic Mental Health 149; George F Parker, "Competence to Stand Trial Evaluations of Sovereign Citizens: A Case Series and Primer of Odd Political and Legal Beliefs" (2014) 42:3 J Am Acad Psychiatry L 338.

(12) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 636.

(13) Koniak, supra note 9 at 87-89,104-106.

(14) See e.g. Bursty v Canada, 2015 FC 1126, 2015 DTC 5109, aff'd Dove v Canada, 2015 FC 1307, 261 ACWS (3d) 299, aff'd Dove v Canada, 2016 FCA 231, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 37487 (1 June 2017) (demanding mandatory social assistance regimes); Isis Nation Estates v Canada, 2013 FC 590, [2013] FCJ No 613 (hoping to impose a kind of theocracy).

(15) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 639-42; Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 190.

(16) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10; Perry, supra note 7 at 45-58.

(17) David Carter et al, "Understanding Law Enforcement Intelligence Processes: Report to the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security", Start (July 2014), online: <www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_UnderstandingLawEnforcementIntelligenceProcesses_July2014.pdf>; Jeff Gruenewald, "A Mixed Method Analysis of Fatal Attacks on Police by Far-Right Extremists" (2015) 19:2 Police Quarterly 216; Paul N James, "Sovereign Citizens: An Overview and Threat Assessment" Jane's Terrorism & Insurgency Monitor, (20 December 2016); FBI Counterterrorism Analysis Section, "Sovereign Citizens: A Growing Domestic Threat to Law Enforcement" (2011) 80:9 FBIL Enforcement Bull 20.

(18) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 159-60; Daniel Lessard Levin & Michael W Smith, "A Law Unto Themselves: The Ideology of the Common Law Court Movement" (1999) 44:1 SDL Rev 9.

(19) Meads, supra note 4 at para 629.

(20) Fiander v Mills, 2015 NLCA 31 at paras 37-42, 368 Nfld & PEIR 80 [Fiander].

(21) Rules of Civil Procedure, RRO 1990, Reg 194, r 2.1. See Gao v Ontario (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board), 2014 ONSC 6100, 37 CLR (4th) 1; Gao v Ontario (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board), 2014 ONSC 6497, 37 CLR (4th) 7; Scaduto v The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2015 ONCA 733, 343 OAC 87, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 36753 (21 April 2016); Brent Kettles, "Staying and Dismissing Frivolous, Vexatious, and Abusive Proceedings: Ontario Rule 2.1" (2016) 46:1 Adv Q 124.

(22) See e.g. R v Grant, 2016 ONCJ 170,129 WCB (2d) 168.

(23) Pomerleau v Canada (Revenue Agency), 2017 ABQB 123 at para 152, 2017 DTC 5024 [Pomerleau].

(24) See e.g. Amy Salyzyn, "Canada: Foreclosures, Freemen, Foreign Law Schools and the Continuing Search for Meaningful Access to Justice" (2013) 16:1 Leg Ethics 223 at 226-28. While some legal academic commentary separates "legitimate" SRLs from OPCA litigants, these groups overlap. See e.g. Donald J Netolitzky, "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments in Canadian Inter-Partner Family Law Court Disputes" (2017) 54:4 Alta L Rev 955 [Netolitzky, "Family Law"].

(25) See e.g. Fedet ation of Law Societies of Canada, "Model Code of Professional Conduct" (14 March 2017) at 5.1-1. No one has a right to engage in litigation that abuses court processes. See Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v British Columbia (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 59 at para 47, [2014] 3 SCR 31.

(26) Quebec (Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions) v Jodoin, 2017 SCC 26 at para 29, [2017] 1 SCR478 [Jodoin].

(27) Meads, supra note 4 at para 643; 1985 Sawridge Trust v Alberta (Public Trustee), 2017 ABQB 530 at para 110, [2017] AWLD 5010 [Sawridge].

(28) See text accompanying notes 378-379.

(29) The Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11 [Charter].

(30) Expanding on 725 cases identified in Netolitzky, "Family Law", supra note 24 at 964.

(31) See e.g. Bank of Montreal v Rogozinsky, 2014 ABQB 771, 603 AR 261 [Rogozinsky]; Haynes v The Queen, 2013 TCC 229, 2013 DTC 1186 [Haynes]; Kennedy v Canada, 2012 FC 1050,417 FTR 265.

(32) See supra note 7 for references for the identity and characteristics of OPCA movements and communities.

(33) Multiple OPCA litigants who engaged in joint litigation with a single counsel were classified as one OPCA client. This occurred in Glenn Bogue's litigation discussed below in Parts VI(D)(1,3).

(34) Meads, supra note 4 at paras 100-108 and 109-20.

(35) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 160.

(36) "Van Gale 'STEEMAS' Dumont Obituary", The Province (21 June 2014), online: <www.legacy.com/obituaries/theprovince/obituary.aspx?pid= 171437886>.

(37) See Netolitzky, "Family Law", supra note 24 at 964-65.

(38) See ibid (explaining this process in more detail and with examples).

(39) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 175-83.

(40) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 635-36; Netolitzky, "Family Law", supra note 24 at 962-63.

(41) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 176-78.

(42) The OPCA Decision Dataset includes 43 FA scheme decisions: 1 decision in 2011: OPCA representative; 5decisionsin 2013:4SRL, 1 lawyer; 5 decisions in 2014:4 SRL, 1 lawyer; 7 decisions in 2015: 4 SRL, 3 lawyer; 25 decisions in 2016: 4 SRL, 21 lawyer.

(43) Other likely related scams appeared around this time and employed a similar strategy. For example, Donna Marie Stancer, as Demara Consulting, operated a parallel fraud called "The Remedy" in a period shortly after FA ceased operation. See R v Stancer, 2016 BCSC 192, cited in Dagenais (Re), 2016 BCSC 1389 at paras 9, 12, 2016 DTC 5089.

(44) Netolitzky, " History", supra note 5 at 616-24.

(45) Gray v The Queen, 2016 TCC 54 at para 5, 2016 DTC 1049; Mallette v The Queen, 2016 TCC 27 at para 5, 2016 DTC 1025 [Mallette] (explaining the FA scheme). The "Strawman" concept is discussed in detail below. See text accompanying notes 154-157.

(46) FA ringleader Lawrence Watts was found guilty of having personally prepared 241 false returns, but he is only one of a number of FA scammers. See R v Watts, 2016 ONSC 4843 at para 1, [2016] OJ No 4005, aff'd 2018 ONCA 148, 144 WCB (2d) 252. Watts personally appeared as a witness on behalf of a FA taxpayer in Kim v The Queen, 2017 TCC 246, 2018 DTC 1005, and explained that the FA scheme was valid and legal. Smith J rejected Wats' evidence as "inherently unreliable and of no probative value whatsoever", given Watts had been convicted of fraud for his FA activities (ibid at para 53).

(47) Haynes, supra note 31; Brown v Canada, 2014 TCC 91, 2014 DTC 1107, rev'd 2014 FCA 301, 2015 DTC 5030.

(48) Thirty-eight FA gross negligence appeal judgments, and another five decisions relating to parallel schemes, were identified. This is a very small fraction of the 381 FA docketed appeals. See Carolyn Hogan, "Escaping Penalties After Admitting False Statements" (2016) 6:3 Can Tax Focus 7 at 7. Media reports indicate FA had up to 1800 subscribers. See George Hoff, "W5: Taxpayers Face Huge Penalties after Bad Advice" W5 (5 February 2014), online: <www.ctvnews.ca/w5/w5-taxpayers-face-huge-penalries-after-bad-advice-1.1676215>.

(49) Income Tax Act, RSC 1985, c 1 (5th Supp), s 163(2) [ITA].

(50) Anderson v The Queen, 2016 TCC 93, 2016 DTC 1071; Lavoie c La Reine, 2015 CCI 228, 2016 DTC 1111 [Lavoie]; Morrison v The Queen, 2016 TCC 99, 2016 DTC 1074 [Morrison]; Sam v The Queen, 2016 TCC 98, 2016 DTC 1073.

(51) Sumner's discipline hearing is unrelated to his problematic tax litigation. Instead, Sumner made death threats against a California District Attorney, including authorizing the Hells Angels to act as his agents, arrest the District Attorney, and kill him if he resists. Sumner repeated his unorthodox torture arguments during his professional disciplinary hearings. See Law Society of Upper Canada v Sumner, 2016 ONLSTH 66, aff'd 2017 ONLSTA 1; Factum of the Law Society (25 February 2016).

(52) RSC 1985, c C-46, s269.1(4) [Criminal Code]. McCarthy v The Queen, 2016 TCC 45 at paras 17-24, 2016 DTC 1038; Oberkirsch v The Queen, 2016 TCC 84 at paras 7, 10-14, 2016 DTC 1067.

(53) See e.g. De Gennaro v The Queen, 2016 TCC 108 at para 11, 2016 DTC 1090; Morrison, supra note 50 at para 28; Daszkiewicz v The Queen, 2016 TCC 44 at para 4, 2016 DTC 1042 [Daszkiewicz].

(54) See e.g. Daszkiewicz, supra note 53 at para 8; Khattar v The Queen, 2015 TCC 338 at paras 9-10, 2016 DTC 1011; Lauzon v The Queen, 2016 TCC 71 at paras 5-8, 2016 DTC 1058, aff'd 2016 FC A 298, 2016 DTC 5127 [Lauzon FCA]; Mallette, supra note 45 at paras 8-10; Spurvey v The Queen, 2015 TCC 300 at para 42, 2015 DTC 1234 [Spurvey]; Taylor v The Queen, 2015 TCC 33 5 at paras 6-14, 2016 DTC 1012; Torres v Canada, 2013 TCC 380, 2014 DTC 1028, aff'd Strachan v Canada, 2015 FCA 60, 2015 DTC 5044 [Strachan].

(55) Brathwaite v The Queen, 2016 TCC 29 at paras 5-7,11, 2016 DTC 1029; Daszkiewicz, supra note 53 at paras 8-13; Lavoie, supra note 50 at paras 21-34; Spurvey, supra note 54 at paras 6-7.

(56) Morrison was nor assessed gross negligence penalties. See Morrison, supra note 50 at paras 7, 33.

(57) No FA gross negligence appeals are reported between the dates of the test case trial (Torres, supra note 54) and subsequent appeal (Strachan, supra note 54).

(58) Strachan, supra note 54; Lauzon FCA, supra note 55; Maynard v Canada, 2016 FCA 251, 2016 DTC 5119 (applying the same analysis).

(59) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 624-25.

(60) See supra note 7.

(61) Ibid.

(62) Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, 2nd ed (Berkley: University of California Press, 2013) at 18-38. See also at 196-98 (discussing Sovereign Citizens as an improvisational millennialist phenomenon).

(63) See text accompanying notes 378-379.

(64) R v Chandler, 2014 ONCJ 709, [2014] OJ No 6241.

(65) Ibid at paras 36-39.

(66) Ibid at paras 49-50.

(67) Ibid at paras 41 -46.

(68) Ibid at paras 47-48.

(69) Ibid at para 50.

(70) Ibid at paras 52-53, 57.

(71) Ibid at paras 51, 54,63.

(72) R v McCormick, 2012 NSSC 288, 319 NSR (2d) 17 [McCormick #1]; R v McCormick, 2012 NSSC 150 [McCormick #2]; R v McCormick, 2012 NSCA 58,317 NSR (2d) 273 [McCormick #3].

(73) Criminal Code, supra note 52, ss 264.1(1)(a), 95(1)(a), 117.01(1), 88(1).

(74) McCormick #1, supra note 72 at paras 17-25; McCormick #2, supra note 72 at para 4.

(75) McCormick #3, supra note 72 at paras 9-11.

(76) Ibid.

(77) McCormick #1, supra note 72 at paras 28-32, 35; McCormick #2, supra note 72 at paras 7-10; McCormick #3, supra note 72 at paras 8, 21.

(78) McCormick #1, supra note 72 at para 36; McCormick #2, supra note 72 at paras 9-10, 16.

(79) McCormick #3, supra note 72 at para 13.

(80) McCormick #1, supra note 72.

(81) McCormick #2, supra note 72.

(82) McCormick #3, supra note 72.

(83) Ibid at para 25.

(84) Ibid at paras 29, 37-43.

(85) Rick Simpson, "Daren McCormick was recently re-jailed because he met with another Phoenix-Tears member...breaching his conditions" (29 July 2014), posted on Rick Simpson, online: Facebook <www.facebook.com/ricksimpsonofficial/posts/700718759975266>.

(86) Daren McCormick, online: Facebook <www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008220137930>.

(87) R v Seagull, 2013 BCSC 1106 [Seagull #l];R v Seagull, 2013 BCSC 1811 [Seagull #2]; R v Seagull, 2015 BCCA 164, 371 BCAC 27 [Seagull#3].

(88) This paper classifies Seagull as a Freeman-on-the-Land though the OPCA defence advanced in Seagull #2 used language stereotypical of the One Peoples Public Trust [OPPT] prosperity program. See supra note 88. Seagull's social media websites, however, indicate that Seagull follows Freeman gurus and broadly subscribes to Freeman-type pseudolegal and conspiratorial beliefs. See Jonathan Seagull, online: Youtube <www.youtube.com/user/JonathanSeagullUtube/>; Jonathan Seagull, online: Facebook < www.facebook.com/jonathan.seagulll>.

(89) Seagull #1, supra note 87.

(90) Ibid at paras 144-49.

(91) This is a common OPCA foisted unilateral agreement intended to intimidate its recipients. See Meads, supra note 4 at paras 505-23.

(92) Seagull #2, supra note 87 at paras 25-27.

(93) Ibid at para 4.

(94) Ibid at para 5.

(95) Ibid at paras 8, 35.

(96) Ibid at paras 58-59.

(97) Ibid at paras 45-47.

(98) Seagull #3, supra note 87.

(99) Ibid at para 54.

(100) See websites identified in note 88.

(101) Clifford v Her Majesty the Queen, 2014 MBQB 192, 309 Man R (2d) 309; Clifford v Her Majesty the Queen (16 May 2014), Winnipeg T-869-14 (FC).

(102) R v Clifford, Winnipeg CR14-01-33786 (Man QB).

(103) Criminal Code, supra note 52, s 130.

(104) R v Menard, Toronto 4813998143500374700, 4813998143500427000 (Ont Ct J).

(105) Menard v Her Majesty the Queen (18 March 2015), Montreal T-43-15 (FC).

(106) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 174-75.

(107) Canada (National Revenue) v Stanchfield, 2009 FC 99, 2009 DTC 5050 (following this, Porisky formally discontinued the PEG scheme). See "Attention: Important Notice", Paradigm Education Group, (31 January 2009), online: <web.archive.org/web/20090212230449/http://naturalperson.com/>.

(108) See Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 622-24.

(109) R v Porisky, 2016 BCSC 1757 at paras 13-20, 2016 DTC 5105 [Porisky #5].

(110) R v Porisky (13 December 2000), Chilliwack 40082-1 (BCPC).

(111) A seized PEG Educator "Product Invoice" also reveals more exotic items, such as PEG "Shift Happens" branded clothing, and an "Artificial Person Statuette": Russ Porisky, "Educator Product Invoice", Paradigm Education Group, (14 June 2003), online: Mediafire <www.mediafire.com/file/78675m4yie8ztz9/Porisky_-_PEG_Educator_Product_Invoice_%282004-2006%29.pdf>.

(112) Porisky #5, supra note 109 at para 15.

(113) Ibid.

(114) For example, a 2006 annual dinner and dance featuring "The Rude Boyz", and a seminar on "Natural Person Bank Account: Urban Myth or Legislative Reality". See "4th Annual Shift Happens Dinner and Dance", Paradigm Education Group, online: Mediafire <www.mediafire.com/file/wpealuanobl lzhk/Porisky_-_Dinner_Dance_Flyer_2006.pdf>.

(115) Michael Spencer Millar was convicted of tax evasion and counselling fraud, and sentenced to 2.5 years gaol. See R v Millar, 2016 BCSC 2039, 2016 DTC 5120, sentenced 2017 BCSC 402, 2017 DTC 5015. See Private Person (online: <private-person.com>); Sue Wrongdoers (online: <member.suewrongdoers.com>) (operated by Millar under the pseudonym "JD"). Etic Ho appears to be the directing mind behind "Apu's Theory". See online: canadaincometaxislegal.is <https://canadaincometaxislegal.is>.

(116) R v Porisky, 2012 BCSC 67, 2012 DTC 5037 [Porisky #l];R v Porisky, 2012 BCSC 68, 2012 DTC 5038 [Porisky #2]; R v Porisky, 2012 BCSC 771, 2012 DTC 5095 [Porisky #3].

(117) R v Gould, 2014 BCCA 146 at paras 14-17, 354 BCAC 86 [Gould #2].

(118) Porisky #1, supra note 116 at paras 42-56.

(119) Porisky #2, supra note 116.

(120) R v Gould, 2012 BCCA 308, 325 BCAC 167 [Gould #l];R v Porisky, 2012 BCCA 309, 325 BCAC 161 [Porisky #4].

(121) Gould #1, supra note 120 at paras 5, 17; Porisky #4, supra note 120 at paras 7-9.

(122) R v Porisky, 2012 BCCA 371, 2012 DTC 5150.

(123) Gingras was an offender in an unrelated action who advanced parallel judicial interim release arguments. The Gingras and Porisky applications were heard and decided together. See R v Gingras, 2012 BCCA 467, 330 BCAC 102.

(124) Ibid at paras 69-70.

(125) Ibid at paras 72, 74.

(126) Gould #2, supra note 117.

(127) Ibid at paras 17-26.

(128) Ibid at paras 44-47.

(129) Porisky #5, supra note 109.

(130) R v Porisky, Vancouver CA 43896 (BCCA).

(131) Porisky's first trial sentence was 4.5 years. See Porisky #3, supra note 116.

(132) R v Amell, 2010 SKPC 107 at para 36, 361 Sask R 61 [Amell # l].

(133) R v Amell, 2012 SKQB 87, 391 Sask R l96; R v Amell, 2013 SKCA 48, 414 Sask R 152 [Amell #3].

(134) Amell #3, supra note 133 at paras 30-50.

(135) R v Baudais, 2014 BCSC 2161, [2014] BCJ No 3278 (QL).

(136) Ibid at paras 42-46.

(137) R v Blerot, 2014 SKQB 2 at paras 7, 11-12, 2014 DTC 5029 [Blerot #1]; R v Blerot, 2015 SKCA 69 at paras 3-7, 2015 DTC 5074.

(138) Blerot # 1, supra note 137 at paras 12, 14.

(139) See text accompanying note 115. See also R v Millar, 2017 BCSC 323, 2017 DTC 5015. To be fair to Millar, his 2002-2003 Detaxer litigation centered on a plausible legal argument about signing authorization for certain income tax notices. See also R v Millar, 2002 BCSC 182, leave to appeal refused, 2002 BCCA 604, 174 BCAC 157, time extension for further review denied, 2003 BCCA 78, [2003] 3 CTC 116.

(140) See R v Eddy, 2014 ABQB 164, 583 AR 217 [Eddy #1]; R v Eddy, 2016 ABQB 42, 2016 DTC 5032.

(141) R v Eddy, 2014 ABQB 234 at paras 18, 37-41, 583 AR254.

(142) R v Eddy, 2014 ABQB 391, 583 AR 268.

(143) R v Baudais, 2014 BCSC 856 at paras 25-35, 2014 DTC 5071.

(144) R v Siggelkow, 2014 ABQB 101 at paras 124-131, [2015] GSTC 82 [Siggelkow #1]. Siggelkow received a 15-month custodial sentence. See also R v Siggelkow, 2014 ABCA 450 at para 13, 2015 DTC 5023.

(145) R v Siggelkow, 2014 ABQB 368 at para 38, [2015] GSTC 83.

(146) Siggelkow #1, supra note 144 at paras 106-11; Amell #3, supra note 133 at paras 9-18.

(147) R v McCartie, 2014 BCPC 128 at paras 45-47, 63, 2014 DTC 5090; R v Anderson, 2014 BCSC 2002 at paras 63-69, [2015] GSTC 85 [Anderson #1]; Eddy #1, supra note 140 at paras 32, 39, 53; R v Jefferd, 2016 BCSC 1463 at para 22, [2017] 1 CTC 67 [Jefferd].

(148) See Parts VI(D)(3-4) below.

(149) Meads, supra note 4 at para 80. See also Donald J Netolitzky, "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argumants [OPCA] as Magic and Ceremony" (2018) 55:4 Alta L Rev (forthcoming).

(150) Charter, supra note 29.

(151) Meads, supra note 4 at paras 276-85.

(152) Cory J has stated that the preamble makes the "rule of law" a "corner stone of our democratic form of government": Canadian Council of Churches v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1992] 1 SCR 236 at 250-51, 88 DLR (4th) 193." The Court has also concluded that the rule of law "becomes a postulate of our own constitutional order by way of the preamble": Re Manitoba Language Rights, [1985] 1 SCR 721 at 750, 19 DLR (4th) 1.

(153) See Meads, supra note 4 at paras 280-81 for a review in OPCA contexts. Non-OPCA litigation rejects the "supremacy of God" language as irrelevant. See Girard c La Reine, 2014 TCC 107 at para 23, 2014 DTC 1112. Mouvement Laique Quebecois v Saguenay (City), 2015 SCC 16 at paras 144-49, [2015] 2 SCR 3; Rv Sharpe, 1999 BCCA416 at paras 74-80, 175 DLR (4th) 1, retrial on other grounds, 2001 SCC 2, [2001] 1 SCR 45.

(154) See generally Meads, supra note 4 at paras 417-46. See also Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 633-35; Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 144-45. See also Pomerleau, supra note 23 at paras 67-96 (further rebutting the basic "Strawman" concept and a more recent variation that involves purportedly binding international treaties).

(155) Pomerleau, supra note 23 at paras 89-95.

(156) Meads, supra note 4 at paras 556, 582-84.

(157) Fiander, supra note 20 at paras 39-40.

(158) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 613, 618, 622-23.

(159) Ibid at 616-24.

(160) See e.g. R v Bruno, 2001 BCSC 1828 at para 7, 55 WCD (2d) 26; R v Bruno, 2002 BCCA 348 at paras 6-7, 54 WCB (2d) 248 [Bruno #2]; R v Fehr, 2002 SKPC 8 at paras 4-6, 10-12, 18, 224 Sask R 132 [Fehr]; R v Gibbs, 2006 BCSC 481 at paras 22, 54, 69, 2006 DTC 6212 [Gibbs]; R v Maleki, 2006 ONCJ 401, [2007] 1 CTC 212 [Maleki]; R v Eckhoff, 2006 SKQB 500 at paras 20-21, [2007] 2 CTC 26 [Eckhoff]; Iwanow v Canada, 2008 TCC 22 at paras 18-21, 2008 DTC 2506. This appears to be a Canada-specific concept, since Daniel B Evans's generally comprehensive resource on US anti-tax arguments, "The Tax Protester FAQ", does not appear to include a US equivalent. See Daniel Evans, "The Tax Protestor FAQ", online: <evans-legal.com>.

(161) Bruno #2, supra note 160 at paras 6-7; Fehr,supra note 160 at paras 4-6; Maleki, supra note 160. For a related approach, see Eckhoff, supra note 160.

(162) Gibbs, supra note 160 at paras 69-73.

(163) Bruno #2, supra note 160 at para 6.

(164) Richard W Pound, Stikeman Income Tax Annotated 2016, 60th ed (Toronto: Carswell, 2016).

(165) CanLII, online: <canlii.org>.

(166) R v Finta, [1994] 1 SCR 701, 112 DLR (4th) 513.

(167) R v Keegstra, [1990] 3 SCR 697, 117 NR 1; R v Keegstra, [1995] 2 SCR 381, 124 DLR (4th) 289; Canada (Human Rights Commission) v Canadian Liberty Net, [1998] 1 SCR 626, 157 DLR (4th) 385; Ross v New Brunswick School District No. 15, [1996] 1 SCR 825, 133 DLR (4th) 1; Canada (Human Rights Commission) v Taylor, [1990] 3 SCR 892, 75 DLR (4th) 577.

(168) R v Zundel, [1992] 2 SCR 731, 95 DLR (4th) 202.

(169) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 616-18.

(170) R v Naudi, 2003 BCPC 453, [2004] 2 CTC 248.

(171) ITA, supra note 49, ss 150(1), 231.2(1)(a).

(172) Netolitzky, "History", supra nore 5 at 613-14.

(173) R v Strang (1997), 207 AR 72, 53 Alta LR (3d) 100 (QB) [Strang].

(174) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 614.

(175) Strang, supra note 173 at paras 15-19, citing R v Gauvreau (16 June 1995), Grande Prairie 9404-0009S20101 (Alta QB).

(176) R v Smith, 2005 BCPC 46 at para 7, 78 WCB (2d) 342.

(177) Ibid at paras 8-10.

(178) Ibid at para 13.

(179) Ibid at para 16.

(180) R v Smith, 2006 BCSC 1493 at paras 26, 34, 2007 DTC 5002; leave to appeal refused, 2007 BCCA 499 at paras 9-11, [2008] 1 CTC 61.

(181) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 613-14, 636.

(182) See R v Klundert (2004), 242 DLR (4th) 644, 190 OAC 36, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 30578 (24 March 2005) [Klundert #1].

(183) ITA, supra note 49, s 239(1)(d).

(184) See Marie Comiskey & Matthew Sullivan, "Avoidance, Deception and Mistake of Law: The Mens Rea of Tax Evasion" (2006) 51:3 Crim LQ303.

(185) Klundert #1, supra note 182 at paras 55-57.

(186) Ibid at paras 58-60.

(187) Ibid at paras 68-79.

(188) See R v Ricci (2004), 190 OAC 375, [2005] 1 CTC 40, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 30684 (24 March 2005).

(189) R v Klundert, 2008 ONCA 767 at paras 11 -15,244 OAC 377, leave ro appeal to SCC refused, 32936 (9 April 2009) [Klundert #2].

(190) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 617-18, 622-24.

(191) Klundert #2, supra note 189 at para 18.

(192) Rv Klundert, 2011 ONCA 646,285 OAC 153, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 34558 (5 April 2012).

(193) Ibid.

(194) See e.g. Klundert #1, supra note 182 (cited in at least 62 reported cases from seven provinces and the Federal Courts).

(195) See RvKlundert, 2011 ONCJ 45,92 WCB (2d) 517.

(196) See R v Klundert, 2011 ONCJ 274, 2011 DTC 5104.

(197) See R v Sydel, 2005 BCPC 413, [2005] 5 CTC 166 [Sydel#1];R vSydel, 2006 BCPC 346, [2006] 5 CTC 88 [Sydel # 2]; R v Sydel, 2007 BCPC 50, [2008] 4 CTC 131 [Sydel # 3]; R v Sydel, 2007 BCPC 486, [2009] BCWLD 5625 [Sydel # 4].

(198) Sydel #2, supra note 197 at paras 5-9.

(199) Ibid at para 10.

(200) Ibid at paras 21-23.

(201) Sydel #1, supra note 197.

(202) Ibid at para 41.

(203) Sydel #3, supra note 197 at para 16.

(204) Sydel #4, supra note 197 at para 52.

(205) See R v Sydel, 2010 BCSC 1470, [2010] BCJ No 2046 (QL); R v Sydel, 2010 BCSC 1473, 2010 DTC 5173, leave to appeal refused, 2011 BCCA 103, [2011] BCJ No 582 (QL), leave to appeal to SCC refused, 34249 (6 October 2011).

(206) See R v Balla, 2009 BCPC 136, [2009] 5 CTC 117, aff'd 2010 BCSC 486, 2010 DTC 5113.

(207) See text accompanying notes 132-134.

(208) See R v Mori, [2016] OJ No 2350 (QL) (Ct J), aff'd 2017 ONSC 1551, 2017 DTC 5031.

(209) See Dalfen v Bank of Montreal, 2016 FC 869,269 ACWS (3d) 69, costs awarded 2016 FC 1133, 273 ACWS (3d) 261.

(210) See Crossroads, supra note 4.

(211) See e.g. a dissection of a variation on the "Strawman" argument: Pomerleau, supra note 23 at paras 75-88.

(212) See e.g. Servus Credit Union Ltd v Parlee, 2015 ABQB 700 at paras 54-74, 7 Admin LR (6th) 321 (for a discussion of the WeReBank).

(213) Meads, supra note 4 at paras 531-43.

(214) See Bosse v Farm Credit Canada, 2014 NBCA 34, 419 NBR (2d) 1 [Bosse], leave to appeal to SCC refused, 36026 (11 December 2014).

(215) Farm Credit Canada v Bosse, 2013 NBQB 131 at paras 7-9, 236 ACWS (3d) 1024.

(216) Bosse, supra note 214 at para 8.

(217) Ibid at paras 33, 50.

(218) Ibid at para 34.

(219) Came Desjardins des Chines c Petrin, 2012 QCCS 1847, [2012] JQ No 3987 [Petrin #2].

(220) Cause Desjardins des Chenes c Petrin, 2012 QCCS 405 at para 5, 2012 CarswellQue 1140 [Petrin #1]; Petrin #2, supra note 219 at para 18.

(221) Gilles Marie Joseph Dion appears to have both participated in and promoted the Quebec A4V scam. Dion prepared the A4V documents rejected in Xceed Mortgage Corporation/Corporation hypothecaire Xceed c Pepin-Bourgouin, 2011 QCCS 2116, 202 ACWS (3d) 299, and personally advanced A4V concepts and documents which were "absolutely devoid of credibility" in Ferme Franroli, senc c Dion, 2012 QCCS 2537, 2012 Carswell Que 5695. In 2015 the Quebec Court of Appeal dismissed a lawsuit by Dion against Popes Francis (Jorge Mario Bergogoli) and Benedict XVI (Joseph Alios Ratzinger), and other senior Catholic Church officials as a nullity. See Dion c Borgoglio, 2015 QCCA 793, 2015 CarswellQue 4086.

(222) Petrin #2, supra note 219 at para 5.

(223) Petrin #1, supra note 220 at paras 14-15.

(224) Petrin #2, supra note 219 at para 25.

(225) Petrin #1, supra note 220 at paras 21-23.

(226) Petrin #2, supra nore 219 at paras 7-9, 11.

(227) Ibid at paras 14-15.

(228) Bills of Exchange Act, RSC 1985, c B-4.

(229) Caisse Desjardins Deschenes c Petrin, 2012 QCCA 1268, [2012] JQ No 6653.

(230) Caisse Desjardins des Metaux Blancs c Langlois, 2012 QCCS 1443, [2012] JQ No 3146.

(231) Ibid at para 3.

(232) Ibid at paras 5-8.

(233) Ibid it paras 9-10.

(234) Ibid at paras 13-23.

(235) Ibid at para 11.

(236) Law Society of Upper Canada v Clarence Justin Vincent Mohammed Griffin, 2008 ONLSHP 95 [Griffin]; Hodeeheehonto v Law Society of Upper Canada, 2008 CanLII 55997 at para 1 (Ont Sup Ct J (Div Ct)) [Hodeeheehonto # 1].

(237) Griffin, supra note 236 at para 4.

(238) Hodeeheehonto #1, supra note 236.

(239) Cheryl Bauslaugh, "Lawyer Battles to Get Back Licence" (22 July 2008) Brantford Expositor, online: <www.brantfordexpositor.ca>.

(240) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 622.

(241) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Griffin, Branrford SC-08-663 (Ont Ct J) (affidavit of ah'she hodeeheehonto, 25 April 2009) [Griffin affidavit].

(242) "Aboriginal Protester Being Held as 'Prisoner of War,' Defence Lawyer Says", Canadian Press (8 January 2007).

(243) John Burman, "4.4 Trillion; That's What a Group Claiming to be the Heirs of Mohawk Chief Joseph Branr Say They Want from the Six Nations for Stealing Their Land" The Hamilton Spectator (22 February 2007) A1; Jim Windle, "Mohawks File $4.3 Trillion Notice of Action" Tekawennake Six Nations & New Credit News (14 February 2007), online: <web.archive.org/web/20170620144754/http://Caledoniawakeupcall.com/updates/070214tek.html>.

(244) John Ahni Schertow, "Six Nations Confederacy Responds to 4.4 Trillion Dollar Lawsuit", The Sachem and Gazette (12 March 2007), online: <intercontinentalcry.org/six-nations-confederacy-responds-to-44-trillion-dollar-lawsuit>.

(245) John Burman, "Native Threats, Denial Surface over Lawsuit" The Hamilton Spectator (23 February 2007) A1.

(246) Dana Brown, "Mohawk Group's Suit Called 'Dead Issue; $4.4-Trillion Action Resolved: Six Nations'" The Hamilton Spectator (26 April 2008) A7.

(247) Scotia Mortgage Corporation v Wegner, Hamilton 3046/07 (Ont Sup Ct J).

(248) Netolitzky, "History", supra note 5 at 630. Shrout was convicted of over $100 trillion in fraudulent financial instruments and tax evasion. See US v Shrout, No 3:15-cr-Q0438-JO (Dist Ct Or) (22 April 2017).

(249) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Griffin (12 December 2008), Brantford SC-08-663 (Ont Ct J).

(250) Griffin affidavit, supra note 241 at 4.

(251) Ibid at 3.

(252) Ibid at 1.

(253) Ibid at 5.

(254) Ibid at 6.

(255) Ibid at 2.

(256) Ibid at 18.

(257) See supra note 241.

(258) James Bradford Medd has a lengthy Detax history, and after a 1999 conviction unsuccessfully attempted to obtain leave to appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada. See Rose Anne Kulmala, "Medd Meets Goliath", (12 March 1999), online: <www.cyberclass.ner/medd.htm>); R v Medd, 2003 CarswellOnt 1065 (WL Can).

(259) ah'she hodeeheehonto v Bomberry, 2010 ONSC 3701, 190 ACWS (3d) 918 [hodeeheehonto #2]; ah'she hodeeheehonto v Bomberry, 2010 ONSC 3935, 190 ACWS (3d) 1029 [hodeeheehonto #3].

(260) hodeeheehonto #2, supra note 259 at paras 4-12.

(261) Ibid at paras 2, 12.

(262) Ibid at paras 16, 20-22.

(263) hodeeheehonto #3, supra note 259.

(264) Paul Morse, "Smoke Shack's Just Rubble: Bulldozers, Backhoes, SixNations Police, OPP ... All Make Sure Broken Promises Facility is Just a Memory after Long Legal Battle" The Hamilton Spectator (12 January 2011) A3.

(265) Michael-Allan Marion, "Bail Hearing for Suspect" Brantford Expositor (16 March 2010), online: <www.brantfordexpositor.ca>; "Police Crack Gun Trafficking Operation" Simcoe Reformer (24 April 2009), online: <www.simcoereformer.ca>.

(266) Susan Gamble, "Judge's Order Refused" Brantford Expositor (5 November 2010), online: <www.branrfordexpositor.ca>.

(267) The Law Society of Upper Canada directory does not list Griffin. See Bauslaugh, supra note 239.

(268) Susan Gamble, "As a Lawyer, He Always 'Fought for the Underdog'" Brantford Expositor (21 July 2011), online: <www.brantfordexpositor.ca >.

(269) Collins v Brantford Police Services Board (2001), 204 DLR (4th) 660,151 OAC 152; Hudson v Brantford Police Services Board (2001), 204 DLR (4th) 645, 150 OAC 87; Kingv Ontario (Attorney General), 2002 CanLII 9733 (Ont SCJ).

(270) R v Wolfe, 2008 SKPC 25, 318 Sask R284.

(271) "Clarence Justin Griffin", yourlifemoments, online: <yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obituary.asp?oid=518228>.

(272) C Justin Griffin, online: Facebook <www.facebook.com/cjustin.griffin>.

(273) lewis, (9 November 2003 at 9:35am), posted on "Griffin Passamadquoddy Mi'kmaq", online: Ancestry <www.ancesrry.ca/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=33&p=topics.ethnic.natam.nations.mikmaq.mikmaqnat>.

(274) Law Society of Upper Canada v Hosein, 2014 ONLSTH 218, see Agreed Statement of Facts (9 October 2014) [Hosein].

(275) Ibid at para 18.

(276) Ibid at para 18.

(277) Crossroads, supra note 4 at paras 48-85; Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v McDougald, 2017 ABQB 124, 98 CPC (7th) 181 [McDougald].

(278) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Hosein (15 November 2012), Toronto CV-12-2750-SR (Ont Sup Ct J), appeal abandoned Toronto DC-12-106-00 (Ont Sup Ct J (Div Ct)).

(279) This scam uses an IRS form to declare fictional "other income" that was withheld for taxes. That triggers an unwarranted tax refund. See Joshua P Weir, "Sovereign Citizens: A Reasoned Response to the Madness" (2015) 19:3 Lewis & Clark L Rev 829 at 831 33, 841-43.

(280) Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 152-56.

(281) R v Colaco, 2013 ONSC 1453 at para 10, [2013] OJ No 1053 (QL).

(282) US Department of Justice, News Release, "Canadian Promoter of Tax Fraud Scheme Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison" (7 October 2014), online: <www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/canadian-promoter-tax-fraud-scheme-sentenced-nine-years-prison >.

(283) Hosein, supra note 274 at 6.

(284) Republic for the United States of America, online: <www.republicofrheunitedstates.org/> [RuSA]. The lower-case "u" is intentional and matches how the US Declaration of Independence formats that word. RuSA formed around 2010 as an alternative US government with its own congress, senate, courts, and some (purported) government structures, but fell into disorder and fragmented following the arrest and 2013 conviction of "president" Turner for teaching A4V. Turner received an 18-year sentence. See US Department of Justice, News Release, "Self-Proclaimed 'President' of Sovereign Citizen Nation Convicted in Alabama of Federal Tax Crimes" (25 March 2013), online: <www.justice.gov/opa/pr/self-proclaimed-president-sovereign-citizen-nation-convicted-alabama-federal-tax-crimes>.

(285) Gold Shield Alliance is another A4V 'money for nothing' scheme which was common in 2013-2014. See Alberta Treasury Branches v Nielsen, 2014 ABQB 383, 14 CBR (6th) 177.

(286) Ibid at para 32.

(287) Toronto-Dominion Bank v Hosein, 2016 ONCA 628,3 52 OAC 57.

(288) Ibid at para 1.

(289) "John Spirit" (pseudonym, real name is not known), online: Youtube <hwww.youtube.com/channel/UCojOGIpq2NH6TSnKjuN_2MA/channels ?shelf_id=0&view=56> (online instruction by Freeman guru subscribed to by Boodhoo).

(290) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Boodhoo, Toronto SC-12-14623-00 (Ont Sup Ct J), Statement of Defence at paras 37-43.

(291) Online: Yatedo <https://web.archive.Org/web/20130622035022/http://www.yatedo.com/p/Jeunesse+Hosein,+B.A"+LL.B.+J.D./normal/59cdf54235059cd7afd2b8a7f95c919b>.

(292) Lisa Nichols, Unbreakable Spirit: Rising Above the Impossible (Yinspire Media, 2011).

(293) "Unbreakable Spirit: Rising Above the Impossible", online: Internet Archive <web.archive.org/web/20111219032816/http://www.unbreakablespiritbonuses.com/>.

(294) Psychosomatic Therapy College, online: <hwww.psychosomatictherapycollege.com.au>.

(295) On 29 July 2014 Hosein became a "prayer warrior" for the "Dinar Truth Matrix". See online: Dinar Truth Matrix <dinartruthmatrix.net/the-name-for-tues-starting-6-am-is-yahweh-sabaoth-for-the-prayer-wheel/>.

(296) Noahs Ark Foundation v Canada (Attorney General), 2015FC 1183, [2015] FCJ No 1222 (QL) (reporting on litigation that is almost certainly related to this scam. Eight billion Dinars were seized by Canada Customs. Several parties then made claims, including a Nathan Joel Peachey, the "Chief Justice for the one supreme Court" of the RuSA. See supra note 284).

(297) See MM (Re), 2013 ABPC 59, 558 AR 136 [Family # 1] Children's Aid Society of Ottawa v S1, 2015 ONSC 5692, [2015] WDFL 6248 [Family #2], Children's Aid Society of Ottawa v C(A), 2016 ONSC 3111, [2016] WDFL 3936 (late appeal dismissed) [Family #3], 2016 ONCA 512, [2016] WDFL 4693 (expedited appeal application dismissed) [Family #4].

(298) Family #1, supra note 297 at paras 25-27; Family #2, supra note 297 at para 21.

(299) Family #2, supra note 297 at para 86.

(300) Ibid at paras 81-116.

(301) Family #1, supra note 297 at paras 12-23, 41.

(302) Ibid at para 111.

(303) Family #2, supra note 297.

(304) See Family # 1, supra note 297 at paras 77-78.

(305) Miracle v The Queen of England (1 February 2016), Ottawa T-195-16 (FC) (Statement of Claim) [Miracle].

(306) Miracle, supra note 305 at para 63.

(307) Ibid at paras 66, 69, 70.

(308) Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform v Canada (12 February 2011), Toronto T-2010-11 (FC) (Statement of Claim).

(309) Miracle v The Queen of England (19 April 2016), Toronto T-195-16 (FC).

(310) Miracle v The Queen of England (7 September 2016), Toronto T-195-16 (FC).

(311) See Family #3, supra note 297 at paras 36, 38, 42-43, 67.

(312) Family #4, supra note 297 at paras 2-3.

(313) See AC, et al v Children's Aid Society of Ottawa (23 March 2017), 37380 (SCC).

(314) See AC v CAS Ottawa, 2016 ONSC 2353 at para 5-7,265 ACWS (3d) 650 (stayed) [Family Civil #1]; AC v CAS Ottawa, 2016 ONSC 2787 (dismissed) [Family Civil #2]; AC v Children's Aid Society Ottawa, 2016 ONSC 4452,268 ACWS (3d) 780) (appeal continued) [Family Civil#3]; AC v Children's Aid Society of Ottawa, 2017 ONSC 1278, 278 ACWS (3d) 461 (leave to appeal refused) [Family Civil #4].

(315) Family Civil #1, supra note 314 at para 7; Family Civil #2, supra note 314 at paras 8-11; Family Civil #2, supra note 297 (Statement of Claim, 4 March 2016 at paras 1, 13).

(316) Family Civil #2, supra note 314 (Plaintiff's Submissions, 7 April 2016).

(317) Family Civil #1, supra note 314 (letter of Bogue, 5 April 2016).

(318) Family Civil #1; Family Civil #2, supra note 314.

(319) Family Civil #4, supra note 314.

(320) Miracle, supra note 305 at para 11.

(321) Tyendinaga Mohawk Council v Brant, 2014 ONCA 565, 121 OR (3d) 561.

(322) Miracle, supra note 305 at paras 1, 34.

(323) Miracle v Canada (AG), 2017 ONCA 174, 276 ACWS (3d) 270, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 37631 (9 November 2017).

(324) Miracle v Maracle III, 2017 ONCA 195, 276 ACWS (3d) 602.

(325) Ibid at paras 11-12.

(326) See e.g. R v Steinkey, 2017 ABQB 378 at paras 8-9 (appeal dismissed), [2017] AJ No 599 (QL) [Steinkey]; R v Steinkey, 2017 ABCA 291 (leave to appeal granted), [2017] AJ No 931 (QL).

(327) Steinkey, supra, note 326 at para 10.

(328) Ibid at para 20.

(329) Ibid at paras 16-19.

(330) See ibid at paras 16-17.

(331) R v Steinkey (3 January 2017), Edmonton 120400049P1 (Alta Prov Ct); R v Steinkey (3 January 2017), Edmonton 120400049P1 (Alta Prov Ct).

(332) Steinkey, supra, note 312.

(333) Steinkey v Canada, Edmonton T-2053T6 (FC) (Statement of Claim, 29 November 2016).

(334) Steinkey v Canada, 2017 FC 124 at para 9, [2017] GSTC 8 [Steinkey v Canada].

(335) Anderson #1,supra note 147; R v Anderson, 2016 BCSC 2170 [Anderson #2].

(336) Anderson #1, supra notel47 335at paras 4-6.

(337) Ibid at paras 5-6.

(338) Ibid at paras 23-25. See generally R v Lindsay, 2011 BCCA 99, 302 BCAC 76 (for argument on "right to property" based on Coronation Oath and Canadian constitution).

(339) Anderson #1, supra note 335 at para 48.

(340) Ibid at para 28.

(341) For an example of a PEG argument, see text accompanying note 119.

(342) Anderson #l,supra note 147 at paras 39-42, 78-136.

(343) Anderson #2, supra note 335 at paras 2, 14-15.

(344) Ibid at paras 5, 106-107.

(345) See Pomerleau, supra note 23 at paras 97-127 (for review of this common OPCA error).

(346) Ibid at paras 43,70.

(347) Ibid at paras 16, 18.

(348) Ibid at paras 23-67.

(349) Ibid at para 58.

(350) Ibid at paras 71-72,112, 116.

(351) See R v Anderson, 2017 BCCA 153, 2017 DTC 5065.

(352) R v Anderson, 2017 BCCA 154 at para 7, 2017 BCWLD 3863.

(353) R v Anderson (8 March 2018), Vancouver 26322 (BCSC).

(354) Paul Henderson, "B.C. Woman Convicted of Counselling Tax Evasion Sentenced to 4.5 Years Jail", The Columbia. Valley Pioneer (8 March 2018), online: <www.columbiavalleypioneer.com>.

(355) See Arcari v Dawson, 2016 ONCA 715, 134 OR (3d) 36, leave to appeal to SCC refused, 37326 (2 March 2017). See also Jodha v Dineen, 2015 ONSC 6848, 260 ACWS (3D) 743, aff'd 2017 ONSC 298, 275 ACWS (3d) 531; R v Nielsen, 2016 ONCA 635,132 WCB (2d) 69.

(356) See Law Society of Upper Canada v Bogue, 2017 ONLSTH 119 at para 26 [Bogue #1]; Law Society of Upper Canada v Bogue, 2017 ONLSTH 215 at paras 5-7 [Bogue #2].

(357) Bogue v Commissioner of Internal Revenue, No 12291 -09 (US TC) (11 July 2011), aff'd No 12291 -09 (3rd Cir) (3 June 2013), certiorari refused No 12-1508 (Sup Ct US) (31 March 2014).

(358) Bogue #1, supra note 356 at para 38.

(359) See Bogue #2, supra note 356, at para 51.

(360) Ibid at paras 37-38.

(361) Law Society of Upper Canada v Bogue, 2018 ONLSTH 13 at para 1.

(362) Ibid at paras 2-3.

(363) See "Glenn Bogue", nline; olympic.ca <olympic.ca/team-canada/glenn-bogue/>.

(364) See News Staff, "Meet Toronto Mayoral Candidate Glenn Bogue" CityNews (24 April 2014), online: <citynews.ca/2014/04/24/meet-toronto-mayoral-candidate-glenn-bogue/>.

(365) See e.g. Aquarian Radio, "Anunnaki Michael Lee Hill Glenn Bogue 090914" (10 September 2014), online: <youtube.com/watch?v=WgBsd2VwUcA>; Aquarian Radio, "Glenn Bogue- Anunnaki Update- 04/19/15" (19 April 2015), online: <youtube.com/watch?v=WjBaWzCKZks>.

(366) See Glenn Bogue, Are You Gaining Weight and Are You Tired? (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2008); Glenn Bogue, Are You Suffering from a Disease and Can You Recover? (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2009); Glenn Bogue, Sacred Sex and the Menopausal Woman (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2011); Glenn Bogue, The Black Madonna: Isis and the Magdalene (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2011).

(367) Daniel Evans identifies five lawyers (Barringer, Clarkson, Cryer, Dickstein, Rivera) who are OPCA gurus or high profile Tax Prorestors, and another three lawyers (Becraft, Harp, Stilley) who represented clients who employed Grey Zone or pseudolegal arguments. See Daniel Evans "Tax Protestors Dossiers", online: <tpgurus.wikidot.com>. Another notable rogue US lawyer is Jerome Daly, whose litigation essentially spawned the entire fractional banking system "banks create money from thin ait" school of OPCA pseudolaw: Minnesota State Law Library, "Credit River Case", online: <mn.gov/law-library/legal-topics/copy-of-credit-river-case.jsP>.

(368) Bogue #1, supra note 356 at para 32.

(369) See Jodoin, supra note 26 at para 21.

(370) Ibid at paras 25-29.

(371) See R v Dick, 2002 BCCA 27, 163 BCAC 62 [Dick]; Gauthier v Starr, 2016 ABQB 213, 86 CPC (7th) 348, Shannon v The Queen, 2016 TCC 255, 2016 DTC 1204.

(372) Dick, supra note 371 at para 7.

(373) See Canadian National Railway Co v McKercher LLP, 2013 SCC 39 at paras 13-16, [2013] 2 SCR 649; Jodoin, supra note 26 at paras 16-24.

(374) See Sawridge, supra note 27 at para 56.

(375) MacDonald Estate v Martin, [1990] 3 SCR 1235 ar 1245, 77 DLR (4th) 249; R v Cunningham,2010 SCC 10 at para 18, [2010] 1 SCR331.

(376) See e.g. Amell #1, supra note 132 at para 36.

(377) See Netolitzky, "Attack", supra note 10 at 184-85; Netolitzky & Rooke, supra note 10 at 27-38.

(378) See Jol A Silversmith, "The 'Missing Thirteenth Amendment': Constitutional Nonsense and Titles of Nobility" (1999) 8:2 S Cal Interdisciplinary LJ 577.

(379) Robert Arthur Menard, With Lawful Excuse (Elizabeth Anne Elaine Society and Freddie Freepickle Productions, 2011) at 128; Mary Elizabeth: Croft, How 1 Clobbered Every Bureaucratic Cash-Confiscatory Agency Known To Man:... a Spiritual Economics Book on $$$ and Remembering Who You Are (self-published, August 2008) at 6, 22, 47, 58 (for Canadian examples). See also America Publications, Operation "REBIRTH AMERICA": BRAKE the WEB, 2nd ed (AuthorHouse, 2007) at 61 -62, 85; "Hiding Behind the BAR: Why Attorneys Are Not Lawyers", online: The Jailhouse Lawyer <www.angelfire.com/az/sthutston/Hiding_Behind_the_BAR .html>(for American examples).

(380) R v ANB, 2012 ABQB 556, 570 AR 146; ANB v Hancock, 2013 ABQB 97, 577 AR 364; AR v Alberta (Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act, Director), 2013 ABQB 280, 562 AR 316, intervention denied 2014 ABCA 38, rev'd 2014 ABCA148, 575 AR 36.

(381) R v Berg, Edmonton 160099792Q1 (Alta QB).

(382) To be fair, one would hope that complaints that a lawyer refused to engage in unethical OPCA-based activity would be rejected at an early stage and therefore not result in a full hearing.

(383) See Fiander, supra note 10 at paras 37-40.

(384) See Bosse, supra note 214 at paras 33, 42; McDougald, supra note 277 at paras 54-58.

Table 1: Lawyers with Multiple OPCA Clients

Lawyer                #OPCA    Reported   Trial  Appeal  Years
                      Clients  Decisions

Barnwell, Osborne G.   2        3          2      1      2015-2016

Blokmanis, Peter       2        3          3      0      2016
De Serre, Richard      2        2          2      0      2012
MacKay, David G.       2        2          0      2      2001, 2008

Maddock, Christopher   2        4          2      2      2013-2014

Hayworth, Charles      3        3          2      1      2016

Milot, Duane           3                   4      1      2015-2016

Sumner, Joel Allen     3        5          5      0      2016

Bogue, Glenn           4        9          3      6      2016-2017

Barrett, Dale          6        1          1      0      2013

Chtistie, Douglas      9       22         12     10      1997-2013
Hewson
Radnoff, Jeffrey      10       11          9      2      2014-2016


Lawyer                OPCA              Argument Type
                      Movements

Barnwell, Osborne G.  Fiscal            Conventional
                      Atbitrators
Blokmanis, Peter      Detaxers          Conventional OPCA
De Serre, Richard     Quebec A4V
MacKay, David G.      Detaxers          Conventional to
                                        Grey Zone
Maddock, Christopher  PreDetaxers,      Conventional to
                      Detaxers          Grey Zone
Hayworth, Charles     Fiscal            Conventional
                      Arbittators
Milot, Duane          Detaxers, Fiscal  Conventional to
                      Arbitrators       Grey Zone
Sumner, Joel Allen    Fiscal            Frivolous non-OPCA
                      Arbitrators
Bogue, Glenn          Detaxers,         OPCA
                      Aboriginal
Barrett, Dale         Fiscal            Conventional
                      Arbitrators
Chtistie, Douglas     PreDetaxets,      Conventional to
Hewson                Detaxers          Gfey Zone
Radnoff, Jeffrey      Fiscal            Conventional
                      Arbittators

Table 1: "Trial" and "Appeal" indicate the number of reported trial vs
appeal decisions. Tax Court of Canada proceedings are trials. "Years"
is the period where an OPCA client was represented. "OPCA Movements" is
the source community of the represented OPCA litigants, per Netolitzky,
"History". "Argument Type" indicates the kind of legal concepts
advanced, see Part V for "Grey Zone" description.

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Author:	Netolitzky, Donald J.
Publication:	University of British Columbia Law Review
Date:	Aug 1, 2018
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