In the Canadian justice system it's standard for the police and the crown to lay a bunch of "junk" charges, i.e., inflamatory allegations without basis in reality.

This has the affect of 1) making the police look good for catching such a really bad guy, 2) providing a negotiating position for the crown when plea-bargaining, 3) biasing the court against the person charged, and not least 4) removing public support from the person charged.

In the criminal trial the crown painted Bruce Montague as a dangerous person, a terrorist, a threat to the public peace. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the jury acquitted Bruce of all such charges.

Now with the Civil Forfeiture (home-stealing) proceeding, the crown is again trying to paint a false picture of Bruce Montague.

The difference this time is the crown doesn't have to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt as you do in criminal court. You know the game. If you can't beat your opponent by the rules, change the rules. By throwing lots of speculative and inflamatory charges at the accused, the crown increases probablities in the mind of the judge that the accused must be guilty.

All the innuendo and allegations will be answered in detail in trial, but only a general answer can be made at this time.

The application alleges violations including:

• operating business without a license
• possessing firearms without a license
• possessing loaded guns and unsafe storage
• possessing altered and illegal firearms (altered serial numbers, full-auto, high-cap mags, suppressors)
• possessing tools/equipment to make guns
• possessing manuals on warfare tactics and weapons
• possessing manual on growing Marijuana
• having built an alleged heated room for a grow-op

These are "junk" charges.

Remember, Bruce has no violent past and is a respected community member. He intentionally broke "paperwork" firearms laws (hurting nobody) to challenge bad laws in court. All firearms were legally acquired, and as a professional gunsmith Bruce had a license to make and repair firearms. He even worked on fully-automatic firearms for the police. The interesting reading material is just that. You probably have some books you disagree with too.

Let's put this in perspective. If you have a car that can go 300km/hr are you "probably" a danger to the public? Should the car be impounded because you're a street-racer? Should your family home be forfeited?

Hopefully that introduction will help put the following application to steal the Montagues' home in its proper context.

2010-10-21_Application-MontagueForfeiture.pdf (1.3MB)