September 30, 2001.

In responding to Ron Seymour's recent article, "Canada Rewarded Okanagan 'Terrorist' Quite Well", I just have to emphasize that Mr. Haymour had, himself and his family, been terrorized by various ministries and administrators of the British Columbia government - for more than 10 years, already!

What Eddy did, while unthinkable to any ordinary person, was driven out of more than 10 years of systematic, illegal, bureaucratic, harassment and torturous, illegal confinement, with such relentless zeal, so as to be considered terrifying, throughout the entire period.

His family home, designed and built by Mr. Haymour, had an elevator in it and was considered to be worth $ 300,000.00 or more. While Mr. Haymour was illegally incarcerated the home mysteriously burned to the ground. The insurance had lapsed while Eddy was in jail (the year-long interim stint that he served, en route to a 15 day psyche. evaluation, ordered by a local judge, because Eddy did not mail any letter bombs??) His mail was never forwarded to him by any authority, although it had accumulated in an R.C.M.P. file that they kept on him.

His family left him. His children hated him. Because they had been terrorized, also.

Eddy's honour became more important to him than his life. Really, it was all he had left, having had his belief system systematically shattered. He refused to shrivel from this tyrannical, terrorist regime and in the final act, was ready to lay down his life for principles, integrity, honour. He merely wanted to be heard.

Whether he was ready to take a life, we'll never know because our federal government made the more prudent decision to allow Mr. Haymour that opportunity to make this great country just, again; the entire significance in being Canadian in Eddy's opinion.

Supreme Court Justice Gordon MacKinnon wrote:
"Senior government officials, including ministers of the Crown and with the knowledge of then-Premier W.A.C. Bennett...no less than 6 departments...were involved in the conspiracy...The B.C. government's actions have been highly improper, illegal and even cruel."

It turns out that, no matter how you slice it, Eddy Haymour was no terrorist, at all. His act of terrorism was born out of a final attempt at justice, all avenues having failed him, thus far. This, in and of itself, turns Mr. Haymour's actions into that of one of justice, in and of itself.

In the very least, you must consider that Eddy's actions were the direct result of more than 10 years of foundless, systematic persecution of Mr. Haymour and his family by those acting on behalf of the B.C. government. These are the people that were directly responsible for his actions. If Eddy Haymour was a terrorist, then they "manufactured" this "terrorist".

Given the relentless zeal, the breadth and depth of invasion into Mr. Haymour and family's human and civil rights, the extent of collaboration into criminal activity brought to bear on Mr. Haymour by such numerous public administrators, the extent of degradation heaped on the Haymour family, Eddy in particular but perhaps even worse for his children, $470,000.00 doesn't come anywhere near the compensation that Eddy deserves.

Mr. Seymour, if you have anything to be ashamed of, you should be ashamed of your last article. What Mr. Haymour did in the name of justice, was for the benefit of all good citizens. In spite of his efforts, we failed to do the most important part.

So eloquently stated in Mr. Haymour's book, 'From Nut House to Castle', he writes;
"Let me explain, briefly. The Supreme Court showed the conspiracy against me and named many that conspired, who did evil not only to me but, by extension, to the people of British Columbia and Canada. You see, if one believes in democracy, one believes that government exists to carry out the wish of the people. Government officials act in the name of the people. My case is an example of the will of the people - not just my will - being betrayed by duly elected officials."

In spite of a Supreme Court Decision, citing no less than 6 provincial ministries and their administrators guilty of conspiratal, illegal activity, not a charge was laid! Our provincial prosecutors and our Attorney General were shamefully negligent in not carrying out their respective sworn duty. In so doing, helping to insure that such a similar event would never be in need of repeating. This negligence by the A.G.'s office is less of a surprise when one considers that the A.G.'s office was one of the six ministries, cited by Justice MacKinnon.

We have a humanitarian duty to pledge our support to our neighbours to the south in finding the cause that is truly responsible for this inhuman act, committed and by all means, irradicate these triggers from society.

Further acts of terrorism committed on our part, or any other parties, for that matter, only feeds the machine that turns men into terrorists. Instead, our neighbours could observe the example that Canada decided on in granting Mr. Haymour to be heard, considered without bias and decided upon.

Even a terrorist has a right to have their side of the story heard. To be allowed to explain to the world what it took to provoke such a violent act against, ultimately, all humanity.

And lets be sure to have all the facts when we level our accusations and not go shooting our bombers off, half cocked. The time is now to stop manufacturing terrorists!

Yours very truly,

Shamus Aristocrites
Kelowna, B.C.
(250) 765-6826