The original $10M lawsuit | John Lucas lawsuit | Steele letter to City Hall | Kathy letter to Axworthy | Dueck's notes | Who pays to defend these suits?

When Richard Klassen first approached me to ask me to write for him February in 1994, he had just filed the $10M lawsuit. All previous lawsuits in Canada had been for "in excess of $10,000" and Klassen thought the $10M figure would get people's attention.

We became activists together and our activities were directed towards protecting Kathy: we did not know where she was but we knew from the documents she had been sexually assaulted by her brother and sister while then corporal Brian Dueck stood by and did nothing and social worker Carol Bunko-Ruys described the assaults as "agreeable sex." We were horrified. Richard Klassen had already written several letters, including this one to Premier Romanow which received this cynical reply from Justice Minister Robert Mitchell. He then sent this one to the Police investigators. I wrote more, especially on behalf of Peter Klassen who was serving a full four year sentence in the federal peniteniary in Bowden, Alberta.

In August, 1994, Richard Klassen and I were arrested for defaming Dueck. Eventually we both won acquittals but we were effectively shut down from public activity until 1998 when Klassen's case ended. It was then tha we hit the internet.

Richard was clear from the beginning that our aim was to bring the whole case, particularly the allowing of Kathy's rapes, to public view, a difficult task since a sweeping ban had been placed on all publication surrounding the cases. I defied the ban and learned HTML. Although Richard had a great deal of input to injusticebusters website, and stood up for it in the press when we were kicked off Sympatico and during other scuffles, I stood ready to take the rap from the beginning. I provided RCMP in Nova Scotia, who claimed in the National Post they were inverstigating me for another story (in Cape Breton) with my home address and invited them to arrest me. I did the same with the local police. Not a bite.

We had already been online for a year when we posted information about the $10M lawsuit. Richard had been reluctant to do this, claiming the cover-up and the lawsuit were two separate matters -- apples and oranges. However, the defendants in the lawsuit certainly made no such distinctions and continued to attack on any front they could.

. . . to be continued

A year later: Feb. 19, 2003 | Popowich | Holgate | Miazga | Mitchell | Terry Hinz | The $10M+ Lawsuit | Klassens await day in court | The Gerald Morris case traces some of the branches of corruption in the Saskatchewan legal community | Background to the case | Saskatchewan Court of Appeals role in covering malice |