LAWYERS for DERA/APC
Oldtown News
Vancouver, BC
LAWYERS for DERA/APC
Ms Plumridge Speaks
Hi Folks,
I've been receiving a flurry of emails from a purported lawyer, Leah Plumridge, who has risen to the defence of DERA/APC and was enraged that I questioned whether the lawyer acting for DERA/APC, Mr. Jason Gratl, was receiving his legal fees from BC Housing subsidy funds?
As many of my readers know, DERA/APC is under operational review regarding allegations of mis-use and fraudulent use of public tax dollars. Even though this operational review was initiated over a year ago, as yet this public review hasn't been released.I would hate to claim that there is an attempted cover-up of its findings but alas there doesn't appear to be any reasonable explanation for the withholding of the public review.
Back to Ms Plumridge.She is incensed that I demanded Mr. Gratl answer whether he is assured that no BC Housing subsidies are going toward paying his legal fees. After-all, these subsidies are to ensure the upkeep of the DERA/APC buildings and safety and security for lower-income, disabled and downtrodden citizens. They are not for legal fees. Mr. Gratl hasn't yet answered this question.
Ms Plumridge goes on to assert that everyone is entitled to legal representation, including, she claims, DERA. In many cases she is right and with the situation of DERA, I suggest she is dead wrong.
Whether public tax dollars should be used to support criminals and criminal groups regarding criminal actions of their own choosing is something I believe is up for public debate.
Ms Plumridge also assertively claims that the law stipulates that one is innocent until proven guilty. This is another tricky issue and while I have wholeheartedly agreed to this tenet in the past, I now find myself concerned about it.
As I witness the proliferation of heinous criminal acts I am beginning to question whether this tenet of law is still suitable in today's world?A number of criminal offences are occurring with gigantic proportions that have me deeply troubled as I'm certain it does other citizens.
Crimes against humanity, hate-crimes, terrorism, sex crimes against children and sexual violence, including sexual exploitation of our vulnerable has me questioning whether this innocent until proven guilty aptly applies today.
I cringe at the thought of accepting that certain individuals and groups are innocent when they carry out some of the worst crimes imaginable.
I include DERA/APC who I allege, has been stealing from the poor in order to advance their own rabid political agenda. Stealing from the poor is another one of those terribly heinous crimes.
Ms Plumridge sarcastically states in her emails that I'm not Justice Hamilton. As a lawyer she demonstrates her disrespect for those who do believe in social justice and who speak out against injustice and wrongs. For her to suggest that only those who are judges are allowed this privilege is utter nonsense.
Finally, I sum up by concluding that there are many excellent ethical lawyers out there and I hate to see them tarnished with the likes of those who throw ethics aside while hopping on an endless gravy train which feathers their own nest. Especially when this happens right in my backyard in the Oldtown neighborhood.
I'd love to hear my readers responses to this post.
Jamie Lee Hamilton
tricia_foxx@yahoo.com
posted by Jamie Lee Hamilton @ 2:17 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
she's still a law student - http://ihrla.law.uvic.ca/contact.htm
Thanks for the info.
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Sorry if you feel that I was attacking you Ms Plumridge. I wasn't. I was merely pointing out concerns with DERA/APC and the association with their lawyer, Mr. Jason Gratl.
You are entitled to your opinions Ms Plumridge, however, I suggest to you that you might not be up to speed on politics of the Downtown Eastside/Oldtown neighborhood.
After all you are in Victoria and couldn't possibly understand all the inner workings and happenings in my neighborhood.
In any event, I am quite clear in my assertion that DERA/APC are using the poor, in fact, I allege, robbing from them as they feather their own nests.
I have seen too much misery in this neighborhood while those who feel it necessary to manage (some say control) the poor, have it made on easy street.
And the rampant poverty and misery continues on unabated.
Wonderful legacy isn't it Ms Plumridge?
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no one should fall into the trap of believing that the foundation of democracy - the presumption of innocence - is questionable. More and more, our society is becoming a police state, and the right to criticize anyone, whether it be Gratl or his supposed good deeds, or judges, who are making judgments that are political and have nothing to do with justice. There is nothing so abhorrent than the persecution and / or prosecution of an innocent person. There HAVE been many, many cases of this in Canada - people wrongly accused of murder, child abuse, terrorism, and so on. Ironicaly,the government and the police use the public's hatred of the destruction of innocence to slowly or rapidly erode our basic rights. The Civil Forfeiture Act, purportedly designed to ensure that criminals can be brought to justice expediently, is in fact a way to abolish the presumption of innocence. The State can now seize your property, and you have to spend large sums of money to prove that you are innocent. That kind of law depends on our willingness to believe that the State will only go after the guilty, and draws upon our hostility towards groups such as the Hell's Angels, but it is always a slippery slope. The government has too much power, and they are abusing it, every day, and in myriad ways. We need people who are willing to take the time to criticize people such as Mr. Gratl, but without fundamental freedoms, it's all worth nothing.
Hopefully my Charter of Rights and Freedom will protect me as I write this.
White collar crime usually goes unpunished, and sometimes is protected. It certainly seems the case regarding APC/DERA.
Yet not only is such crime going on, APC has consistently attempted blue collar crime when confronting their "enemy", whether it is VANOC or Jamie Lee Hamilton.
Meanwhile, associates of APC are deep in committing crimes, supposedly to make ends meet, but actually bottom-feeders aiding and abetting those dirty collared crimes.
Or, at least, that's Jamie's spin on things.
I can comment on this, since a bottom-feeder affected my life in 2004 in a suburb of Metro Vancouver, just as the RCMP has affect my 'hood due to crime emanating from you 'hood.
If we're all here to protect the rights of the underclass, then we ought to be allowing a public audit of the DERA at Pendera, which houses them.
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