September 6, 1997 - Gregg Hagglund

Today the Toronto Contingent of the ARSCC* (*wdne) launched the 6th in a continuing series of demonstrations against the Management Practices of the Co$.

The Org was caught again by surprise.Unfortunately so it seems were the Metropolitan Police as we had no police cover.

Participants were: Gregg Hagglund, Artemis, Slippery Jim and a new face: Karl Marx.

Also attending was a remote observer and photographer.

Artemis and I began the Picket by ourselves. We knew that our turnout would be low as we had just done a Picket (#5) on September First. However we felt that the Co$ would have its guard down as another Picket so soon would be out of 'pattern'. And we were right.<grin>

Highlights:

We started off by tywrapping one eight foot pole to a sign standard at the side of the org. and stretching out the 10 foot by two foot banner which proclaimed:

(4" high black) The Church of Scientology in Canada is Celebrating:

(1 foot high red) 30 YEARS OF INFAMY!

(4" high black) The only Criminally Convicted 'Church' in Canada!

This was beside the Org and at the street corner. We angled it so that passersby and street traffic could easly see it. Car horn acks were frequent as well as uncountable verbal appreciative acknowledgements. I held up pne end and the no parking sign did a great job on the other end. Artemis ranged about, always keeping in view as I was 'staked out' at one end of the banner.

The Org 'store' was deserted. We could easily have cleaned the place out but since we were carring Demo materials we resisted temptation. <grin>

M-Phone in full use again in particular to read aloud the Court Opinion flyer. (Soon to be Webbed.) However, my first public announcement was to state: "The Church of Scientology in Canada is celebrating: 30 years of.... INFAMY! The only Criminally Convicted 'Church' in Canada! Criminally convicted for Breach of Public Trust for infiltrating and spying on the Attorney General's Office of Ontario, the Ontario Medical Association and various Police Organisations and Private Law Firms!"

I repeated this variously at about 5 minute intervals. The rest of the time I advertised:" The Church of Scientology has a secret. A ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR secret. Members of Scientology must pay over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to learn the secret of..... Xenu the Galactic Overlord! However, in honour of Scientologies 30 Infamous Years in Canada we are offering this ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR secret for free! And boy does Scientology hate that!" etc.

Well staff showed up on the run inside the 'store' asap and they soon had one or two pamphleteers out front as well as a video camera going on us through the Org side window.

After about 30 minutes Al Buttnor showed up and he was not very happy again. His ears go kinda all red and the bags under his eyes puff out.( I think he has high blood pressure and I hope he gets that condition seen to. After all, in Ontario the Health Services are generally free to Ontario Residents.)

He stomped into the Org. and emerged a few minutes later to take a picture of the Banner. Now to do this he backed out into traffic. I spoke up and warned him of his peril and he looked about startled. Fortunately there were no cars at the time. He asked me conversationally to straighten up the Banner and I happily obliged. ( Damn tootin right I am proud of that banner. It took a whole day to manufacture.)

At first we had a sparse number of passersby, probably due to the Film Festival. However, at 3 pm we were joined by Slippery Jim DiGris and his acquaintance 'Karl Marx' and simultaneously the number of passersby significantly increased. 'Karl' took over hoding up the banner and I, Jim and Artemis went into high gear.

All told we gave out over 250 flyers and pamphlets to eager hands and many thankyous. We had dozens of verbal and car acks. Even acks from the cast of the live theatre across the street who leaned out to wave and yell encouragement to us from the upper floor windows. I gave them a verbal plug in gratitiude and got a cheer!

One org staff has apparently been assigned to try to comm with me and keep me talking and off the M-Phone. However I note the time when he starts talking to me and only give him 10 minutes the first time and only 2 minutes each subsequent time. This guy is the one tall guy I call 'Jeff'. When he approached me to have a cigarette and chat I stunned him by apologising for snapping at him last Picket ( Sept 1). I told him I felt bad about maybe sounding angry at him, but if he would like I could get an audio copy of Hubbard actually saying "there is no Christ".

His jaw dropped and he almost lost his cig. (Kools) He then thanked me and said I sounded reasonable and then we began a very civilised conversation. The gist of it was he was higher than OT3 and Scientology had a Spiritual 8th Dynamic Belief and then he went on to reply to my assertions of Co$ misconduct that other Churches had done the same in the past etc.

Standard stuff.

Where he slipped up was in agreeing with me that the Churches of old were wrong in misconduct and that 'Raw Meat' were not told of the Xenu and No Christ teachings. In short order I had him agree that this should be corrected. When he admitted that I checked the time and his share was up. I told him I was there to inform the public and I was going to resume that now. I then started back on the M-Phone and he kind of wandered off and joined a group of Clams who had congregated across the sidestreet from the Org, right beside the Coffee Shop, for the daily 'steam'.

In about 10 minutes one oft seen Org staffer comes over to me and asks for three RXSpecials which I happily gave the staffer. The staffer went back to the rest and shared the flyers with two others. They all read it and began to talk to 'Jeff' and glance sharply at me when I went on the M-Phone and did the $100 000 routine and slipped in the info that higher end Org Staff were required to keep the contents of OT3 and therefore the Xenu story qt.

There were a few half hearted attempts to do stress tests, but they soon gave this up.

We were at Cause again, even when Buttnor called the Police and made some complaints. [Poor guy has not the slightest idea why I am so comfortable around cops. (hint hint) >grin<]

Lowlights:

Rev. Buttnor complains to Police and they responded by sending out two squad cars which parked on the side street at about 2:45pm. Out pops two Officers one of whom kinda hangs around near me and the other goes into the Org.

A few minutes later the Officer re-emerges from the Org and politely appoaches me. He is holding in his hand colour copies of two of my Website Rogues Gallery Pages. He asks Artemis (who had now joined me) and I, if we were aware of our Rights and Obligations. We assured him we were and he proceeded to give us a polite lecture about not sticking cameras in CoS staff faces and blocking pedestrians. These he pronounced could be construed as criminal offences of harrassment. I told him we didn't plan to file charges against the Co$ for doing this. No, no he said, they claim the demonstartors were doing this and even tho' we had the right to demonstrate we must not be obstructive. I laughed and said I had had a complete briefing on dos and donts from PC Crook of traffic division and I had two things he might want to see: Todays Official Notice of Demonstration and our Demonstrators Code of Conduct. He was obviously chagrined when he said, "You mean you *do* have a Notice on File?" I offered to show him but he said he would check with traffic. He had *not* been informed. I then gave him a copy of the Code. He said he would read it later when he had his glasses ( he was about my age) I laughed and said I appreciated that the MTP had long arms but I guessed his weren't long enough without his glasses? He chuckled at that. I felt a tinge fo sympathy for a man, misinformed and trying to do his job civilly. I glanced down at the copies of my Website pages that Buttnor had supplied him with and I told him those shots were to allow disconnected family members, if any, to perhaps locate missing loved ones. He nodded and and said he understood what I meant but what about the children on the page? I answered that children were too often the pawns in Co$ disconnection dramas and he again nodded. I went on to say that, to date there was only one small shot of one 10 year old boy and what was the big deal? I had him on the spot. He could see I was not uncomfortable at all and excitable. He said that CoS lawyers, according to Buttnor, were investigating my site and recordings of my harangues too, for slander and libel. I aked him if he was aware of the largest Libel settlement imposed in Canadian legal history. He said no. I then told him to ask his superiors about the $2,500,000 that Crown Prosecutor Casey Hill got from the Co$. He gave me a big grin and said he had to go and wished me luck and to call 52 Division if we had any more problems.
He was a nice guy.

The rest of the Picket was uneventful. 'Jeff' tried to get me off the M-phone twice or more times but I only gave him a couple of minutes at a time.

I and my three compatriots remained at Cause over the Org until we pulled the plug just after 4:30 being low on both flyers and non-local passersby.

'Karl Marx' had to leave and so Jim, Artemis and I adjourned to the 'Duke' to whet our whistles and talk about the next picket I had scheduled for Monday the 8th of September. The actual anniversary date of Co$ 30 years in Canada. Jim said he could not come, but Artemis and I had already determined that we would be on our own for the Monday Demonstration.

On the Monday, Artemis and I had decided to give the Co$ a surprise reprise for at least one hour of the INFAMY! Picket. We were prepared for stiff oppostion -
-and we got it!

See my next report:

Toronto Picket #7: INFAMY! II - A 'LOUD' BRAWL!