CONTENTS
(1) DAREK CZERNEWCAN FOUND US
(2) DAREK GIVEN SUSPENDED SENTENCE
Note: “According to an August news release, Lockheed Martin employs 140,000 people worldwide and reported 2007 sales of US $41.9 billion.”
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(1) DAREK CZERNEWCAN FOUND US!
The court proceedings against Darek for non-compliance with the 2006 census began in August in London ON. If you had Darek’s family and life experience you would know in your bones about threats to justice and freedom:
Darek writes:
“I purposely declined the census because I felt that the long form, which I received, asked questions which violated my right to privacy. Being an immigrant (originally, I’ve been a citizen now for 16 years), and having come to Canada from a (formerly) communist country, where even Big Brother did not resort to the kind of tactics I am facing in FREE Canada… Well, I was just offended. I did not spend a significant part of my life in the squalor of refugee camps, running away from political oppression, only to be met with the same kind of oppression in the FREE WORLD. I don’t want to rant too much, but I’ll just sum it up this way – I am being threatened with fines and jail time because in a FREE COUNTRY, I refused to tell the government how many hours in a week I spend doing dishes!”
From Darek’s wife, Kelly:
“Hi!
I’m Darek’s wife, Kelly. Thank you for all your help and support.
I’m so glad there are at least two more families standing up for our rights.
It gives me hope for my son’s future. Darek’s maternal grandfather lost his entire family during the Second World War, and only due to a fluke, survived the “ethnic cleansing” himself, as he was posted on the other side of the country at the time. Darek’s dad’s struggle against the Communist repression during Poland’s civil war seems smaller by comparison, and Darek’s fight just a sand-box shoving match, but we are talking about one family over the span of three short generations. I do not want my son’s life tattooed and barcoded by Lockheed Martin in this or the upcoming Census. As Stalin once said, “the people who vote count nothing, the people who count the votes count everything.”
Darek and Kelly have a fourteen-month-old son.
Darek found Todd Stelmach (another person in the same boat) and me through Don Roger’s web-site, “Count Me Out” (of the Census).
Darek, as quoted in the Gerogia Strait on-line news:
” Czernewcan explained that during the Cold War, his father was a political prisoner of Poland’s Soviet government. Later, his parents immigrated to Canada to spare Czernewcan from compulsory military service.
“I have this intrinsic aversion to anything military,” he said.
Serendipitously, Darek’s work brought him to Saskatoon. We had time for coffee. It was just great to get to know a little of this person whose mind obviously works like mine in some ways!
The Statistics Act sets a limitation period. Proceedings against individuals must be instituted “not later than two years after the time when the subject-matter of the proceedings arose”. The proceedings against Darek started in August. It needs to be determined that this falls within the 2-year period.
(Sandra speaking:) The bona fide Census work is valued. I am in the camp that believes “Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, debate, and dissent.” Sometimes the government has to be called on its actions. The American military (through Lockheed Martin Corporation) should have nothing to do with the Canadian census, for various reasons. I doubt that the Statistics Act, when it was written, EVER contemplated that future governments would be doing this.
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(2) DAREK GIVEN SUSPENDED SENTENCE
“I suppose I owe you guys a bit of an update. My case is now over. And I guess I both won and lost. I’m sorry to let you down, but I had to throw in the towel. (INSERT: he DIDN’T let us down! He did the right thing.) The Crown Attorney assigned to my case had a real hard-on for this. He said that if we go to trial, he would ask for the maximum penalty, maximum fine as well as maximum jail time, as well as an order to make me fill out the form.
I did not succeed in finding pro-bono legal representation. I have to be honest with you – personally, I can do 3 months in a provincial bucket standing on my head. But I am the sole provider for my family and we would end up homeless and broke if I was in jail for 3 months. So I asked the Crown what he would want if I pleaded guilty. He was ready to agree to a $300 fine and no jail time. So we took it to plea court. And this is where I got lucky. The judge was exceptionally reasonable. He said that he was not the least bit inclined to agree with the crown that this was a serious matter.
The judge said that he doesn’t see the purpose in prosecuting people like me. He asked me if I had anyone relying on me for support, and I said that yes, I had a wife who stayed at home and raised our 14-month old son. The judge was pleased to hear that. He said that since I have no criminal record he would like to give me an absolute discharge, but since there was some provision in the law that prevented him from doing so in this particular case, he gave me a suspended sentence. I should mention that this judge admonished the Crown Attorney for wasting the Court’s time with trivial matters and stopped just shy of asking them to bring him some real criminals! “
(“A suspended sentence is a legal construct. Unless a minimum punishment is prescribed by law, the court has the power to suspend the passing of sentence (generally for a period of three years) and place the offender on probation. It is the passing of the sentence, not the sentence itself, that is being suspended. This means that if the person is convicted of another offense during the period when the passing of sentence had been suspended, then the person may be sentenced for the original offence.”)