From: Sandra Finley
Sent: February 9, 2024
To: Tony Doob
Subject: Solitary Confinement Alberta
Dear Professor Doob,
I lifted a copy of your participation in the Proulx Roundtable 2022 and posted it on my website . . . I hope that’s okay with you. . . .
The unveilings of February 6th, 2024 at the Lethbridge Court House lend urgency to the need for public awareness. There has to be a thunderous call for ACCOUNTABILITY.
Jerry Morin of the Coutts Four was in solitary confinement for 74 days.
When Marco saw the two in the court room on the 6th February, 2024, he saw “broken men”. Strong young family men, broken. Broken by the legal system.
I write in regard to the Coutts border crossing incidents and fall-out. I am not an Albertan; I have long been concerned about the legal system in Canada. I live in B.C.
If your information source for what happened in 2022 February at Coutts, and subsequently in the Lethbridge Court House, Calgary Remand Centre, and other Alberta prisons – – if your info comes from mainstream media you will be ill-informed.
I have traveled to Lethbridge Provincial Court 3 times, so I could see first-hand what’s going on. My first impression only gets reinforced: ineptitude is the kindest word I can use. An accurate description is “what one would expect in a police state”.
The BEAUTIFUL COMPETENCE is in using the legal system as a tool to silence unwanted voices and thwart justice. It is a system of violence.
I kind of know Marco Van Huigenbos, and have respect for him – –
Marco attended the PLEA BARGAIN hearing, Court of Kings Bench, Lethbridge on Feb 6th; he reported on it in a comprehensive podcast (Jason Lavigne’s podcast).
Marco is solid. He is level-headed, explains the proceedings and answers questions competently. Some may remember him from the Rouleau Commission hearings.
I encountered Marco in person more than a year ago. I wanted to help with his legal bills. Marco insisted that the money go to help the guys who were locked up in remand. Marco is charged but not jailed – – so “free”. The Coutts 4 were prevented from working to support their families. The terms of their incarceration prevented them from seeing their wives, etc. The circumstances of their arrests looked sketchy to me (and still do). The Plea Bargain reinforces the perception.
Marco is a natural leader, in his early thirties, originally from the Netherlands, has a young family, is a Town Councillor for Fort McLeod, not too far from Coutts. He faces charges laid 2 years ago, still waiting to be heard. I won’t go into the outstanding cases on the Lethbridge docket, and abuses, not in this communication.
It is difficult NOT to draw conclusions about an intention to use Coutts as theatre to create fear.
The photo of the “weapons” laid out on a table in front of an RCMP cruiser is proving, now with public awareness, to have been staged. (Marco speaks to this in the podcast.)
The partner of one of the Plea Deals, Jaclyn Martin, was also charged back then, 2 years ago. I believe that Jaclyn and Jerry have 3 children. Jaclyn wasn’t jailed; what I know about her situation is god-awful, and very sketchy, too. I think she is a straight-shooter. Not making up anything – – she’s originally from a rural New Brunswick family that likes hunting. She fell for this Albertan guy. When the guys aren’t working, they socialize with other couples in the area who have young families, they like the out-of-doors, have friends who sit around campfires. They happen to like skeet-shooting. Skeet-shooters have guns. Nothing illegal about that.
I am from the rural west. My Dad had a shooting range in the basement of his store (sounds unlikely but it was a large cement basement that had water seepage problems. During the winter months with minus 20 and 30 degree temperatures outside, friends of my Dad sometimes got together to target shoot in the store basement. I tagged along more than once.
(INSERT: I added the following paragraph in an edit of the original. It helped me overcome the sadness of what’s been done at Coutts.)
My Dad was a hunter; we ate wild geese and ducks, partridge, which evolved to catching wild, wounded birds when the hunters from central Canada and the U.S. left after hunting season. The birds were kept in a hen house, watered and fed over winter. Some recuperated and joined the flocks migrating north in the spring. Others were put out on the dugout until winter freeze.
The offspring of maimed birds that mated on the dugout joined the migrations going south in the fall. Some returned to the area in the spring, nested and continued the cycle. They visited their maimed parents on the dugout.
Many hunters from the city were undiscerning “shooters”. Dad was able to catch and house a wounded swan, mistaken for a snow goose. You aren’t allowed to shoot swans. A wounded bufflehead was taxidermied after he died and is still “with our family”. And so on. When I was in grade 4, by my Dad’s invitation I skipped school to join him and my brothers. We went “hunting” in the South Saskatchewan River Valley on a beautiful fall day. We tramped through the hills and ravines, didn’t actually shoot anything! Just had a grand time in the out-of-doors.
Jerry Morin of the Coutts Four was in solitary confinement for 74 days.
When Marco saw the two in the court room on the 6th February he used the word “broken”. They have been broken by the legal system.
Marco presses for Accountability – – there has to be an Inquiry.
Covid – – everything is so connected. (I am currently reading RFK’s “Wuhan Cover-Up”. And repeat – – everything is so connected.)
Professor Doob, I hope your voice is strong. It is needed. Maybe my letter to you can be helpful in some way.
Best wishes,
Sandra Finley
www.sandrafinley.ca (an old blog)
250-594-9898