Reflection

 Today is March 30th, 2010. I woke early this morning to find this article by Paul Walton of the Daily News.http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=4abdebab-4761-4871-bed9-77b2339c2290It will be seven years on July 11th since young John and Jason Cunningham, their father James Cunningham and my self Cathy Davis were ticketed on Federal lands by a number of RCMP officers for protesting the Nanaimo City Street entertainer’s bylaw. Jason and John were children at the time of the incident. At that time we were a popular group (it says on the court papers aka Catch The Wind) often actually hired by the City to play senior’s music.I take exception to Mr Walton’s quote” Christie told a small crowd of about a dozen people that the bylaw is a threat to freedom of speech by using “injunctions to to stop buskers not approved by the city from playing on the street”. We were indeed approved by the city on many occasions, and given a licence to perform on the street every year that we applied for one.Mr Walton writes a good story but he fails to remember that we were protesting the new city bylaw, which came into effect in 2002.protesting, is legal in our country, especially when it is done in a peaceful manner without violence or destruction of property.We were given city bylaw tickets on federal public space, which is illegal. The city has no jurisdiction over federal land. Indeed, in a Freedom Of Information request we obtained information from the city of Nanaimo, which states clearly that no city, bylaw tickets were issued on “Port Property”. We have more than six bylaw tickets issued to us by the RCMP on Port Property all were disputed legally and dropped.The last ticket resulted in the City Of Nanaimo getting an injunction to compel us to comply with the bylaw.This injunction has been in place for almost seven years. To this day we maintain that we were exercising our right to Freedom of Speech.It is my fervent hope that Discovery in June will bring out the truth. The City Of Nanaimo sued the whole family aka Catch The Wind for costs and damages.It is my hope that Freedom of Speech will prevail and a wrong will be set right