Come Smoke the Psychedelic Mushroom Cloud: Insider Peek into Street Legal Advocacy

Indulge me for a moment with something I rarely do: blog about myself. Right now I’m so burnt out I need to relax a bit, so why the Hell not. Let’s take a short break from street legal advocacy, which has lately consumed all twenty-five hours of my every fucking day, and write about of the clusterfuck shitstorm that has engulfed my life as of late, sucking out my brain through my ears so bad I might as well have be downing THC oil with shooter glasses. While listening to black metal at full volume. Hell yeah.

You may have read my recent post about how I’m walking the fine line between street legal advocacy and terrorism as I escalate my fight against the City of Victoria. Here’s some more about it. In the past several days I’ve spent nearly all my time on the road trying to keep my clients alive while they cross mine fields to navigate the system, and I’m losing my mind in the process.

One of them is attending mediation at the BC Human Rights Tribunal right now, and I’m not. It might sound like I’m abandoning my client, but I’m not either. I’ve advised my client not to engage in mediation with the City of Victoria because it isn’t in their best interest to proceed, a statement I do not make lightly. But hey, I draw the line at murder, so it’s just as well I’m not there to shower the respondent with threats and pejorative epithets. Just hoping my client doesn’t get chewed too hard in my absence; at least they have a pro bono lawyer to mitigate the emotional damage. UPDATE: I’ve just learned my client has seen fit to relieve me of my duties, which isn’t a surprise and actually a relief, as callous as it may sound. Apparently the lawyer is doing a better job at handling mediation than I would, which means it is in my client’s best interest, and also in mine as I can move on with more pressing matters.

I’ve attended another client’s mediation session with the City last week. Can’t discuss the deliberations of course because these are strictly confidential. But since then I’ve somehow reached the conclusion that the respondent isn’t negotiating in good faith—and that was before the murder part. I have good news by the way: my client, who was homeless as of last week, is moving into a new home today. I’m supposed to believe their turn just came by coincidence. But hey, who knows whether it’s the result of hardball bargaining by an evil genius instead, I really cannot say.

Another client of mine is in hiding, in fear for their life. Even I don’t know where they are. Haven’t talked to them in days. Taking a mental note to call them again, just to be sure they haven’t been snuffed while I was busy saving everybody at once.

Speaking of hiding, yet another of my clients would also be on the run but can’t bring oneself to leave the park they’ve been crashing at for several months, so I’m reduced to camping with them overnight to ensure their safety. Before the first night I emailed VicPD, copying Bylaw Services, and every council member—preferring their personal email addresses for emphasis—threatening them all with starting a riot in town, Black Lives Matter-style, should a second client of mine engaging in legal action against them dies in circumstances beyond suspicious. Anyone else would have been arrested and charged with whatever, from uttering threats to violating the Anti-terrorism Act, but when a pair of cop stooges did show up at the park that night, it was only a courtesy visit to make sure I was comfortable while violating a municipal bylaw under their very noses; I told them to stay the fuck away from my clients, just in case they hadn’t gotten the memo. What can I say: I’m so badass even the cops know I’m holding them by the balls right now.

Let’s speak more of that client, shall we. I’m busy devising a plan to get that person, who’s undergoing a mental breakdown, into supporting housing or transitional shelter in an emergency. You’d think it would be long done, but a pesky accessibility issue stands in the way, one which requires the intervention of some shady street legal advocate specialising in human rights law who just happened to stroll by one day. And while I’m at it, I’m being tasked with connecting this very client with Crown prosecutors, for being a person of interest in a murder case currently on trial (no, that’s another murder, not my client’s). Sorry, can’t write any more about that, if only because the trial is under a publication ban.

Oh, did I mention I’m currently plotting to ratfuck every council member in retaliation for snuffing my client? Once I’m done with them, their own exit route shall lead to a country without Internet access, getting a taste of their own medicine in some shanty town, smoking meth to stay awake round the clock for their own safety. Because sometimes extralegal recourse is the only answer, which by the way is the very theme of this blog. I keep saying the difference between an activist and a criminal is that the former gets away with it. I keep testing that definition, wondering what the fuck it’s gonna take for me to end up behind bars—or six feet underground.

Maybe I ought to go easy on THC, after all. And doze off a little bit between enemy waves.