A DESPERATE WAKE-UP CALL TO FELLOW ACTIVISTS: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???

I should not have to explain we’re living through desperate times. Three generations’ worth of hard-won civil rights battles are about to come undone worldwide, while most people, and most activists of all people, sit by apathetic. Three generations have fought, bled, and died, millions among them, to secure the rights and way of life we’ve enjoyed so far. And it’s all coming apart because this generation does not deserve them. It has forgotten past sacrifices. The Netflix generation has grown soft, ignorant, dim-witted, and just plain pathetic. We’re on the brink of global chaos and ubiquitous tyranny, and yet hardly anyone is serious about fighting back.

Honestly, I’m tired of fighting. And I’m not talking about burnout here, even though there’s that aspect. Or my precarious health, which keeps me perpetually on the brink of hospitalisation or even death; believe it or not, I can work with that. I’m tired of fighting to rally people who don’t deserve it. And I’m not the only one feeling this way; one after another, dependable allies of mine have quit advocacy and activism, all expressing similar frustration. One of them is Sara, and she made a farewell video which doubles as a desperate cry for help:

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A post shared by Sara Maximus (@redsaidfred)

I’ve been repeatedly accused of trying to do everything all by myself nowadays. I throw these accusations back at the rest of you: Where are you? What are you doing? I’m assuming leadership out of desperation because leaders either drop out or die. I actually HATE taking the lead. I’m extremely introverted and would rather stick to my natural role of strategist, but then the strategist in me says that would be like attempting to steer a decapitated chicken.

Lots of drama has happened in the background that I wasn’t eager to write about. It’s not like I’ve been rocking the boat for glory, ego, personal gain, or even gratitude; all I want is to get shit done. Apparently I’m asking too much of a crowd that simply isn’t serious at fighting back. While I’ve been spending all of my time and meagre resources rallying support, sacrificing my health and withstanding pain that would make all but the toughest of you weep for your moms, most of you pretty much dilly-dally on your Meta sandboxes out of FOMO, complain about harsh language and blunt tactics, and fight each other over the most dismaying trifles.

So once again allow me to wash my dirty linen in public and reveal a few secrets I’ve kept a lid on until now:

Homelessness in Victoria

My main platform has been homelessness from the beginning. And I kept it my top priority when I realised (from day one actually) that the Alto administration meant to wipe out the local unhoused community altogether—as in either swept outside of town or dead. And recent events have proven me right. Apparently I’m the only advocate who saw it coming. Many keep going on with their daily business, to this day, without a sense of urgency.

In the past year I’ve worn the hat of legal advocate out of sheer desperation. I actually HATE legal stuff, even more so than mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. And yet not only did I teach myself everything I could in order to put some legal challenge together against the City of Victoria’s outright fascist agenda against its homeless population, I even took time off to work on this full time.

If I hadn’t, there would be no resistance on the legal front right now. No petition for judicial review of the Parks Regulation Bylaw before the BC Supreme Court. No human rights complaints. No diplomatic relations with civil rights lawyers. Not even a letter to the Council warning it of legal jeopardy under the Charter. Every other advocate in town basically sat idle and gave up, some even resisting the notion of fighting back in any meaningful capacity.

I’ve joined Stop The Sweeps Victoria, and shortly after slammed the door out of frustration. The group had no follow-up legal strategy when it was plain that mere legal observation wasn’t cutting it. I’m the one who proposed a strategy at a legal advocacy lecture I hosted on Pandora Avenue back in July, and I had to shame fellow advocates into attending it:

Charter Challenge Presentation On Pandora Green July 17 2024

Only then did we reach out to the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Pivot Legal Society for assistance. When it became plain they would not help us with a Charter challenge (they were working on a Vancouver Charter challenge that’s way broader in scope), I actually came up with a plan to put one together ourselves and then get lawyers interested—whether before or after we filed it. It was a good plan, and every ally I reached out to agreed, but they all chickened out because they were afraid of a bad precedent should we somehow manage to screw it up.

So in desperation (and frustration!) I sent the following email, in which I threatened to do it all by myself with just one complainant and preemptively accused any dissenting voice of cowardice:

Hi everyone,

You're receiving this email either because:

a) you're an unhoused resident of Victoria who signed up for a legal challenge against the City over its latest amendment to the Parks Relocation Bylaw and its motion to crack down on the Pandora encampment;

OR

b) you're an advocate for the unhoused in some capacity and I happen to have your email address.

To put everybody up to speed, I'm a legal advocate, one of multiple who've recently reached out to the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Pivot Legal Society, sounding the alarm over the City of Victoria's flagrant human rights violations toward the unhoused community. They have accepted to help in some capacity, by sending a letter to the Victoria city council warning it of legal jeopardy under Article 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and threatening legal action.

I've had a conversation with Ga Grant, a BCCLA lawyer, during which we've discussed strategy. I will not delve into the details of this conversation, since she has disclosed some of the mainland advocates' plans in confidence. Let's say they have a strategy in response to the wave of encampment sweeps across the province, and I deem it sound.

Now here's the bad news for us: they will not help us file a Charter challenge here in Victoria. Which is understandable, and I do not hold it against them. But the status quo is unacceptable. Homeless people in this city are acutely desperate and cannot wait years for major advocates' legal strategy to unfold provincewide. We need recourse that puts pressure on the City immediately, and delivers results within months.

I've been active on the ground looking for individual complainants for human rights complaints against the City of Victoria. I've helped two file complaints to the BC Human Rights Tribunal, one of which was accepted on the fast track in May while the other was just completed on Friday. I will not elaborate on these complaints as my clients have not allowed me to speak publicly of them and there are too many recipients in this email to keep the details under wraps.

Human rights complaints are an effective recourse, and I will help more people file them. But they have drawbacks. If nothing else, the backlog at the BC Human Rights Tribunal is an estimated three years, which is obscene. Putting cases on the fast track can compel the City to settle early, but there's no indication so far that it will back down without a fight. Since homelessness isn't a protected characteristic, we have to fall back to physical and mental disabilities as grounds for discrimination, which make cases burdensome to prove. And filing for individuals, as opposed to a collective, reduces the scale of the challenge we can put together.

Simply put, if we are to bring an end to bylaw sweeps in this city anytime soon, we the community need to file an Article 7 Charter challenge to the BC Supreme Court ourselves. The urgency of the situation commands it. I dare anyone who believes otherwise to tell it to this old man at Irving Park who hung himself to a tree in desperation on August 1st.

While common sense dictates this undertaking cannot be assumed by a small collective with meagre resources, I have analysed possible strategies, and settled for some guerilla litigation. With some weaseling, we can bring forth this challenge at virtually no expense and leave no room to the respondent to drag on the proceedings. This by the way is a strategy I'm currently employing in a petition for judicial review, and I'm confident it can be applied to a normal lawsuit.

For starters, we need at least one complainant on income assistance or PWD to file an application to waive court fees. This introduces a delay of roughly three weeks, but saves us thousands of dollars we do not have.

Then we make a minimalist statement of claims. Let's rule out any argument that has been insufficiently tested or would complicate the complaint. This means dropping daytime sheltering and Charter damages, for example. In fact, we only need to argue that the latest amendment to the Parks Relocation Bylaw in 2024 represents so little of a departure from the sheltering bylaw that has been struck down in Victoria (City) v. Adams, 2008 BCSC 1363 that it comes down to Bamberger v. Vancouver (Board of Parks and Recreation), 2022 BCSC 49. These precedents are solid, and the former involved this very city.

Avoiding any new arguments also frees us from having to produce expert witnesses. All the statements we need pertaining to the impacts of displacement on the unsheltered are firmly rooted in jurisprudence. This tremendously cuts down on costs and curtails the length of the trial.

The Victoria city council has been generous in providing us with plenty of ammunition we can turn against it in affidavits, such as its own motions and deliberations, along with public comments made to the press. This should be plenty enough to bring the case past the point of conjecture. Of course we need evidence supporting our claims that there currently is insufficient space for the hundreds of unsheltered people in our streets and parks, but once again the City is proving bountiful by delivering this HEART and HEARTH report on its August 1st meeting and I'm confident we can obtain more from it during the discovery process. In short, the City will provide us with all the evidence we need.

Furthermore, since no less than two city councillors have waived attorney-client privilege by disclosing that their legal counsel had warned them of legal jeopardy under Article 7 of the Charter during a recent in camera meeting, we can take a stab at them from this direction, and have their own legal counsel plead our case. Even if this tactic fails, it costs nothing to try and is sure to give us the psychological advantage in negotiations, compelling the City to settle early.

I've even factored in that we can print all of our material at the public library for free, at the City's expense. I've been a government suckup for long enough to know how to navigate the system without spending a dime.

Finally, by announcing a challenge during the provincial election season, we can put even more pressure on the City by having politicians embrace our cause. In all likelihood the City will capitulate before trial because it is certain to lose, both in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion.

That's my plan in a nutshell.

I've shared it with a few allies. While they deem it sound, they are also risk averse. Their main concern is that we somehow prove so incompetent that we manage to lose this slam dunk case, thus leaving a blotch in the jurisprudence that advocates and lawyers in other municipalities have to contend with in their own legal challenges.

Well, allow me to be blunt: I'm not proposing this plan, I'm announcing it. I'll do this even if it's just me and one disabled complainant who can barely crawl to the courthouse. As for those of you who mind the risk, join us to mitigate it. Otherwise I swear I will brand anyone who calls for restraint a coward and lose all respect for them. And so will the old man who's just hanged himself to a tree in desperation in Irving Park, I'm sure of it.

So, will you let a wannabe advocate without training, experience, or resources, living off income assistance in a supportive housing complex, and chronically tired, sick, in pain, and medicated, shoulder all the work himself?

WHO'S ON BOARD?

I look forward to affirmative answers to my call for allies. This of course extends to the unhoused, as a lawsuit needs complainants. Let's fight all together and win this.

Sincerely,

Martin

That’s how I got Alex Kirby on board, and other advocates to reach out to lawyers themselves. We ended up merging our efforts to avoid duplicate efforts. Everyone on board hated my guts, but I was getting shit done, which is all I care about. As I keep saying, I am not into activism to make friends.

I demonstrated it again by slamming the door on their fingers shortly before the petition was to be filed, for multiple reasons. I won’t rant at length on the shitshow that led me to this unseemly decision. My main difference with them was that I meant to give our unhoused petitioners a voice, while nearly all of the others resisted the notion. I became an advocate, then an activist, in order to give marginalised and disenfranchised people a voice, and empower them to fight their own battles, yet I continually face resistance in this regard from other advocates.

The point of contention in this case was whether to reach out to the media: I was in favour, or at least meant to ask our petitioners, whereas the consensus not only was strongly against it (which I could have worked with if it’d been rational at least) but presumed to make the decision on our petitioners’ behalf as if advocacy were somehow a form of power of attorney. This alone was more disrespectful that all the undignified vitriol I got in response.

And you know what? Months later, the team went public anyway. Niki Ottosen, of all people, ended up in front of cameras after swearing she’d never do it. I bet the main reason is that they finally had this conversation with the petitioners around the time I organised the rally to set up an encampment right by City Hall. Actually, two petitioners asked me to get them in touch with the media, not the other way round. The unhoused want to speak out, and advocates are silencing them.

Centennial Square Encampment Rally @ Victoria, BC: 2024/12/01 (featuring Shea Smith)

I’ve taken some flak about the way I planned that encampment protest, by the way—and I don’t care. Once again I was desperate to put together some resistance and no one else meant to step forward, because frankly activists in Victoria resent leadership to a pathological level. I saw the need to put pressure on the City of Victoria on every front, at a time when morale was in the pits and public opinion squarely against us. Laugh at my failed attempt at building an encampment by City Hall all you want, but it made people in high places nervous because they know that with a couple dozen more people it would have worked, and even in failure it still drew a lot of media attention and turned the tide of public opinion in our favour. If I hadn’t pulled that stunt, we wouldn’t have gotten any positive media coverage, and no emerging network of concerned neighbours attempting to repel bylaw sweep teams at Oaklands Park.

Recently I held a community gathering on Pandora Avenue, the first of what I mean to be monthly iterations. On this first event, I did very little speaking; I went there to listen to what they had to say. Advocates do little of that listening thing, just like they resent initiative and leadership, and that’s basically why so little gets done in this town. Until this changes, don’t come complaining I’m barging around like an asshole and stealing the show, because I’m the advocate you deserve.

United Against Fascism rally

Tonight I’ve also slammed the door on 1 Million Voices For Inclusion, and the last straw was the fiasco surrounding the planning of the United Against Fascism campaign, specifically the Victoria event.

I’ve had some good time with these folks. Our campaign against We Unify in particular was an unseemly success. It showed that with a bold plan and some planning, a small group could take on the alt-right, even on a national organisation with considerable numbers, financial resources, and political backing—and win.

Then it went downhill. We lost crucial members to burnout and infighting, some over a petty dispute in the aftermath of a rally in September; the different was so absurd that I don’t even want to elaborate.

Our leader floated the idea of a nationwide campaign of rallies against the rise of the far-right and outright fascism, which led to the United Against Fascism National Day of Action planned for February 15. I for one was fully behind it, cutting on nearly every other initiative to make it work. To be honest, we had a shot. We were able to rally veteran activists across organisations to work together on this, even though it was rushed. In spite of all the blunders we made along the way, I felt like we were making things happen.

This after all was an easy sell to the public, especially given the looming prospect of a trade war with the United States under threat of annexation. Nowadays the public is finally waking up to the fact that our society stands on the brink of collapse, after ignoring or tolerating inflammatory right-wing rhetoric for so long. In fact, some of the brash decisions I made in the past year were in anticipation of this juncture, because I could see the chaos coming this far ahead. But for most people it comes as a shock, and too many still live in denial.

However, fellow organisers on the team just don’t take it nearly as seriously as they should, or claim to. They gather numbers without a plan, and they’re not serious about protesting. There was even unseemly resistance to using harsh language or imagery, down to the word ‘fascist’, which proved exasperating to overcome.

And then came tonight’s decision regarding the Victoria event’s agenda. Simply put, it has none, save a territorial acknowledgement. The other organisers gave up on speeches altogether, and have no material or activities prepared. Absolutely nothing. Apparently their idea is to have people sit in the square for two hours doing squat. They gave up on speeches in particular because we struggled to attract even one notable speaker.

I’ve been attending and organising rallies for the past three years, at the rate of about two a week. That’s hundreds of them. With a few notable exceptions like flag-waving events or car motorcades, I’ve yet to see a single rally of at least a couple dozen people which didn’t feature at least one speech. And yet the team elected not even to bring PA equipment to the event.

We stand on the brink of global collapse, and not a single one of them will take the mic to address the crowd. Apparently they have nothing to tell you about the crisis of a lifetime. In fact, I dare say they haven’t done their homework at all, even after I worked my ass off to document our platform and exhorted them to read on the topic, to the point that I wonder what they’re going to tell the press when interviewers start asking for specifics.

But even worse is that they even denied me, one of the organisers, the mic. I had planned to address the crowd for a solid ten minutes. I would have done so for an hour in desperation if need be; the cause was so broad after all that I could talk about it all day without running out of material. And I’m certain many in attendance would have gladly volunteered to speak on the spot if only we’d just made it an open mic event. Yet the others team members would have none of it, because they don’t care what knaves like you and me have to say.

This is not a protest they’re planning, but a social gathering in disguise. To call for people to rally for such an event, and organisers to plan it, is a waste of their time and profoundly dismissive of their commitment. To deny people the mic because they’re not notable enough is an insult to every modest activist who’s ever mustered to courage to speak at an event—and you know how I feel about it: I became an advocate, then an activist, in order to give marginalised and disenfranchised people a voice. I refuse to associate with organisers who abdicate the fight and treat their fellows with such contempt.

That’s why I quit 1MVFI tonight, and why I’m being such an asshole about it. If it hurts your feelings, I don’t care.

I could go on for a while…

Last year’s zeitgeist was of course Palestine. While my involvement as an organiser was remote, busy as I was with other causes, I did experience frustration on several occasions from activists who weren’t serious about securing results, or fought among themselves for petty reasons. In fact, I would say these are the main two reasons the Palestine protest scene is moribund nowadays, in spite of all the efforts spent and successes secured.

For example, I’ve ranted in the past about the UVic encampment collapsing due to low morale and paranoia, or the crowd adoring Susan Kim even though she’s merely fiddling with them. But frankly, what annoyed me the most is that many regulars of the weekend Palestine parades were treating protesting as a mere hobby. I spoke to many of them, who were risk-averse and resented any targeted action. While there were many bold actions in town throughout the year (including of course the UVic encampment), they proved perplexingly controversial even among our numbers. Apparently the consensus is that protests are okay as long as they can be ignored.

Who cares if we achieve nothing after all. Who cares if bombs keep raining on Gaza, killing and mutilating innocent civilians on a daily basis. Who cares about ethnic cleansing, annexation, or even a regional war. Apparently the most pressing concern was not hurting the public’s feelings; God forbid some of us end up with their picture on social media or targeted by a change.org petition.

The Palestine liberation movement, while remaining strong elsewhere, is losing steam in Victoria mainly due to lack of commitment and resolve. It’s not just burnout. It’s not just a shortage of ideas. It’s not just lack of resources, or political backing, or media exposure. And it’s certainly not due to the pathetic Zionist pushback. It’s due to meekness and indolence among a critical mass of the activist crowd. Numbers are dwindling fast at the Legislature, and it’s not because of the ceasefire, or protest fatigue, but mostly because marches across town have ended and the organisers are instead brainstorming for ways to actually get things done, which is a turnoff for many who treated these protests like a weekly festival. Even before that, they dropped sharply because of infighting among groups that would rather bicker among themselves than put their differences aside to achieve results.

I’m closing with Palestine because Vancouver Island may very well look like Gaza or the West Bank in a year. You think it’s impossible? That was the consensus before World War 2; few people expected it to get this bad, even at the end of 1939. It took the collapse of the Maginot Line for Western Europe to wake up to the peril it faced. It took Pearl Harbor for America to realise it couldn’t just sit that one out. We are facing such times again, and the TikTok generation is not ready to stand up to the challenge. Too few people remember the cost of the gains made by the previous three generations. Too few people remember how the global crises of the past started, and how peace and order crumbled. Too few people are willing to fight to preserve their rights, freedoms, and dignity.

Honestly, nowadays I feel like I fight alone. I call left and right for allies, and very few respond. I’m reduced to wearing every hat myself, however poorly it fits, and employing hardball or lowball bargaining tactics to mobilise people, who even then come in a trickle and go home after whining about how my sense of initiative upsets them. I feel like either moving to a more militant region like the lower mainland, or giving up activism altogether to survive the coming tide of fascism all by myself like a lone wolf, because too few care to stand up and fight, and most among them lack the resolve to even survive, much less win against tyranny. If you do not prove me wrong very soon, I will make that decision indeed, because I’m sick of believing in people who do not believe in themselves.