All interested people reading this notice are welcome and encouraged to attend the following for purposes of moral support and/or to learn a little about the politics of a court room. Court proceedings are, after all, public…

Bonnie O’Dea will be in court in Fredericton on April 1st (details below)–defending herself, possibly with assistance from supporters–in order to challenge an attempt by Jennifer Sloat, director of Fredericton Non Profit Housing Corporation (FNPH), to place a peace bond (like a restraining order) on her. A peace bond would prevent Bonnie, and possibly her supporters, from legally visiting the FNPH neighborhood.

Ms. Sloat is alleging that Bonnie threatened her during the period between April 1st to July 17th, which coincides with the time interval when Bonnie was challenging her eviction from a FNPH housing unit, which included forced removal of her kids from their home while Bonnie was away dealing with court matters on June 30th 2004, and the subsequent separation of the family from their belongings that were locked inside.

The apparent evidence of threats consists of attempts by Bonnie and her non-lawyer advocate, Vaughn Barnett, to challenge the eviction notice by meeting with Jennifer Sloat for discussion, which was followed–after the forced eviction—by phone calls to Ms. Sloat’s office, where Bonnie, understandably, demanded access to her and her family’s belongings. A later attempt by Bonnie and supporters to communicate concerns to another FNPH director, City Councilor David Kelly, was also alleged to have consisted of threats.

We have seen the evidence they are using. Never were any actual threats of violence uttered. They–Ms. Sloat, her supporters and the prosecuting team–are trying to construct “threats” out of instances of Bonnie and her supporters dissenting a wrongful eviction, which sometimes included expressions of frustrations, not threats.

We see this is an issue of criminalization of dissent as well as attempted intimidation of Bonnie and her supporters, which is made even clearer by the timing of the first notice—to us–of Ms. Sloat’s attempt to place a peace bond on Bonnie, in October. That coincides with the time when Ms. Sloat’s prosecuting team was made aware of an attempt by Bonnie and her supporters to lodge a complaint about FNPH with the NB Human Rights Commission, due to Bonnie and her kids being subjected to human rights violations before and during the eviction process, which included threats of violence of a racial nature, targeted at Bonnie’s youngest child, by another tenant under FNPH.

Once again, all interested people are welcome and encouraged to attend court. If we can increase our presence in court, it will give Bonnie a better chance, which is important since the accusers have the power of status. We do not want to allow them to succeed in their attempt to criminalize dissent, which would set a dangerous precedent (which could then be used as a legal tool for other landlords to get a way with more of the same).

Court date, time and location are:
Friday April 1st, 1:30pm, Court of Queen’s Bench (Justice building, to the right of City Hall on Queen St.). If interested in attending, please come at around 1:00 to meet the other supporters at the front entrance. We expect that the entire trial will take longer than one day.

Thanks for reading.

Asaf Rashid (Advocacy Collective)