A pair of brothers ambiguously charged for a conversation they had on Calgary Transit have spoken out about the experience.They also discussed lack of free speech and privacy in Canada. The charges were dropped abruptly the week of November 6, and they have since filed a Freedom of Information request to find out what they were accused of saying, because disclosure was never provided.The men, who don't wish to be identified will be referred to as Luke and Paul for the purpose of this article. They were charged for “unlawfully contravening” municipal bylaw 4M81 while en route to the 1 Million March 4 Children September 20. They were accused of “molest/interference with the comfort/convenience of another person,” the peace officer wrote on the ticket. The mens’ legal representative, Alan Honner of The Democracy Fund, submitted two formal requests for disclosure to ascertain exactly what was said that warranted charges. However, the City of Calgary refused to disclose and dropped the charges. All the men were told was that a passenger had complained they made “racial comments.”. As they recounted the sequence of events the Saturday morning they were charged, Luke and Paul emphasized the “diverse ethnic groups and religious backgrounds” that would be present at the march, all of whom they were going to “link arms with” for the same cause.Regardless of someone’s race, sexuality, or “whatever [people] want to do at home, our whole thing was, what's going on in schools,” Luke told the Western Standard. “And leave the kids out of it. That's what this whole march was about. And that's why we were there. Plain and simple.”The brothers acknowledged their rhetoric isn’t necessarily for everyone, as rugby-playing men who sometimes go to the pub for a few drinks and drop the occasional swear word. Luke, remarking he can sometimes be “vociferous,” said he very well could have made a “poor choice of words for someone who was uncomfortable with what they thought we represented.” “I accept that not everyone shares my taste in a lot of things," he said. “Obviously we're not calling people racial epithets or anything like that, that would have been ridiculous.”When asked if they talked about race at all, Paul said “None of anything we talked about had anything to do about race."“None of it in anyway was race-related,” Luke said, considering the question. “We may have said we’re going to a march with the Muslims.”“I've had friends of just about every ethnic background colour," Luke added. "Am I uptight? I don't think so. I take people at face value. Who are you as an individual. I don't care what colour your skin is."“Anybody who understood what this march was about would have understood that we're not some kind of racist," Paul said. “But it might have been people who didn't understand what the march was about and where we were coming from.”Luke and Paul were joined by “one guy who was smiling at [their] sign," which called out the "alt-left agenda" and to "quit recruiting kids" to identity politics. The man was similar in age and said he had a drywall business. He was also headed to the march and got on the train at the same station they did. As they travelled downtown, the three had an animated and “boisterous” conversation about the current situation in Canada and “how things have changed” politically in recent years, noting how their own beliefs have stayed the same but it seemed like the world around them is changing rapidly. They also talked about COVID-19, having lost their jobs because they didn’t wish to disclose their medical status to their employers. “His opinion, his views kind of match ours,” Luke said.Luke and Paul have no idea who reported their conversation, or if it was another passenger at all. They pointed out there are cameras on the ceiling of the train car and the fact there is a warning of video and audio surveillance on the door when you get on the train. There were about five other people in the train car but none of them were overtly paying attention to their conversation, save for a young man FaceTiming a girl and turning the phone their way, clearly “taking note of [their] conversation.” The men were sitting in fairly close proximity to each other but due to the noise of the train, were speaking a little louder than usual. When the train came to a stop at their destination station, four peace officers entered the train “like a sturdy wall” with their sights fixated on Luke and Paul. The third party, who was equally as involved in the conversation as the other two men, exited the train and walked away unscathed. The brothers said the peace officers somehow knew in advance at what stop they would get off the train. “We got to our destination, and they were waiting there,” Paul told the Western Standard. How they knew where we were going — I mean, did they speculate?”“When the train came to a stop, they walked in and I wasn’t even out of my seat and they were on the C-train, four of them,” Luke said. “Somehow the other guy got out the door, without even being noticed. I'm aghast, I think about it now and [wonder] how did they miss the third guy?”Luke and Paul stood up and the officer said “we’d like to have a conversation with you.” They asked about what, to which the officer responded “we have a report of some racial comments being made.”“We're not racist, so that seems odd,” Luke told the officer. “Well, that's okay,” the officer responded, telling the men “we can pull the tapes and listen to the audio,” which the brothers said was presumably “from the C-train CCTV cameras.”“I'm guessing they didn't have anything” off of the surveillance cameras, Paul said, “because here we are. The charges are withdrawn.”The men said the peace officer had said “somebody called or reported it.”Luke asked if he was under arrest and the officer said no. He asked if he was free to go and he said no. “One of the other [officers] piped up and they said you're being detained" and were under "investigation."There were eight officers in total by this time and Paul was handcuffed and searched while his identity was being verified. "There was no struggle. There was no animosity, no physical aggression, we were relatively calm,” said Paul, who had told the officers "to do what they had to do. I can't imagine they were in any way thought we were a physical threat or anything of that sort."Both men were then issued a ticket and some minutes later Paul was released from the handcuffs. "For all that time, I'm like, 'What the heck did we do?'” Paul said. “I [was] worried, I don't want to be in trouble with the law, especially, something that has racial connotations to it. I mean, I've got lots of friends, visible minorities.”“To imply that I'm either racist or prejudiced against them is ridiculous,” he added. “Even until now, I still have no idea why they thought they had reason to prosecute us.”“That’s why we’re here,” Luke said, tapping his finger on the conference table at the Western Standard office. “It’s not about us. It's about everybody else. Who's next?”“We’re not going to bend a knee to this foolishness.” "The punishment is the process,” Luke said. “If we hadn’t had The Democracy Fund, Alan Honner, probably we would have showed up in court [to find out they] withdrew those charges.”“Our first intention is to push back against this foolishness.” .When asked if they would file suit now against the city, the men said “maybe, maybe not, we don’t know.” They would “cross bridges” as they come. For now, they are just trying to get their hands on the disclosure. “If nobody holds these guys accountable, they're just going to keep doing it," Luke said."This is all just word games,” Paul said. “Politics and word games.” When the Western Standard asked the brothers what's next, they said they would see what happens when they get disclosure, but there is one thing still on their mind from the whole experience: freedom of privacy in Canada.Acknowledging privacy can't really be expected once one leaves their own home, Luke and Paul noted their increased attention to ever-present security cameras in public spaces."I look up and there's a camera. There's another one there. There's cameras everywhere you go, once you step out your front door," Luke said. "I have never been so weary of my surroundings.""I realize that in public, you have no expectation of privacy. But who's running all these cameras? Who has access to them? You might put your bank and information on your computer, log into your accounts. And you have no idea who's on the other end of that camera. Yeah, yeah, it's all secure. But really, is it? Can somebody hack into that stuff?""Lately I find I'm very uncomfortable doing things like being in public and speaking frankly, because as I said, I'm an honest guy, I say what I think and then, in light of this now, once bitten, twice shy."“It's as simple as that someone just needs to make a phone call now to have you detained and even arrested.”“I'm a man of principle. If I've done something wrong, charge me, I'll accept responsibility for that.""You apologize, you make amends, whatever is necessary to try and correct it as best you can. There's no excuses.”
