Malicious Prosecution Legal Fund

Hi Everyone:

My name is Dale Mather and I am writing this overview on behalf of myself, my son Kayle and the rest of my family. We have been embroiled in a legal battle spanning over a seven year time frame. It has cost me in excess of $400,000 in legal bills and in addition we have ended up with an order for us to pay the people that started the whole thing, the Summer Village on an Alberta lake which we live on, their entire legal/client costs, which are in excess of an additional $400,000, which is an unprecedented Cost Order in the history of Canada. Further the Order was allowed to be placed on the tax rolls of our properties and homes, These properties have been in our family for over 140 years.

We have found ourselves in this position because of the failure of our lawyers to properly represent us and the relentless prosecution orchestrated by the Mayor of our Summer Village and their lawyers relentless prosecution. All of this over cutting trees which were not prohibitted under thre Village Land Use Bylaws (LUB). I have lost my entire life savings and we on the verge of losing our family homes as well. Our entire family has been put in extreme stress and is on the verge of breaking up.

Between registered Judgements on the tax rolls, on title and the Village's caveats registered on on property titles, the banks have withdrawn all of our credit facilities, placing us in default. Because of the Costs Judgement the banks have also made applications for summary judgement for possession of our homes under forecloser actions.

My son has had this order placed on him as well, simply because his name was on one of the property titles, yet he had nothing to do with the circumstances leading up to the Orders. All of this was for a matter that ended up costing only $15,000.00 in the end to fix. The money we are asking for is to pay for our last chance for vindication and justice, which is to take our case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

All of our lawyers have ceased to act because we can no longer pay thier fees. We lost the appeal on the original issue of cutting down trees, even though we believed and still do believe that we had a legal right to do this on our own land and there was nothing in the Landuse Bylaws that prohibitted it.

Next we were turned down on our Application for Leave to Appeal the Order at the Court of Appeals and then we lost our Appeal at the Court of Queens Bench due to the negligence of another of our lawyers. When we got the Costs judgement against us, our lawyer at that time promised to appeal it to the Court of Queens Bench but because of his negligence the Appeal was struck and on application, representing ourselves, we were denied the Leave to Appeal at the Court of Queens Bench.

We are broke and can not afford our last chance for justice and vindication, which is to apply for Leave to Appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada. Our first lawyer who handled everthing up to the Appeal agreed to review the case before the Court of Queens Bench but because our new lawyer had ceased to represent us and our lack of knowkedge repreasenting ourselves, his/our new evidence brief was denied to be considered because the Village lawyers said we didn't properly enter it into evidence and we found out that the lawyer that resigned had filed his briefs late and our Appeal had been struck from the record, thus our time allowances had expired.

The costs order itself, was for the full client/legal cost of the Village, who started this whole thing based on a personal vendetta of the Mayor. The result of letting this issue stand is that no one in Canada will be able to get justice when at the end of the day they will have to pay the other sides entire costs if they lose. The courts accused us of delaying due process, obstructing the law, all just to cause the Village to have to pay these hefty expenses, which is absurb on the face of it, afterall, who in their right mind would spend $400,000 of their own hard earned money, just to cause someone elso to incur expenses? This because all we did was use our consitutional rights to defend ourselves as afforded to us as Canadian citizens. It also undermines our entire legal system in Canada, because who will ever be able to hire a lawyer and defend themselves from injustice, when if they lose they will be facing having to pay the othersides entire legal expenses.

We have two items of National concern in our case, one being the Order to pay the costs of the other sides entire legal/client costs, unprecedented in Canada of the scope that it will undermine the ability of the average Canadian to get Justice and the other, as previously discussed, the undermining of our entire legal system and rights. We need to have this money by the 26th of October at the latest.

This is the limit for our chance to apply to the Supreme Court of Canada, our last chance to save our homes, fix our credit and finally to get justice and vindication. Actually, we need the money even sooner in order to allow the lawyers we need to hire in Ontario, to prepare our application for Leave to Appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The whole story is very long and to much to wade through here and we truly hope that not another family should ever have to go through what we have endured, so all we can do is only hope you can grasp the gravity of the situation we are enduring and will come to our aid in this, our time of need!

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT