Gerry Armstrong

I am writing to you concerning your support for the Scientology organization. I believe such support from any citizen is ill-advised, but from a Canadian Government official it is inexcusable and threatening.

Although my wife Caroline Letkeman and I have known of your involvement with Scientology for some time, it was the Ottawa Citizen article of October 26 entitled “Liberal MP stars in video promoting Scientology¹ that brings me to now write you.

That article also brought us to create a web page ²assembling the documentation of your collaboration with, and hopefully soon your repudiation of, the Scientology religion and organization.

The article states, “Toronto-area MP Derek Lee appears in a recruiting video used by the Church of Scientology to attract new members in the United States.”

The article also says that you are “not particularly interested in the church’s teachings,” and that you have “done some cursory reading.” You conclude, “I’m not personally drawn to it, but I have to say that about many religious faiths.”

Most people, of course, are not personally drawn to Scientology, and would almost certainly have to say that they’re not drawn to many religious faiths. None of those people but you, however, are Canadian MPs making recruiting videos for this organization.

It is clearly irresponsible of you to volunteer or sell your name and governmental position to draw people to Scientology personally, when you are not yourself personally drawn to the organization. What you have done is like a non-smoking MP starring in a commercial to help the tobacco industry draw people personally into cigarette addiction. You would then explain that you’re not particularly drawn to smoking, but you have to say that about many addictive, costly and deadly activities.

Did you make sure you only did some cursory reading so you really did not find out what you were promoting? If you were going to star in a recruiting video for Tobaccology, would you also make sure your reading was only cursory, so that you would have that excellent justification? Or, do you really know what you’re promoting and you’re not really telling the truth about your reading’s cursoriness?

I believe that you have a responsibility to every citizen of Canada to publicly identify everything you have read of Scientology’s teachings and what you have read of all the material available on Scientology. I believe you have a responsibility to state what your understanding really is, and how exactly you came to recruit for this “religion” and organization. I also believe that you have identical responsibilities to the citizens of the U.S. at whom, according to the Ottawa Citizen article, your Scientology recruitment video is apparently aimed.

The Ottawa Citizen article does not say if Scientology paid you to star in its recruiting video, or if you volunteered for that role. Either way, however, as an employee, or agent, or volunteer for Scientology, or any of its corporations or affiliated entities, you are a “beneficiary” in a contract³ the organization seeks to enforce against me.

This contract has been the subject of several lawsuits and appellate proceedings over nineteen years.⁴

The purpose and effect of Scientology’s contract and its judicial enforcement, in which you are also a beneficiary, is the eradication of my basic human rights, most glaringly my right to freedom of religion. You can possibly understand how dark I might find the humor in the article’s revelation that you occasionally speak to Scientology gatherings, including one earlier this year in Toronto, as part of your “advocacy for greater religious freedom.”

The contract in fact demonstrates that Scientology and Scientologists universally are required to suppress and destroy people’s basic human rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, due process and freedom from slavery. As the Scientology vs. Armstrong war over twenty-four years shows, Scientologists pay great sums of money to the organization to willfully suppress and destroy these God-given and man-given rights. You are a beneficiary and participant in Scientology’s global criminal conspiracy to deprive people of those rights.

Since Scientology is a religion, which even you proclaim, silencing a person about that religion and his religious experiences in that religion is no different from, or more lawful than, silencing someone, by “contract” or otherwise, about the Christian religion and his religious experiences in the Christian religion. Or the Jewish religion, or the Buddhist religion, or the Sikh religion, or any other religion, and people’s religious experiences in those religions.

Scientology is unique among “religions” in that it contracts its adherents, and its agents like yourself, to suppress and destroy human rights. And it is the one “religion” that you made a recruitment video for as part of your advocacy for greater religious freedom. The “religious freedom” that Scientology and Scientologists seek is the religious freedom to suppress and destroy religious freedom. What Scientology is doing against me proves this fact beyond rational argument.

What Scientology, Scientologists and organization agents like yourself are doing to me also demonstrates that this religion’s own “creed”⁵ is a complete and cynical lie.

The Scientology vs. Armstrong litigation⁶ shows that all the organization’s parts, personnel and agents are contracted to violate their own religious creed. Scientology is deceitful and all of its agents, including yourself, are untrustworthy.

Only by personally repudiating organization policies and practices that violate individuals’ human rights can Scientologists possibly become worthy of trust. Only by personally repudiating these Scientology policies and practices, and personally and publicly removing yourself as a beneficiary in the Scientology vs. Armstrong contract and litigation can you begin to regain thinking people’s trust. Because of Scientology’s policy and practice of blackmailing and intimidating people, no one who speaks for this organization should ever be trusted until that policy and practice is publicly and forever stopped.

Underlying the organization’s dishonest, aggressive and criminal actions against individuals and government agencies, and underlying its determination to destroy human rights, is Scientology’s “Suppressive Person” doctrine. It is the SP doctrine that makes Scientology a hate group, and makes its victims, the “Suppressive Persons,” or “SPs,” a persecuted religious class. Even a cursory reading of the materials that comprise the SP doctrine would show that the organization is a cult, indeed a dangerous totalitarian cult.

The Ottawa Citizen article states that although you’re not particularly interested in Scientology’s teachings, you support some of the group’s programs and are particularly impressed by its Narconon and Criminon groups. These programs, however, all include indoctrination⁷ in Scientology’s religious, and dangerous, “Suppressive Person” doctrine.

People from these programs are being recruited to hate and attack the religious class of SPs whom organization leaders identify for hatred and attack. You also are recruiting people into Scientology for that same frightful purpose.

Scientology declared me an SP after I discovered a massive fraud in the organization and left in December 1981. Scientology’s attacks on me since then to threaten me physically, ruin me financially, crush me legally, and black PR me into oblivion constitute a modern psychoterrorism campaign.⁸

Scientology defrauded Caroline out of over $60,000, and declared her an SP in 2002 when she requested a refund according to Scientology’s own policy. The organization has still not refunded the money it unlawfully took from her. Scientology leaders ordered her daughter to disconnect from her, and she has had no communication from her daughter in over four years.

Scientology continues to run covert and overt operations against us⁹, and continues to threaten our lives and livelihoods in execution of its “Suppressive Person” doctrine.¹⁰

As individuals victimized by Scientology, as members of the Suppressive Person class, and as spokespeople for SPs and against the SP doctrine, we ask you to immediately rethink and end your support for Scientology. We ask you to publicly and completely remove yourself as a beneficiary in the Scientology vs. Armstrong contract and legal case. We also ask that you shift your support from Scientology to its SP victims.

Please feel free to contact me at any time.

Yours sincerely,

Gerry Armstrong
[previous address] gerry@gerryarmstrong.org

cc: Right Hon. Paul Martin
cc: Hon. Irwin Cotler
cc: Members of Parliament
cc: Canadian media
cc: alt.religion.scientology