 Since the original article came out reporting Justice Pollak's January 3rd 2023 decision which received some press coverage, I have had a number of people call me and tell me their stories of defamation and harassment. My best advice to them begins by advising them to let the perpetrator know that what they are doing is unwanted attention - and begin to document any further contact or harassment. As many people know - before I moved forward with launching the lawsuit that I eventually won, I felt harassed. Many would agree that I was being harassed - and the police, after taking my statement and reviewing the evidence also agreed. As a result, they laid a criminal harassment charge on the individual. Many people, both men and women, have in their lifetime - felt harassed. In general, if they are able - they resolve the issue without involving the police. In some cases, the harassment is not considered criminal. There is a distinction between criminal harassment and just feeling harassed. What is Criminal Harassment?
0 Comments
In Canada - this is called free speech - and we are all guaranteed that right - to speak freely and to express opinions. When is free speech no longer free? "You won your case - so move on." Yes. I won the defamation case. But the fact remains - I am forever changed, wounded and sad for myself and anyone else who has experienced this kind of abusive verbal and emotional violence. Anyone who knows me - knows that I am a strong and determined woman. For almost six years, I was defamed over and over and over online. All because one person did not like how I did my job, nor did he like that I did not back down and refused to answer a personal question that I felt he had no right to know. And so he began trolling me - looking into my past and rewriting it to suit his narrative. He even found one of my daughters and mocked her for winning a criminal court case - where she put a rapist in jail. Defamation is really a whitewashed word for what happened to me. There is no emotion attached to the word. Neither does the word defamation encompass the harassment, the verbal violence, and the intrusion into my personal life that for me - drove me into silence and hiding. When someone starts a smear campaign against you - online - it can be almost impossible to fight back. There is no way to know how many people have been sent messages that portray you as a liar, a cheater, a psychotic depressive, a child bride, someone who cuckolded their spouse, someone who drinks and drives and someone who is not qualified to work at the job where they are employed.
 Did you know that the catch phrase "Just the facts Ma'am" attributed to Joe Friday on the show Dragnet, was never really said by the origial Joe Friday? Is that the truth? Or is it a fact? Well the truth is - it is a fact!
I've often thought that 'swearing to tell the truth and nothing but the truth' in court was a little problematic. One person's truth may not be another person's truth. Hence conflicting testimony. What we are looking for in reality is facts. Facts that illustrate what has happened. (or is happening) Facts are always supported by 'hard evidence'. Unfortunately sometimes despite searching for hard evidence we are unable to find it.
That being said - I would not consider myself a 'top' investigator. There are many courses I did not take and there are thousands (I would think) of police officers with more training and experience than I have. Over time there have been hundreds of television shows and movies based on investigating crime. From produced shows as early as "Dragnet" to more current shows like "Forensic Files" - they have progressed from showing the dramatized day to day policing to showing the behind the scenes progression of investigations - start to finish. There is fabulous entertainment value and interest in these shows - or the production companies would stop creating both the fictional and 'real life' versions of investigating crimes. The danger here - is that occasionally there are those who feel that not only have they learned enough from these shows to 'investigate' perceived 'crimes' or wrong doings, but some of these same people also begin 'connecting dots' of things that they believe are related to perceived wrong doings - and create much bigger stories that they think they have evidence of. When they are simply critics - we call them 'armchair quarterbacks'. When they decide - 'hey I can do that" - without any understanding of how to investigate and collect evidence, and then rely on their imaginations, suppositions or opinions of what has happened - we call these people conspiracy theorists and their stories conspiracy theories. They simply connect dots that do not exist. They weave detailed, fantastical stories with 'facts' they derive from their own imagination. A rational person asks questions - looks for the factual answers and forms an opinion. If they think something illegal is happening or a crime has been committed - they call a 'trained investigator' to investigate further and collect the evidence to either prove or refute the legality of the event(s). A conspiracy theorist sees something they think is wrong or that they do not like or agree with and begin looking for evidence to support their ideas or claims. When they cannot find real evidence they use wishful thinking to tie things all together. Example: A taxpayer does not like a municipal employee - and disagrees with how they do their job. When their complaints are not addressed in the manner they would like or their complaints go unanswered because they cannot be substantiated - they begin looking for evidence of a cover up. After all - if someone does not see what they see - or agree with what they see, that someone MUST be wrong or worse, covering up! Surely that employee was a bad hire! There mustn't have been a job posting and they suppose the employee was hand selected and parachuted into the position. Were they interviewed? They couldn't have been! How were they hired? Did they provide a police background check? Were references called? Did they get hired because the 'knew' the right person? One step at a time - they begin to put a story together. They begin to tell others that the municipality must not have done their job! By the time they have 'connected the dots' - every piece of the story they have connected together is incorrect and there are no facts to support their claims.
No matter how loudly or how often someone SHOUTS about something of which they have no evidence - without true investigation and collecting of factual evidence - their shouting is simply A LOT OF NOISE.
And the person who makes a lot of noise about nothing my friends, is simpy an INSTIGATOR.  When I was a little girl, I recall the childhood sing song, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me!" Thank goodness we repeated this and other sing song affirmations, over and over in the playground when bullies called us names or accused us of things we did not do. It helped us to believe in the best of ourselves. "Liar,liar, pants on fire!" Oh the childhood cruelties we experienced. But most of us grew up - and we survived our childhood mini-traumas and emerged stronger as a result. Unfortunately, some bullies never grow up. Perhaps this is true of the bully who has been trolling me for many years. Bullies are often very insecure people. Their focus on others keeps the focus on their own short comings out of the public eye. Over the past several years, I have been bullied online - and the accusations have been everything from - "she is not who she says she is" to "she was a child bride". (yeah - we can talk about that in another post!) When hearing and reading things that were said and written about me - I felt that my best defense was to remain quiet. People will believe what they choose to believe. Some people in this world still believe that the world is flat - contrary to every bit of evidence presented to them. I know that the people who know me - the important people - know WHO I am. They have seen the evidence over the years.
He has blogged about it - accused lawyers of not properly identifying me, told several judges that I am not Mandie Eddie and even insisted that he has evidence that I am not who I claim to be. Unfortunately, repeating something over and over does not necessarily make it true. It may make the person repeating it believe it is true - but simply repeating something that has no basis in fact - cannot change the 'fact'. Sticks and stones may break my bones - but your continual insistence that my name is not my name WILL hurt you! So let me set the record straight. For the Bully.. I would draw a diagram - but I am not sure that would help. (chuckle) As many women can attest to - when we marry - we often assume our husband's name - as I did. To do this - we simply show our marriage certificate at Service Ontario (If we live in Ontario) and we can have our driver's license and health card changed to our husband's name. We can ASSUME his surname. In Quebec - the laws are somewhat different - in that if you want to assume your husband's surname - you must keep your own and then hyphenate your maiden name to the surname of your husband to do this. In Quebec - I would have been Mandie Eddie-Crawford. However - I live in Ontario. And so when I married my husband - I assumed his surname, legally. I did not legally change my name on my birth certificate. I had no need to. I never changed my S.I.N. I had no need to. Legally I was still Mandie Eddie - "also known as" - Mandie Crawford. In Ontario, when you become divorced or you chose not to continue to have the surname of your spouse, you can easily revert to your maiden name. A quick visit to Service Ontario with your birth certificate, your SIN, your marriage certificate and if needed, a divorce certificate will allow you to change your documents to revert to your maiden name - the name you were born with. With a single form you can revert to your maiden name - the name you were born with, the name that is on your birth certificate. And similarly, with a trip to a Service Canada site - you can also ensure that your passport has your maiden name on it. And yes with one form - after producing the proper documents. There is no need to go through a legal name change process. This is legal - and quite a normal procedure in Ontario. And on June 5th and 6th, 2017, this is what I did. I attended a Service Ontario office and presented the required documents, filled in the correct forms and reverted to my maiden name. The important people in my life knew why. The "why", really was no one elses' business.
So to the Bully who insists I am not who I say I am - it's time for you to learn that the world does not always work they way YOU think it works.
And - oh yeah - in case you wondered, no, the world is not flat. Mandie Eddie (always - and from the beginning!) |
Mandie EddieI've had many different jobs, from lifeguard to Business Owner, to Police Officer and Firefighter , Municipal Manager and Public Information Officer and finally to being self employed. Unlike George Santos however - I have never claimed to play volleyball - nor have I claimed to have attended a college I have not attended. ArchivesCategories |
RSS Feed