September 21, 2002 - Christopher Wood

Picketers: Me, Keith Henson, the unknown picketer, an acquaintance of Keith's, and even a small group of students (for a bit, anyway).

Leaflets: The parsonage/tax flyer, Hubbard's Science/What Judges say, and the classic Xenu/crimes. About 100 given out by the students (were they on a spree??), and probably half that number given out by the rest of us.

The org's annual Auditor's Day event was being held at the Isabel Bader theatre, part of Victoria College at the University of Toronto. When I got there Keith was distributing signs and leaflets to a group of students, while the unknown picketer was up the street leafleting.

I mentioned to the students the cult's habit of calling the police on picketers, and that the path to picketing happiness was to picket with good cheer, not pester anybody, and don't stop anybody from going in or out of the event. Naturally, this wasn't a problem for them.

Then, the students wandered off with their signs. Shortly thereafter, and until the signs came back, many passers-by walked past the picket in a pre-leafleted state. Also, one of the students was taking pictures - I hope I can get copies to put on xenu.ca (hint, hint).

A theatre employee came out just after I started picketing and requested on behalf of the that I move across the street. I pointed out that I was on a public sidewalk, and that the cult had in the past tried to adversely affect our right to picket, and thus we were adamant about being able to peacefully picket on a public sidewalk. I managed to choke back the comment that perhaps the cult should be doing their own dirty work that was lurking just behind my tongue.

As I found out from watching a few event attendees, the front doors of the theatre were locked - so maybe 5 people who didn't get automatically herded in through the back ended up rattling the door and then peering in through the window.

One older couple who passed by had an interesting story - the lady had bought a Dianetics book, and 25 years later had received mail addressed to her at a new address. They hadn't heard the Xenu story, and I enlightened them (not sure if OT3 is what you'd call enlightenment, but heck).

One of Keith's friends wandered about with a sign for a few minutes midway into the picket. No apparent cult interest in him, although the unknown picketer said that a Scientologist had taken the unknown picketer's picture.

After about 90 minutes, with the sun going down and traffic trickling off, we called the picket.