Attendees: Kaeli, ZeratulCat, AndroidCat, Mike Argue, and a certain visiting Minnesotan.

Yes, I came to Toronto, at the suggestion of AndroidCat and hosted graciously by Kaeli and ZeratulCat (whose 'puter I am currently poudning out this picket report on), to see for myself if the folks at the Toronto Org were as weird as the Toronto ARSCC(wdnee) had reported, or if the Toronto ARSCC(wdnee) was as weird as the Toronto Org's people had reported. So I hopped a plane, video camera in tow, and bounced to Toronto for the weekend.

Well I was introduced before the picket, having already met my hosts, to AndroidCat and Mike, both very nice people and particularly kind. I was a bit nervous about the picket since I'd never done one before - I had only previous Toronto picket reports and XenuTV videos to go on.

A few disclaimers on my part - I would not be participating, only observing and videotaping - and I was ready to go. A few technical difficulties - specifically putting the signs together and copying the literature - held up the start of the picket. I arrived ahead of time and being a little nervous I didn't announce my alignment right away.

Plus I was fairly certain we were spotted earlier and I was curious if they'd tip their hat about having been watching us if I didn't admit my alignment. I talked to a gent across Yonge street from the org handing out personality tests. He was very nice. I asked him about the architecture nearby - some of the buildings looked pretty old and were pretty - and we talked a bit. The picket showed up shortly thereafter - it was about 11:30 am - and I opened the camera and started taping. I asked him about the picketers. He said they were picketing his church, that's why he's here today, and handed me a DA flyer on the picketers (which I'll try to get scanned) which, in the Org's favor, did not name any names. He said he was a lit prof at a local university, and was very polite. I saw there were several people at the org already. One on each end handing out the same DA flyers, one at the door doing the same and trying to route people in for their free personality tests, a gentleman with a tripod-mounted video camera, and a few floaters, many with digital cameras, milling about. (Being the new guy, and having a camera myself, I had a lot of cameras pointed at me today.)

I crossed the street and started watching more closely. I backed up past one of the org's people handing out the same DA flyers - he was the one picketers call 'Dirty Dan' - while taping, inadvertently getting in the way when he tried to hand out one flyer. Not being one to suppress anyone's speech, I said 'Sorry about that' and I got the response from him, in sour tones, 'No you aren't.' I got a clue at that point the sort of tone that my role in the picket might take if I didn't play things carefully.

I talked to Dan a bit as I taped the four picketers - Kaeli and Mike handing out flyers, Zeratul holding a sign, and AndroidCat doing a bit of both. Again, I played it like an bystander, asking him why they were picketing, et cetera, and he answered politely but minimalistically.

When I asked him if they'd mind if I got closer with my camera he asked which ones, critics or church members, I said both, and that's when he retorted that I should know about the picketers since I've been hanging out with them for the last hour. OK, so we were indeed being watched. He then said I was lying and lying was bad, and well, he was right, so I acked and we went on to being polite. After a bit of talk (I think I got most of it on tape) he left me behind. Somewhere in the middle of this the org handler named Brian came by too. Both spent some time making sure I knew all of the picketers were on psych drugs by their own admission (this is untrue, by the way) and that Mike Argue was harassing parishioners earlier and is dangerous and that's why they needed the police office there.

Shortly later the handler named Paulette came over. (I had several handlers come by to talk to me.) I said hi, was polite, she asked if I was with the picketers, I told her the truth - that I was invited by the picketers but I was not there to picket, but just to determine the truth about the conflicting picket reports I'd seen coming from Toronto.

(I also have sights to see and other friends to see, but that's beside the point.) She small-talked me, told me a bit about Toronto, but told me a lot about the picketers. She, too, felt the need to tell me that they're all on psych drugs, and that their ringleader is Gregg Hagglund (who, alas, was not present, nor will I have the chance to meet him this weekend) who is engaging in criminal behavior and she went down the usual list of Gregg's alleged crimes. I asked her if she believed in the Scientology doctrine that all critics are criminals, and she said she didn't and that many are just misinformed and at the core of it all was people messed up by psychiatry (I didn't follow that well, but there we are) and segued into saying how sorry she felt for Kaeli who has all these anxiety problems and who is messed up by psychs with all this anxiety. I noted she and the rest all seemed fairly calm to me. I did find her pitying of Kaeli to be, well, one-one. No offense Paulette, you were kind and polite to me and friendly, but that particular statement of yours seemed more designed as an attempt to spread black PR on Kaeli than it was an expression of any sympathetic feelings on your part. I gave Paulette my email address (lordmagnusrexmundi@my-deja.com) and invited her to Email me sometime before we parted ways.

I have the conversation on video, if it isn't drowned out too badly by the traffic noises, so perhaps I can post that.

Velcro Kitty was among the org's people out there in the morning shift but I wasn't informed of who she was until she broke for lunch. Just as well, she's the one person at the org I've already made up my mind about, and I'd just as soon have not-ised her as speak to her. Sorry, Gwen, but your past posts on ARS earn you my contempt, to say nothing of the contempt of many others, critic and Scn'ologist alike.

I also videotaped a little verbal sparring between AndroidCat and Paulette. I called it a games condition - both parties talking, neither party listening, and I was surprised when the college professor from earlier agreed with me. He asked me how I knew what a games condition was and I mentioned I had a friend in Seattle (Hi Claire!) who was a Scn'ologist. We will see how the audio turns out.

We broke for lunch at about 1:00 and I wandered off after talking a bit more to the college prof. I lost track of the picketers, who I was going to dine with, and a Scn'ologist popped out and said "They went that way." Well I found Kaeli and a new guy sitting that way at a little joint called the Artful Dodger's. The gent was having fries with gravy on them (must be canadian food) and Kaeli introduced him as (name witheld). We talked and the others arrived. The Scn'ologist who pointed me in their direction sat down at the table adjacent to ours, behind AndroidCat. I had never been spied on before, and I thought that was cool. But I thought the people at the table should know, so I jotted down on a piece of scratch paper that there was a spy sitting behind AndroidCat and passed it around. Obviously the man wasn't too concerned about being spotted because he did point me to the gang, thus outing himself, but there we are.

It was an engaging and fun lunch conversation. We talked about problems between critics and Scn'ologists, communications problems, outpoints, et cetera, Then it was time to return to the org.

At about 2:00, I returned first, and helpfully informed the org people the picketers were close behind. I saw a Sea Org lady in uniform at that time, minus the jacket - it was hot out. I made a mental note of it because I'd never seen anyone in a Sea Org uniform before, so it was one of those 'oh, for cool' moments. She went back in and I didn't see her again.

New faces, new handlers. Dan was gone, Paulette was gone Velcro was gone, a short skinny older black-from-a-bottle haird woman was handling the personality test routing, new people at either end, more people watching. I had two handlers during this leg, Brian came out and talked with me (while I had the camera off) and we discussed a few things. He was, again, big on giving Black PR on Mike Argue, but he was willing to discuss the Church's outpoints. Brian said he's been in for thirty years, and that a lot of the critics' gripes were as old as that - from the days of the GO. He insists that OSA is nothing like the old GO no matte what the picketers say. I say I know more than one Scn'ologist who's still loyal to the Church who agrees with the critics' POV on this one. (I didn't name names, and I'd just like to say, my Scn friends, it's not who you think!) I posited my usual theories, that communication and breaking the cycle of mistrust and the Church being more willing to discuss its current outpoints would help, he was actually open to the concept but said the critics were the ones who needed to work on things, and he even brought up Lisa McPherson, showing how that was a case where Critics jumped all over it before the facts were in and when they were in it showed Scn's innocence. I gave him what I can only imagine was a baleful look and said (paraphrasing) "Scn's charges were dismissed. This doesn't mean Scn was exonerated. And Scn -did- hold Lisa for seventeen days, and force-fed her drugs, without having the legal authority to do so, and you -cannot- honestly believe that Scn is without some serious outpoints on this matter." Amazingly enough, Brian acked this point! He was quick to add that the critics of course moved the focus of their criticism on the matter, but he did actually ack that Scn blew it. I was impressed. In response I acked that the Stacey Myer matter was blown out of proportion by some critics (a POV shared, I hasten to add, by every critic in attendance at this picket) while hastening to add that there was still a matter of safety measures being a SERIOUS outpoint at Gold Base, which - again - he acked. The conversation went that way, a little give and take, a little honest communication of the type that I think would benefit both Scn and the critics to engage in more often. Unfortunately, there was also the fact that Brian felt it necessary to keep DAing the picketers throughout the conversation, and I felt this detracted from a lot of the other things he was saying. But thanks, Brian, for a most enjoyable chat. Oh, and to him I outed myself as Raptavio, and I also gave them my real first name.

(Yes, I'm so bloody brave.) Brian, much to the delight of my strokable ego, recognized the name.

A couple people did get routed into the org. One came out and I got his report on video - it was interesting, and I'll post it. I also talked with another passerby and got that on video. He told a story about having waited on a pack of Scientologists (to the tune of $200 for the meal) and getting stiffed on the tip.

Kaeli got handled by a chain-smoking (Scientology can help you with that) older woman who said she didn't like Kaeli handing out her fliers with lies on them. Kaeli asked the lady to point out the lies, and the lady grew silent, turned and walked away. Big shock there.

One more person came out to handle me (besides all the people pointing their cameras at me) and asked me a hypothetical about if it'd be OK to hand out flyers if people were picketing my church. I said sure, not really seeking to argue the non-sequitur nature of his point at the time and he went on a little spiel too, asking me why I dislike them - I responded that I don't dislike them, well except for Gwen, I dislike her - and that I was here to find out the truth for myself about these pickets. That comm cycle ended quickly. Frankly it felt weird to be handled by that guy because he really seemed to be operating under the assumption that I was there for hostile reasons and despite my protestations he kept phrasing things in such a way as to imply I was. I didn't like him as much as the other handlers.

The picket ended I think about 4:30 (I didn't look at my watch) and we broke up. People were still all smiles all around. During the course of the picket there was I was told a bit of shoving at one point (I didn't see it) and the afternoon personality test router snatched a critic flyer from the hand of a passerby (which I didn't see, but my camera saw) but all in all they were pretty quiet and fairly nice and polite people (The picketers hastened to remind me that on the whole they are all nice people - but they can be nasty when riled) and I was glad to see that things were handled well. I didn't much care for the flyer that the Org's people were handing out, thinking it overly hostile and dishonest. I also didn't care for the overt efforts the handlers kept making to DA the picketers (both present and absent) and the way they ended comm cycles that they couldn't control. But they were nice to me and friendly as much as I was nice and friendly to them - except for my last handler, and of course my first handler Dan, who justifiably was annoyed that I tried to conceal my connections to the picketers but who cannot use that excuse to justify his first unkindness to me, so there's give and take there. The only real unpleasant feelings I had about the experience were that all the repeated DA attacks on the picketers really bothered me - I knew I was being 'handled' and not always communicated with honestly, and those moments were the real reminders of theat.

Back to Chez John and Kaeli for pizza, and to rest my aching feet, and to write this here report.

I imagine that shortly my gruesome visage will appear somewhere on the Net and my formerly precious anonymity will vanish. But who knows. The Org's people might be nice and allow me that preservation of my anonymity. If they prove to be as polite after the fact as they were in person, it won't happen. But I came to Toronto prepared to lose the shield of anonymity, and if it happens it happens.

It may be that they really were resolved to handle this picket with restraint and ARC, or it could have been a manifestation of 'observor syndrome' - having a video camera made them not act as badly as they had in May and June's pickets. I can't say which. I leave the question of whether they have their ethics in or whether I'm at cause over them as an exercise for the reader.

--Raptavio, still SP2 even after all this, I think.

-- "It must be exciting to think that way, but a drag to have to deal with the clinical diagnosis."

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