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Sunday, May 1, 2011

I woke up again this morning aware of a constant gnawing anxiety — my constant accompaniment all day, every day. I open my eyes. I am in jail. IN JAIL!

My nightmare began about 10 days ago, April 20, on a pleasant Wednesday evening. About 5 p.m. I got a text message from my daughter, who lives just across the border in Canada. She was asking if I wanted to go with her and her sisters to play bingo in Sprague, MB, 7 p.m. I had to decide quickly; I hadn’t had dinner yet, and was hungry, but then I thought there would probably be snacks available at Bingo, so I texted her that I would leave right away.

When I arrived there, I presented my pass card as usual and was questioned as usual. I expected to be searched as they almost always do when I bring household items across the border. As I stood and watched, they pulled out a small canning jar of what I assumed to be motor oil left over from an oil change. I thought probably they were going to dump it out or just confiscate it because the jar was not labelled.

While waiting, one of the agents came up to the counter and told me they needed to talk to me in the back room. One of the female agents said that they tested the “substance” in the canning jar and it tested positive for something. I asked her to repeat herself. This time I understood her to say that the oil in the jar tested positive for some substance which indicated the presence of HEROIN!

Thus, my nightmare began. The border agent informed me that I was going to be arrested for possession, with intent to distribute, of a controlled substance. They refused to let me call my daughter. They handcuffed me, and the rest of the night is a nightmarish blur of being interrogated several times by different people, the utter humiliation of a strip search, and long periods of sitting alone in that little room. I then spoke to a legal aid lawyer, who advised me, that even though I had done nothing wrong, I should simply refuse to answer their questions. Quite a long while later, one of the female agents came in and told me that a drug sniffing dog had found traces of marijuana, meth, cocaine, and “many other drugs” in the van. My lawyer later told me that they had found absolutely no traces of any drugs in the van.