page_title: Bruce Allan Clark
section_title: Regina v. Mary Pena
hierarchical_section_title: Bruce Allan Clark / Gustafsen Lake / Regina v. Mary Pena
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Bruce Clark on the cover of April 18, 1997 edition of Vancouver's Terminal City magazine
context_page_description: Bruce Allan Clark is a Canadian native rights lawyer, writer and activist. He rose to attention as part of the Gustafsen Lake Standoff and its aftermath.
context_section_description: Bruce Clark, was originally the chosen lawyer for some of the defendants in Regina v. Mary Pena. The trial took place from July 8, 1996 through 20 May 20, 1997 in a courthouse in Surrey, British Columbia. The trial ended with 39 acquittals and 2l convictions. The case against defendants Mary Pena, Ronald Dionne, Percy Rosette, Grant Archie, Brent Potulicki, Trond Halle, Edward Dick, Stuart Dick, Sheila Ignace, Francis Dick, Glen Deneault, Shelagh Franklin, James Pitawanakwat, William "Wolverine" Jones Ignace and his wife Flora Sampson (b.1942), their son Joseph (Jo Jo) Ignace (1972-2005), Suniva Bronson, and Robert Flemming was filed on May 16, 1997. In the case Regina v. Mary Pena, Bruce Clark testified that he had told Doc Hill and William "Wolverine" Jones Ignace that during the occupation of the land, there were numerous statements by members of the encampment, mostly by Doc Hill (also known as Dacajeweiah, "Splitting the Sky" and John Boncore Hill) and William "Wolverine" Jones Ignace that "no Court in this country (including the Supreme Court of Canada) had accepted his argument on the law because, in effect, the Judges of this country are blinded by self interest. His advice was that only a "third party tribunal, one such as the Privy Council of Great Britain, would be sufficiently free of self interest to accede to what he believes to be his compelling and irrefutable argument on the law. It was that demand which was at the heart of the stand-off at Gustafsen Lake." Hill and Ignace said that "Bruce Clark has challenged even the whole colony of B.C., and their presence in native lands...that "Native nations have the right to sovereignty, free of any colonial regimes and restrictions."; "All unceded territory shall be left unmolested and undisturbed."; "B.C. [doesn't] have the right to set up government here in the province."; "Domestic laws don't apply in this situation here...they cannot charge us in any way because we are a sovereign people."; and that "We are standing on sovereign territory of the Shuswap nation."
  According to Sandra Lambertus, defendants' lawyers said that a fair trial was jeopardized because of a number of factors including biased pre-trial media coverage. Witnesses for the defence, RCMP media liaison supported this allegation, and one journalist was identified as having contributed to an organized police media strategy in which the standoff was "portrayed as a war." According to Lambertus, Glavin (1996) and 100 Mile House Free Press, the media coverage of Gustafsen Lake standoff beginning with the RCMP media event at William Lake, was like "a circus coming to town" where a minor dispute was exaggerated and portrayed as an intense conflict. In 1997 one of the original lawyers for the defense, Janice Switlo, published a monograph in 1997 in which she challenges the claim by the British Columbia Attorney General and the RCMP that there was "only one side of the story concerning Gustafsen Lake". Lambertus cited Switlo as saying that "the other side of the story" reveals "the corruption, the abuse, the fraud" from federal and provincial levels of government as well as the RCMP during the conflict." Switlo also added that "the RCMP did not provide the media with accurate information during the conflict." Lambertus revealed that the media produced "561 newspaper stories from August 18, 1995 to September 19, 1995. Most journalist came from Vancouver and they depended on a good relationship with the RCMP to access the stories which, according to Lambertus, the RCMP used as leverage. Sergeant Peter Montague, RCMP media liaison for British Columbia described the media marketing program developed by the RCMP in the 1990s.
  Judge Ian Bruce Josephson said in his reasons for judgement that, "While it was known that no court in the country had acceded to their position, they [the accused] had advice from [Bruce Clark] one lawyer licensed to practice law in some provinces that weapons could be employed in self defense, implying at least that this included defending possession of the land they were occupying."
caption: Photo of Bruce Clark on the cover of April 18, 1997 edition of Vancouver's Terminal City magazine
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