As a deadline for eviction loomed Wednesday, members of The United Individuals of Canada vowed to not go away the St. Brigid’s church property.

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As a midnight deadline for eviction loomed Wednesday night, members of The United Individuals of Canada dug in and vowed they’d not go away their “embassy” on the former St. Brigid’s church property in Lowertown.
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TUPOC director William Komer mentioned the group’s personal “24/7, personal safety” could be on the web site if and when a bailiff was to reach to implement an eviction order, which may happen 5 enterprise days after it was initially posted on the property final Thursday.
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“We’re ready to arrest the bailiff for trespass,” Komer mentioned Wednesday afternoon.
“We’ve heard from police that they’ll be taking no motion in opposition to us as a result of we’ve got agent standing right here,” he claimed. “Now we have a lease. We are able to trespass individuals right here. We’ve made it fairly clear that if the bailiff chooses to trespass right here they could possibly be arrested.”
Stop Bailiff Companies visited St. Brigid’s final week to subject a “Discover of Termination of Tenant” and adjusted the locks on the adjoining rectory, saying TUPOC was behind $10,000 in hire and had failed to supply proof of insurance coverage. On Sunday, Komer confirmed reporters what he mentioned had been copies of financial institution drafts for hire for July and August and a replica of TUPOC’s $5-million legal responsibility insurance coverage for the constructing. He claimed the group obtained financial institution drafts to show that they had cash when the owner refused to money their hire cheques.
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Requested by textual content message Wednesday afternoon if they’d be implementing the eviction order at midnight, Stop Bailiff replied “Can’t remark. I can advise (TUPOC) will likely be leaving.”
Calls and texts to Patrick McDonald, one in every of a bunch of traders who purchased the deconsecrated church from the Catholic Archdiocese in 2007, haven’t been returned.
Neighbours and critics have complained concerning the group’s presence on the property since they arrived in July.
Although Komer says TUPOC has no hyperlinks to final winter’s truck convoy occupation of downtown Ottawa, most of the automobiles parked on the property are festooned with the identical flags and slogans seen in the course of the trucker occupation. Some TUPOC supporters espouse the identical anti-COVID-mandate and anti-government sentiment heard throughout that protest. Free newspapers left for distribution in St. Brigid’s contained tales with headlines together with “Our kids are being destroyed” and “Now we have been lied to by our authorities.”
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Komer mentioned he doesn’t know who left the newspapers, however that every one viewpoints are welcome within the group’s “embassy.”
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Standoff continues over TUPOC’s lease with St. Brigid’s
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‘They’re not honouring the proprietor’s rights’: TUPOC supporters refuse to vacate former church web site
Komer himself says he’s been focused with dying threats and that he met Wednesday afternoon with two Ottawa police detectives concerning the threats. The group can also be vowing personal prosecutions in opposition to three individuals who Komer mentioned have been trespassing and harassing him and different TUPOC members.
On Tuesday, he donned a foil hat and sat in a purple chair in entrance of the constructing for what he referred to as “the roast of William Komer.”
“Individuals needed to yell at me, so I figured relatively than all of the cyber-harassment and cyberbullying, if individuals had one thing they needed to say to me…
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“Don’t harass individuals, don’t harass me. However when you’ve got affordable questions, I can take the warmth. I figured we’d use comedy to defuse the scenario.”
The scenario grew extra severe Wednesday night when TUPOC supporters claimed one in every of their members was hit or practically hit by the facet mirror of a pick-up truck pushed by somebody who had been concerned in one other incident with supporters. Ottawa police arrived to calm the scenario.
Komer and TUPOC say they need to make St. Brigid’s a multi-generational assembly area the place individuals can collect to share concepts. It’s not the primary time Komer has tried to do this. In 2016, his firm, Campus Artistic, tried to purchase an empty college in his hometown of London, Ont., pitching it to metropolis council as a group centre and “multi-generational assembly place.” The supply wasn’t accepted — Komer mentioned town mentioned he’d missed the deadline — and the varsity was demolished.
Campus Artistic has additionally run day camps in London and designed and developed a collection of digital actuality video video games. Komer says he was in Ottawa in the course of the convoy to movie a documentary as a part of a long-term undertaking on small companies that pivoted to incorporate how companies had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.