It has been a few years since the "NDG Splinters" were challenging minor mayor, Michael Applebaum at borough council meetings about his real estate activities.
The group was originally formed by citizens trying to save the Fraser-Hickson Library. At that time, borough mayor, Michael Applebaum killed the Fraser-Hickson, promising us a new and grander library in the near future. It never happened. Instead, Applebaum and his friends used the taxpayers' money to build a sports centre to satisfy themselves.
Our little group of annoying citizens were exposing Michael Applebaum's strange practices - advertising his real estate business in the local newspaper at the same time that he was chief of the borough's zoning committee.
I stood up to Applebaum at open council meetings time after time. Most of the time, politely, but after he put me down one evening, I returned to the microphone and I said, in a straightforward manner, "Mr. Applebaum, you are a small man."
Applebaum's constant supporter - (along with councillor Saulie Zajdel and Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay's brother, councillor Marcel Tremblay) - councillor, Marvin Rotrand flew into a rage. He threatened to have me thrown out of the meeting hall and he said, before all the people that, if he could, he would make sure that I could never attend another public council meeting.
I think that was the evening, Robert Libman - at one time mayor of Cote St. Luc - (circa 1998) a nearby suburb of Montreal - was sitting in the back row of the audience - I believe next to Applebaum's father - and Libman was heard speaking disparagingly about our group. He referred to me as "a loose cannon."
I was flattered. I am indeed a free thinker and I speak my mind. I am not impressed by politicians. I am weak, but my weapon is truth, and truth is so powerful, it terrifies criminals and tyrants. It really upsets them and they try very hard to suppress it.
It took a few years for the law to take an interest in what the NDG Splinters had been saying, but the Charbonneau Crime Commission started asking the same questions we Splinters had been asking persistently back then.
The current April edition of The Senior Times (Montreal) reports that Michael Applebaum and his friend, Saulie Zajdel, go on trial in criminal court next year.
Oh! The lawyers will stall, and it will take a lot of time, but maybe we will see justice in this case one day. We just have to endure the wait, knowing that justice delayed and delayed and delayed, is typical of Quebec politics. I am an expert on that subject. As a crime victim in Montreal, I have been pleading for justice in my case for seventeen years. *
We must outlast the criminals. My middle name is Stubborn.
* Detailed reports of the crimes of Dawn McSweeney are open to the world at - http://dawnmcsweeney.blogspot.com. I am offering a $5,000. reward and more.
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