Retired teacher haunted by border services agents’ actions during Sherwood Motel raid

A former owner of the Sherwood Motel says his treatment by Canada Border Services Agency personnel two years ago still causes him to lose sleep. On Feb. 17, 2016, Rae Gilman was awakened at 7:30 a.m. by the sound of loud banging outside the door of his room at the Sherwood Motel in Charlottetown, where he had been living over the winter. He emerged from his room to find about 15 Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers running about the grounds of the motel, many of whom were armed with large rifles. Gilman said a female officer then screamed at him, and displayed a paper indicating that officers had the authority to search the premise. “I was dumb-founded, 87 years of age at the time and completely shocked,” Gilman told The Guardian. “I never fully recovered from this event. I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat. Still, I get very upset about what happened and the way I was addressed and treated, and the way Ping and her family have been treated. I’m still in a rage.” In a letter written by Gilman, Gilman said the female officer asked him to find registration cards, which recorded the names of guests who had stayed at the motel. “I went to open the drawer and she screamed at me again and suggested there might be weapons there,” Gilman wrote in the letter which he submitted to The Guardian and is published today on Page A11. “I told her she was a damn fool, that we were not the type of people who approve of weapons and would never own one or approve of killing a rabbit with one.” Prior to sending it The Guardian, Gilman said the letter had been vetted by the legal counsel of Ping Zhong and her brother Yi Zhong. The siblings, who own the Sherwood Motel, have been charged with aiding and abetting misrepresentation under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Their trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 30. The CBSA have alleged 566 applicants under P.E.I.’s provincial nominee program used the Sherwood Motel as their permanent address between 2008 and 2015. They also allege that the Zhong siblings counselled seven applicants in a fraudulent manner. But lawyer Lee Cohen, who is representing the Zhongs, said the conduct of CBSA during the raid should be a cause of concern for Canadians. He compared the actions of officers during the 2016 raid to that of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel in the U.S. The ICE agency has drawn criticism in recent months for, among other things, separating migrant children from their families and detaining them for months. “It’s a very traumatic, very graphic event. The officers are loud, aggressive, in some cases nasty, rough,” Cohen said of the Sherwood Motel raid. “In this particular case, there are adults and children now who have been traumatized by the Canada Border Services busting into people’s homes en masse, in uniform, with weapons and behaving like the ICE in the United States.” The Guardian reached out to the CBSA for comment but did not hear back by deadline. Both Gilman and Cohen believe the accusations levelled against the Zhong family by CBSA are warrantless. Cohen said the legal case boils down to whether or not new immigrants are required to have a permanent address once they arrive in Canada. “What the agency is imposing upon Ping and Yi is an obligation, or a responsibility, that doesn’t really exist in law,” Cohen said. Cohen said most immigrants, once they arrive in Canada, do not have a permanent address. Some immigrants, if they have secured legal counsel, simply list the address of their lawyer. “I think what we’re going to find is that there are not rules governing this and that Ping and Yi have not conducted themselves in any way that would be in violation of any rule.” Gilman said some of the activities that have been identified as suspicious in CBSA documents, such as picking up new arrivals from China at the airport, helping them purchase cars or applying for a health card, were simply attempts to welcome newcomers who did not speak English. “We were part of the hospitality industry. And hospitality means doing whatever you can for your guests,” Gilman said. Rae Gilman says he purchased the Sherwood Motel with Ping Zhong in 1995, the year after he retired from teaching. He co-owned the property for several years, eventually selling it to the Zhong family. Most of Ping’s family members have lived on the Island for more than two decades, he said. Gilman first met Ping Zhong after she began working as a teaching assistant at Birchwood School, where he also worked. He said he did not blame CBSA officers for their conduct but said there were “in dire need of retraining.” Cohen, however, believes the actions of the CBSA, in relation to the case of the Zhong siblings, have been disproportionate and should trouble Islanders. “It’s caused me to be concerned that one of the greatest threats against the freedoms of Canadians and permanent residents in Canada today may not be coming from abroad. It may very well be our very own Canadian Border Services Agency,” Cohen said.