CANADA 150 Haymour suit against provincial gov’t reaches court
EDITOR’S NOTE: In recognition of Canada’s 150th anniversary, The Herald is reprinting historic stories from the South Okanagan focusing on the biggest news story of each year.
VANCOUVER (CP) January 10, 1984 — A man who contends the British Columbia government ruined his life by obstructing his efforts to build a tourist attraction on an island in Okanagan Lake is suing the government for fraud, breach of trust, malicious prosecution and wrongful imprisonment.
Eddy Anis Haymour, 51, best known for seizing the Canadian embassy in Lebanon in 1976, argues that if he was legally sane when he gave up on his tourism dream and sold Rattlesnake Island to the government for $40,000, he should not have been committed to Riverview Mental Hospital.
If he was insane, he contends, the government had no right to force a mentally incompetent person to convey the island to it.
Haymour is seeking to recover the island from Victoria and collect damages, including punitive damages.
In outlining the case Monday, Haymour’s lawyer, Jack Cram, noted an allegation eventually dropped, that Haymour tried to send explosives through the mail to the premier.
Haymour was kept in custody for nine months before being found not guilty by reason of insanity of possessing brass knuckles. After more than a year of further confinement in a mental institution, he was found sane, then went to Beirut and held the staff of the Canadian embassy hostage for eight hours, trying to negotiate the return of his island.
The case is being heard by county court Judge Michelangelo Provenzano, sitting as a judge of the B.C. Supreme Court in chambers.
Haymour immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in 1955 and established barber shops in Edmonton and Calgary.
He moved to Kelowna in 1970 and the following year purchased the island.
He contends he was entitled to build on the island restriction free.
However, Cram said, a complaint was made by a neighbor on the lakefront, Des Loan, then a Peachland alderman, to the area’s member of the legislature, then-premier W. A. C. Bennett.
The provincial cabinet passed a new building regulation “enacted for the unlawful purpose of preventing” Haymour from completing the facility, Cram said.
In December, 1971, the province zoned the island agricultural forest, although “it was a rock island with a single tree,” he said.
The Health Ministry refused even to consider a proposed sewage system and the Highways Ministry blocked access to the dock serving the island, Cram said.
In July 1973, Haymour, “having been forced by the concerted efforts of the various departments of the province into dire financial condition and suffering from severe strain and mental stress in his efforts to combat the power of the government, offered to sell the property to the defendant for $146,000.” This was refused.
“Between July and December 1973, the defendant caused Haymour to be placed under police surveillance, hiring the services of an informer to gain the confidence of Haymour with the purpose of importuning or entrapping Haymour into the commission of a criminal offence,” Cram said.
He was charged in late 1973 with threatening to send a letter bomb to W. A. C. Bennett. Eventually, the Crown stayed 37 charges against Haymour, but proceeded with a charge of possessing a dangerous weapon, described by Cram as a child’s set of knuckledusters. After being held for extensive psychiatric examination, Haymour wanted to plead guilty, but the Crown urged provincial court to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In July 1974 — when he had been in custody for seven months and had just learned his wife was divorcing him, his children were on welfare, his home had burned down with its insurance expired and the island property was being foreclosed on — the government had Haymour sign the deed for the island for $40,000. ******** Haymour was eventually awarded $250,000 in compensation by the B.C. Supreme Court. He used the money to purchase land in Peachland for his Castle Haymour, which has since been renamed Peachland Castle. He now lives in Edmonton. ******** 1984 Prime Ministers of Canada: Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, Brian Mulroney Mayor of Penticton: Ivan Messmer Canadian Press Newsmaker of the Year: Brian Mulroney
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