March 17, 2001 - Edmonton Entheta

There was a picket in Edmonton, on Saturday, March 17. Picketers were myself, and John Brownlee, who was a member for 11 years.

We were mostly ignored, but the DSA, Deborah Jurt did come out and take our picture and talk to us a bit, and the dialog was actually quite positive. John has a sister who is in the Sea Org who has not spoken to her family in 12 years. John expressed to Deborah that this is his main concern, and Deborah said that she is working on getting John's sister to call her mom. Now, ordinarily I would assume that she was spewing bulshit, but there have been recent developments here which lead me to believe that she may be sincere. So, I hope this doesn't make me unpopular, bud Deborah, if you happen to read this, and you were sincere - then thank you, and thank you for the other situation you have helped with. However, don't take this to mean that I won't be back out picketing, because I will be.

Like I already said, other than that one brief conversation, we were ignored. However we did get to speak to some interested passers by. Several people stopped and spoke with us for quite a while.

We also got to speak to the owners/staff of a new restaurant that opened up about a week ago next door to the org. They didn't know anything about Scientology before, but they have been filled in now, and support us completely.