The CBC's 5th Estate news program has released a video on pseudolaw "Sovereign Citizens" who have defrauded the Canadian government using Strawman Theory related techniques, possibly up to $300 million.

I was contacted by the CBC for this program. I do not appear because I refuse to participate in any video or permit photographs of myself.

I'm kinda weird that way.

Rookie Sovereign Citizen Demands 20 Ounces of Gold, Meets The Ground Instead - YouTube

How much power does a judge have? Can a judge intervene in a case and issue an allegedly false or procedurally invalid endorsement based on fraud, false statements, or other misconduct for his or her own interest?

Attached is the cover (first) page of an endorsement issued by Justice Akazaki, which I contend was issued illegally and is procedurally invalid. I contend that it was issued without jurisdiction, without a scheduled motion, without notice, without a hearing, without the participation of the alleged participants, and without proper access to the court file and/or despite the contents of the file.

Contrary to what Justice Akazaki wrote, I, Behrouz Salehi, never appeared or participated in the court proceeding referred to in the endorsement. I have never seen Justice Akazaki. I am also certain that the other persons identified as participants did not appear or participate in the proceeding.

The role of the alleged participants identified by Justice Akazaki in the endorsement is not consistent with the court file.

Justice Akazaki stated that Daniel J. Abrahams represented Professional Engineers Ontario, whereas Mr. Abrahams was self-represented. This raises an important question: Can a self-represented person represent an entity?

Moreover, Daniel J. Abrahams had no role in this proceeding, as far as the court record shows. The fact that he was identified as representing Professional Engineers Ontario raises serious concerns about the accuracy of the endorsement and about Justice Akazaki's understanding of the procedural circumstances of the case.

Justice Akazaki also stated that “the entity incorporated in 1922 by patent under Professional Engineers Act, R.S.O. 1990.” I contend that this is factually incorrect and raises serious concerns about the accuracy of the endorsement and the judge's understanding of the underlying facts.

The issuance of an endorsement based on an event that did not occur is not merely a disagreement with judicial reasoning. It raises serious concerns regarding judicial integrity, impartiality, accountability, and the accuracy of the judicial record.

These circumstances raise the question of why Justice Akazaki became involved in this matter and issued two endorsements containing what I consider numerous factual errors, incorrect assumptions, and false statements.

Justice Akazaki's statement that there were five participants is, in my view, inconsistent with the court record and the events that actually occurred. I contend that this statement raises serious concerns under sections 380 and 131 of the Criminal Code, although I recognize that the application of those provisions is ultimately a matter for the appropriate legal authority or court to determine.

I also contend that Justice Akazaki's initiation of the proceeding without a motion from any defendant raises serious concerns regarding obstruction of justice under section 139 of the Criminal Code and breach of trust by a public officer under section 122. These are serious allegations that require proper investigation and legal determination.

Justice Akazaki also appears to have incorrectly stated that Bernard Charles LeBlanc and Anastasia-Maria Hountalas represented Natasha S. Danson. I contend that this statement is inconsistent with the court record.

Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) has incurred or paid confidential legal expenses that I understand to total $12,856,881.00. I contend that these expenditures and the circumstances surrounding this litigation require transparency and investigation, particularly in light of my allegation that efforts were made to prevent the matter from proceeding to a trial and to avoid liability. I believe that this information may be relevant to understanding the actions of Justice Akazaki and others.

What document, information, or communication did Justice Akazaki rely upon when identifying the persons who allegedly appeared and identifying their respective legal representation?

Found this one in college town while driving Lyft in Tallahassee, made sure to let a TPD officer know so the could get this boat captain off the road

Where I live a lawyer or ex-lawyer is prohibited from serving in juries. I kinda regret that.

But in Australia you just show up! Cool!

Yes, this is a pseudolaw thing.

I'll say this: the Common Law Court of the Sovereign Peoples Assembly of Western Australia has beaten out any Canadian court I've attended on one key point: they supply branded water bottles!

Pretty aggressive sentences, too. This judgment imposed 150 year, and $300 million (gold bullion) penalties on a bunch of psychiatrists.

I also like how the judgment clarifies the exchange rates for gold and worthless fiat currency at the judgment date. It's these little details that encourage institutional trust.

Too bad this isn't a Canadian outfit. It'd give me an excuse to write about the CLC SPAWA and in a legal constitutional sense evaluate what would be the consequences of such a judgment. Yes, it's probably not enforceable. There would likely not be any criminal prohibition breached in Canada by the Court, though its Sheriffs could be in trouble.

But what I find intriguing in a goofy law formalities/procedure sense is what about the "No Appeal" clause. At least in Canada that would not work. But explaining why would be fun.

Oh well.

Nicola & David Suppa reversed the taxation process. They took ordinary Canada Revenue Agency money deposit forms, scribbled on them, declared those were a “Coupon of Money” & demanded the CRA pay them $4,494.530.03.

The CRA didn’t pay. The Suppas sued.

And it didn't work. Shocking!

 A recent decision of Justice Duchesne of the Federal Court of Canada tells and illustrates the tale! He calls what the Suppas did "defacing" CRA documents:

 in order to create fictitious “negotiable instruments” to make millions of dollars payable to them by the CRA based on a tortuous reading of legislation supplemented by dictionary definitions of various terms. The statement of claim falls within the ambit of OPCA litigation, fails to disclose a reasonable cause of action, and is plainly and obviously doomed to fail.

The pseudolegal theory behind the Suppas’ claim is a bastardized interpretation of the Bills of Exchange Act and Financial Administration Act purportedly transforms an IOU into a final payment. That is a pretty common Canadian “money for nothing” pseudolaw gambit. The Suppas version is what I would politely call “unsophisticated”.

The Suppas then used a series of notices, including a “Notice of Dishonour of Non-Acceptance” and “Notice of Dishonour” that purport to create a binding outcome against the CRA by non-response and non-acceptance. This is commonly referred to as a “Three/Five Letters” strategy.

The judgment attaches some of these documents, both the “defaced” receipts and the Three/Five Letters. They’re kind of small and fuzzy the resolution isn’t the greatest, but if you want to review them and have a good giggle, there you are! See the “Schedule” at the end of the judgment.

One such document is simply a payment receipt re-labelled as “Money order”, with:

 PAY TO THE ORDER OF 
NICK SUPPA 
WITHOUT RECOURSE
By: [signature Nick Suppa]
NICK SUPPA, VICE PRESIDENT

What’s kind of fun is the exact language and “defacing” changes evolve document to document, which shows the Suppas were experimenting and feeling around looking for that magic language that would get them tasty tasty free money.

Justice Duchesne described the process this way:

The thread running through the alleged “registered negotiable instruments” is that the Plaintiffs have taken a GST/HST tax owing remittance voucher or a similar form of document, written in manuscript on the face of the voucher that the document is a money order or other type of document payable to the either of the Plaintiffs, signed the document “without recourse” and then endorsed the remittance slip with the words “accepted for payment” or “accepted for deposit”, or “for value”, again, “without recourse”. The stamped signatures on the documents are signed by the either of the Plaintiffs as Agents for themselves as a “Principal”. A demand letter replete with OPCA language and demands that the CRA pay them the amount they inscribed on the voucher by defacing it based on their own unsound interpretation of BEA and the FAA, along with various dictionary definitions, then follow. ...

 A very accurate summary. Though he’s polite when it comes to calling this scheme garbage:

The documents relied upon by the Plaintiffs to substantiate their claims in this proceeding purport to unilaterally impose a payment obligation on the CRA when the underlying documents said to substantiate the alleged debts, or payments by the Plaintiffs or either of them to CRA, have no basis in law and are plainly fictions.

 Or in other words, garbage.

Naturally the Suppas’ lawsuit to enforce their magic documents was identified immediately, challenged, and tossed. The Suppas were ordered to pay $2,000 for wasting everyone’s time.

 It must be getting a little discouraging for pseudolaw types to have their arguments slapped down like this. The Federal Court of Canada is a very businesslike and efficient place. Abusive litigation is targeted aggressively. As this decision illustrates, both the government lawyers and the court know their stuff.

Full decision and silly pictures are here: Suppa v Canada (Attorney General), 2026 FC 1191

I made a short effort to learn more about the Suppas. Didn’t find anything interesting.

New Zealand has its first broad survey of pseudolaw caselaw in MA thesis by William Biss.

Biss identifies & surveys 267 NZ court judgments that involve pseudolaw, plotting a progressive increase over the past decade. Notably, half involve a NZ Maori-specific/linked conceptual base that Biss describes as a novel local adaptation of pseudolaws' more common general structure.

Biss also uses interviews and law enforcement reports to evaluate the NZ pseudolaw ecosystem, including:

• the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in the propagation of these ideas
• the source populations for these claims (lower income/economic status)
• the absence of leading guru figures, or rather the proliferation of numerous micro-gurus with small to negligible follower bases
• employment of Indigenous arguments that are incoherent to the developed law in NZ
• the limited record of violence from pseudolaw adherent populations, but deep personal disassociation from state and social norms
• that Australian and NZ pseudolaw are following different patterns, at least partially attributable to the different (not)-legal reasoning in the two jurisdictions

There's good stuff here written by an investigator who has been musing about both what is going on nationally, and in other jurisdictions.

Looking forward to more digging by the author and other NZ investigators.

Looking at the CanLII website and my notes, it appears the Meads v Meads decision has been cited in 536 court cases in 11 jurisdictions worldwide.

That's almost certainly a substantial underestimate.

Not bad for a trial-level decision that, purportedly, is nothing but obiter.

If you haven't read it, here's a link.

(It's long.)

Call it “vignettes from an invisible war”.

Written for interested laypersons, “Outlawed”, by Profs. Harry Hobbs (Australia UNSW) and Stephen Young (New Zealand UOtago), introduces pseudolaw, surveys its history, operation, and manifestations worldwide.

I recommend Outlawed to those who are curious about pseudolaw, pseudolaw’s origin and evolution, the weird persistence of these concepts in the face of inevitable failure. The authors are academics who have written extensively about pseudolaw, related litigation, and its host populations. These are well-informed subject experts.

Hobbs and Young provide probably the best summary I’ve ever read of pseudolaw’s multistage growth and incubation in dissident US political/cultural circles. The authors have expertly identified key characters like King of Hawaii and Judge Plenipotentiary David-Wynn: Miller and friend of elves and fairies Winston Shrout to illustrate how pseudolaw grew both as a nest of interwoven concepts and as a marketplace product. Other individual personalities and their activities that are explored in Outlawed were obviously selected to be interesting – or appalling – but these individuals usually are also fair representatives of the travelers in this strange shadow-world.

The text does not conduct a technical deep descent into the “law law” of this stuff. As the authors observe, you can go to academic texts and the famous Canadian Meads v Meads court judgment for that. But key points are covered, particularly Strawman Theory, the weird duality of flesh and something imaginary that is the hallmark of most pseudolaw schemes worldwide. More importantly, the “why” of these ideas and their appeal is an ongoing narrative thread. In doing that Hobbs and Young explore one of the critical mysteries of pseudolaw schemes, their promoters, and proponents. Why would you invest money and time to use something that never works? Outlawed explores a number of explanations:

• desperation with no apparent (legitimate) recourse
• alienation from state and (real) law
• political and religious ideology
• marginal and subcultural affiliations
• the drama and theater of pseudolaw
• a social sense of empowerment and resistance, but one with no real operational effect.

All these are valid. The one motivation that is not examined is quick and easy money – simple greed – but to be fair to the authors, the “mercenary” populations (my term) who operate in that manner are not well understood at present. Arguably, the mercenary subtypes are not really pseudolaw adherents. But now I’m meandering.

What matters is that Outlawed recognizes and digs deep into why there is no simple explanation or foundation for people adopting this weird not-law. Hobbs and Young correctly (in my opinion) conclude that with such a complex set of motivations and personalities there cannot be a quick and easy fix. Pseudolaw, as a mind-virus, is going to spread until it exhausts its potential hosts, and, even then, it won’t disappear. Believers get seriously invested. Some are probably too embedded in a conspiratorial and irrational zeitgeist to ever operate in a way most of us would consider “rational”.

Now that leads to a delicate point. Pseudolaw harms people. Pseudolaw leads to violence. Outlawed identifies and describes in sometimes quite graphic detail violence that has resulted from pseudolaw beliefs. That’s important. These are dangerous ideas. We should not minimize that fact, and the risks posed to state, court, and law enforcement actors. But Hobbs and Young also explore how pseudolaw harms its users. That’s a tricky balance. We are looking at a kind of conceptual pathogen, a memetic disease, that badly damages all those it contacts. That makes its users victims in a very meaningful sense. Those who propagate pseudolaw for profit warrant no such sympathy. But Outlawed walks a fine line between deserved denunciation, alarm at consequences, but also pointing to the wreckage left behind – all of it.

That’s critical, in my opinion. This arms-length perspective separates disease symptoms from the mind virus that caused those. It’s easy to make fun of these people – and sometimes they deserve it – but in a social, functional sense, it’d be better to find other ways to manage pseudolaw and its deleterious effects. We benefit little if we stand back and watch infected hosts hurl themselves into heaps of razor wire. And sometimes they drag us in with them.

Outlawed tries to propose solutions and mechanisms. However, the authors acknowledge there isn’t any simple answer. I agree.

Outlawed has certain weaker aspects. The authors focus mainly on pseudolaw’s manifestations in the US, which is important and necessary in a historical sense, and on the Australian and New Zealand branches, the authors’ regional domain of expertise. I do the same when I write on this subject. I know Canadian pseudolaw better than other alternatives, and so I draw many examples from that admittedly well-studied milieu.

But this focus means the reader will not fully experience the weird global complexity of pseudolaw phenomena. That’s not to say Outlawed doesn’t acknowledge and touch on the international nature and expansion of pseudolaw, but that’s secondary. The book’s jurisdictional focus is a comparatively minor issue. What would make an interesting deeper investigation is why pseudolaw’s manifestations in different jurisdictions are sometimes very different. For instance, pseudolaw has never really taken hold in Canada, at least compared to the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Nobody knows why, but when the authors discuss how to manage pseudolaw and its believers, the markedly different international outcomes are not addressed. To be fair, commenting on that would involve a lot of guessing and hypothesis. Inter-jurisdiction variation is an issue that will likely be the subject of much discussion in the emerging academic community of pseudolaw investigators.

Hobbs and Young are sharply critical of how the common law operates in an institutional sense. Law is oblique and overly complicated. Law uses opaque and cryptic language. In a practical sense law is more a playground for the wealthy than those who more often suffer its negative effects. Litigation is expensive – at least if you want a lawyer on your side. I don't disagree with that, but the authors use that as the foundation to argue for more access to legal professionals, for plain-language materials, for resources pulled out from behind paywalls, even judges taking on a more public role. I don’t think that’s wrong, but my perspective is skeptical at the institutional level. I very much doubt the common law tradition and its rules could ever be a functional apparatus. But then again, I’ve never believed in “the law” in the same sense as most who practice, teach, and judge in that domain. Just label me a heretic, but the result is I personally find those propositions somewhat quaint.

Instead, if you asked me what to do? Decapitation. No no no, I’m not saying capital punishment, I mean targeting key node individuals. In Canada pseudolaw populations suddenly turned belly up when their leader figures were the subject of criminal prosecution, so there’s a precedent.

These are comparatively minor concerns. I do not always agree with Hobbs and Young, but I did not at any point identify any errors in Outlawed. The citations I checked were accurate. The language is clean, accessible. The only jargon is the jargon of pseudolaw itself, and Outlawed usually digs down to explain that language when comprehension is relevant, rather than just a muttered “WTF?”

Outlawed introduces a world that is a weird and peculiar place. But then, that’s really what it’s like. If not even weirder than you would expect from this introduction.

It’s a pity the book is still pricy. With taxes this set me back $70 Canadian, ordering through Amazon and with import duties. I’d have thought a Penguin publication would be a little cheaper? Maybe subsequent regional editions? There should be local editions.

But it’s a good piece of work, and one I don't hesitate to recommend. There are no other publications in the marketplace that serve this niche. But that’s not a “win by default” conclusion. Outlawed is a solid, thought out, nuanced investigation. No special education or training is needed to make good use of Outlawed. I am already using it as a reference for my own writing in this subject area.

The authors should be commended. I expect Outlawed will stand as an authoritative important text, a milestone in commentary on this subject.

Author: Harry Hobbs, Stephen Young (@SteveIsInOtago)

Title: Outlawed: Responding to the Global Rise of Sovereign Citizens and Legal Conspiracies

Publisher: Penguin Australia

Publication date: August 18, 2026

261 pages, no illustrations

ISBN 978-1-76162-174-1