Frozen Chicken

Through dance, writing my book, and performing political art to draw attention to Canada’s broken immigration system, I learned how powerful art can be. Art challenges people to think, and at the same time moves them to feel. Throughout history we have seen governments, institutions and individuals who have tried to control, censor and even ban artistic works. In such instances art is perceived as a dangerous threat, a powerful communication tool that can publicly expose alternative viewpoints on political issues and life philosophies. In Nazi Germany, officials eliminated modern art from the museums and prohibited what they called Degenerate art. In Afghanistan, the Taliban eradicated music and dance, making it illegal. In Canada, freedom of speech is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, unlike in the United States where “freedom of speech has premium value, Canada’s libel laws are seriously antiquated making Canada excellent libel chill territory.” Little did I know in 2012, just how chilly things were about to get for me and for my book, How to Catch an African Chicken.

Love Loss and Chicken Grease

January 2012

After a four year absence, I stepped back into the studio to teach my first public dance class. Time had helped heal my heart but it didn’t dry up my desire to tread in the seas of movement and rhythm again. I moved on after my ex-husband Keza’s actions unexpectedly flattened my life like a tsunami, but nothing could wash away my love of dance.

Finding the courage to teach again also meant conquering my fears. What if I couldn’t dance anymore, if my body forgot how to move? What if dancing awakened the sadness that I carefully guarded inside my heart? Could it pull me back into the darkest days of my life, when I felt I had no choice but to step away from my passion? Time had passed, but my fears were still present. So, I faced them. Then, I decided to try and dance again.

I was surprised to have a sold-out dance series after my long absence. The first night I walked into the small studio to teach it was packed with people. I felt honored but also had stage fright when I stepped in front of my students. There were many new people along with plenty of familiar faces who witnessed when my life fell apart. After our warm-up though, I found my groove and felt like I had never left the studio. I understood something profound that night: that I would always be a dancer. Even if I stopped dancing, art was my way of life.

When Chickens Fly

February 2012

The telephone woke me up early that morning. A friend was calling to tell me that he just heard Keza was physically removed from Canada. Stunned, I jumped out of bed and was now fully awake and standing in my dark room. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Three years had already passed since Keza was issued his removal order from Canada. And, it had been four years plus a few days since Keza abandoned me shortly after receiving his permanent residency status. In all honesty, I never believed that the day would come when Keza would be physically removed from Canada. The Immigration system was extremely backlogged. Besides, how could I be certain that this wasn’t just hearsay? As the day progressed however, more people contacted me to confirm my friend’s report. They too had heard the news that Keza was gone.

That night, I lay in bed and tried to envision how Keza was feeling if he really was back in Guinea. Was he experiencing remorse? Feeling guilt? Maybe anger? I imagined that on some level, he was probably happy to see his family and friends after such a long time. Deported or not, there is no place like home. Still, I wondered if he would tell people the truth about why he left Canada. Or, would he choose to lie and say that he was simply visiting. I drifted off to sleep knowing that I would never know the answers to the questions that raced through my mind. But it really didn’t matter. Those answers had to do with Keza’s reality, not mine.

As life bloomed towards spring, I continued getting reacquainted with dance and enjoyed spending time with friends and my new companion Picasso, a miniature dachshund. I also eagerly worked on the final touches of preparing my book for publication. By March 2012, the first edition of How to Catch an African Chicken was available on multiple E-Publishing platforms. Proud to see my first full-length writing project come to fruition, I hoped it would inspire readers and protect other Canadians from living what I did. Little did I know though that come summer, Keza’s ability to muddy my life from afar would be very much alive and growing in my own backyard.

Barbeque Chicken Hawk

July 2012

It was the hottest and driest summer I had ever seen. So much so that I needed to water my garden several times a day to save it from burning, like old books in a house fire. One Friday, I was outside giving my rose bushes their ritual hose down when a casually dressed man appeared at the end of my driveway. Our eyes met before he walked towards me with purpose, like a man on a mission.

“Are you Ms. Towell?” he asked me in French.

“Yes, that’s me,” I replied. I turned off the hose and wiped my wet hand on my sundress.

The man said nothing else. He simply handed me a stack of papers held together by a couple of rubber bands in a dusty pink folder. The folder was as thick as an old-school telephone book and I had to use both arms to take it from him. I was clueless who this man was, let alone what was inside the thick pink folder. Still, I felt ill at ease with his surprise delivery. Before I could even utter the words to ask what it was all about, like the grim-reaper who just hands over a death-certificate with no explanation, the man turned and left.

I lugged the folder over to the patio table and removed the rubber bands. Thumbing through a stack of mixed-up papers, I was perplexed to see various news articles that I had been quoted in on the issue of marriage fraud. There were also numerous photocopies of posts where I mentioned my book and marriage fraud from my personal Twitter feed and Facebook page. Copies of my artist biography that appeared on posters for my dance classes and on the website for Nuit Blanche, an all night art festival I was helping to organize were in the pile too. And there was more: the Immigration Canada decision that found Keza guilty of misrepresentation, along with discs of television interviews I had done and an electronic copy of my book.

The material was accompanied with bewildering accusations that portrayed me very badly. I continued to sift through the documents and came across official Quebec court documents that were written in French. That was when I started to understand what was happening. I was being sued. Sued for defamation by my deported ex-husband.

Like a curator who selects what works to include or exclude in an art show, whoever prepared the pink dossier chose to neglect significant media references. Passages from the Immigration decision that demonstrate there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Keza was guilty of marriage fraud were highlighted, while passages that stated he lied under oath and misrepresented himself intentionally were not. Immigration Canada’s appeal decision was also left out, a document that stops short of saying Keza committed marriage fraud:

“the panel finds that the reasons for the appellant’s omissions are obvious. Had he declared his child, an immigration officer would have followed up with the question of who is the mother and what is your relationship with her. If an immigration officer had discovered that the appellant had a relationship with the mother while he was engaged or married to another woman, namely (Lainie Towell), then the immigration officer could have come to the conclusion that his marriage to Ms. Towell was not genuine unless, of course, (she) would have decided herself to cancel her sponsorship before the appellant was landed. The panel considers that the nature of the misrepresentation is very serious and strikes a blow at the very integrity of the immigration system. The appellant chose to mislead Canadian officials in order to immigrate to Canada. The misrepresentation was intentional and continuous, the appellant has not expressed remorse, and he still does not understand the full gravity of his actions.”

As I continued to read through the documents, I noticed something even more bizarre. It wasn’t only Keza who was behind this colossal lawsuit. A Canadian woman who he married - days before his removal from Canada - was also suing me. I had never even met this woman and certainly had never spoken about her or written about her, ever. At any rate it was clear. I was being sued by a man who was deported and by a complete stranger who he married days before his removal.

Standing in the heat of the burning sun, I suddenly recalled how Judi one of the government officers at Keza’s immigration hearing, had warned me not to rush into a divorce. Apparently, she said it is common for deported people to marry in a last attempt to stay in Canada. Mystified, I reread Keza and his new wife’s allegations against me. I couldn’t understand how telling my truth equaled defamation. Especially considering that I had paid a lawyer to review my book prior to its publication to ensure that I was respecting the rights of everyone in it. I also couldn’t understand how Keza could use our legal system when he had been deported and had no right to even set foot on Canadian soil, let alone in a Quebec court room. The whole thing felt like I was alive in a television episode of Dallas. Unfortunately for me, I was in real time and without a doubt in Canada.

Keza and his new wife were not suing me for money. Rather, the court documents specified other peculiar demands. First, they wanted to stop the publication of my book. They also wanted me to write a press release that said that I was not a victim of marriage fraud, and that Keza had no child. Then, they wanted me to send the press release out to a long list of media outlets, as well as post it on my book website and social media accounts. Last but not least, they wanted me to write a letter with the same content as the press release and send it to Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, signed from me. Not only were they trying to muzzle me, but they were also trying to get me to rewrite my personal life story. The whole thing appeared to be a bizarre attempt to paint me as a liar in order to get Keza back into Canada.

Lay an Egg in an Incubator

One of the more preposterous things in the dossier was a photocopy of DNA tests that claimed Keza was suddenly no longer the father of Tata’s baby boy. Knowing how simple it is to obtain falsified documents in Guinea, I didn’t buy it when I saw the photo of Keza in a doctor’s office with a swab in his mouth, along with a shot of Tata and a boy in a similar scene. Convincing perhaps to a Canadian who does not know just how corrupt things are in Guinea. But I certainly was not naïve enough to believe that the ‘tested’ boy in the pictures was the same baby that Keza had been deported for lying about. Of course, they tried to support the identity of the ‘tested’ child with a Guinean birth certificate. However, I knew from first hand experience that anyone in Guinea could easily buy a customized birth certificate if they can afford the price of the bribe. In fact, Keza himself had two birth certificates with two different birthdates, documents that Immigration Canada was aware of and possessed. (Keza’s explanation for his two different birth certificates was that his father wanted him to enlist in the Guinean military. At the time, Keza was too old. So, they paid to have a new birth certificate created to pretend that Keza was seven years younger. Keza left copies of both certificates behind when he abandoned me in 2008, so I turned them over to Immigration.) As for the email evidence that was used to prove Keza’s misrepresentation in court, they tried to say in another document that he did author the emails and admitted he had a child, only he didn’t understand French so he had no idea what he was writing. Strange indeed, especially considering that he and I communicated exclusively in French.

Keza and his wife insisted that their tests were authentic since they were conducted by a ‘reputable’ company. But according to another news story that I found tucked inside the pink dossier, the Canadian government rejected the authenticity of these tests. Immigration was quoted in the article and said that the tests did not follow Canadian government protocol because they were not done under proper supervision.

I wondered why Keza was going after me with this lawsuit, and why hadn’t he presented these DNA tests before? He had years to produce this so-called evidence during his lengthy hearing process in Canada. Did he think that I somehow had the power to influence or even reverse the government’s deportation order against him?

Chicken Fried Art

Soon after, I appeared in a Quebec court to defend myself at a preliminary hearing. Without even reading my book, a judge placed it under a temporary publication ban in order to protect Keza’s privacy rights. I couldn’t believe that book banning even existed in Canada. One of the things that bothered me most was an accusation that suggested I called Keza a monster in my book. In fact, I called the bureaucratic government of Canada a monster, but not him. The media printed the accusation in an article the following day without verifying that it was actually false. (Mind you, since my book was officially banned, I suppose they couldn’t.) It would have been illegal for me to correct the journalist because I was not allowed to discuss my book at all anymore either. So, I let it go. Besides, I had bigger problems frying in my pan.

I used up all of my savings within four weeks paying for the lawyer I hired. I managed to raise some more funds to help with my legal defense costs, but my debt grew far faster then the donations. (Justice requires money and the legal system is big business!) I quickly learned that this case could take a few years and I needed thousands of dollars to defend myself. I also realized that Canada’s draconian defamation laws were not in my favor. Like a cheated lover, I felt betrayed by the justice system. I needed to enlist the help of an expert, someone who understood the charter and believed in freedom of expression. With no money left, I felt cornered. Could I lose simply because I had no resources to hire the expert help I needed?

Golden Nest Egg

The day before our first big winter storm of the year, I woke up in the middle of the night with a clear vision. I needed to contact one of Canada’s leading Charter experts and go to Montreal to meet with him before everything closed for the Christmas holidays. The next morning my intuition was still strong, so much so that I couldn’t dismiss it. Determined, I managed to secure a meeting for the next day, the Friday before Christmas.

Friday morning a massive blizzard was grounding flights and paralyzing traffic across the province. Still, I boarded the 6 a.m. morning train. The train sliced through the heavy snow and made it to Montreal in time for my 9 a.m. meeting. I traveled a long way for what turned out to be a very brief consultation, but what I learned made it worth every penny. The expert confirmed that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protected my right to write my story. He also suggested that if my book was permanently banned, it meant that any Canadian could just as easily lose their right to write their memoir. It was clear to me that I needed the expert and his colleagues on my team. My only problem was where would I find the money to pay for them?

The next day I lunched with a dear friend who wanted to hear all about what I had learned on my recent trip to Montreal. I almost choked on my dumpling at dim-sum when he offered to help me financially, so that I could hire the experts.

“If you can’t use the money you have in life to help change people’s lives for the better, then what good is it for?” He stated with dignity.

Armed with proper counsel and a better understanding of my rights, we entered into a negotiation process in February 2013 in an attempt to settle. The same day, a marriage fraud case hit the news in Toronto. A woman had married a Cuban and was ditched by her husband who flew the coop shortly after he arrived in Canada. Like all of the cases I knew of, he left no forwarding address or contact. I wondered if this woman could be sued as well for defamation, because she went public with her story and said that she was a victim of marriage fraud. Even though of course, it was next to impossible to prove in a court of law.

Today, my book is free. We agreed to settle without admission, on the basis that I would change names and remove photographs. This entire process made me realize just how important it was for me to stand up for my rights. Laws were changed in Canada thanks to my voice, and thanks to all the other voices of outspoken marriage fraud victims who refused to remain powerless. It’s a huge step. The new marriage fraud laws are far from perfect, and I know there is still a lot of work to do to improve the system.

As for this bad-egg episode, I know that my book was worth defending. Not only will it educate people on the issue of marriage fraud, but it is a good example of how vague our Freedom of Expression rights are in a western democracy like Canada.

After this jarring experience, I feel like I have earned a doctorate degree from the school of life. The silver lining though is that I now have an intimate understanding of what the once banned writer Anaïs Nin meant when she wrote: “Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.” In other words, everything doesn’t always hatch like it’s cracked up to be, but with a sunny-side attitude and some hard-boiled courage (along with a large quantity of chicken feed should you ever end up in the court system), one can survive life’s biggest challenges.

1 Greg Quill, Knopf US Investigating Publishing Scientology Tell-All in Canada, Toronto Star (link), accessed February 5, 2013