Inside The Injunction: Stopping Bulk Pseudo‑Legal Mail To A BC Court Registry
A small BC registry faced an outsized problem: one litigant’s avalanche of quasi‑legal letters and “certificates” that looked official enough to demand hours or days of staff time to sort, scan, and check. We trace how the Attorney General sought an injunction and how the court landed on a careful middle ground—no more bulk mail, but full access for legitimate filings in person, by agent, or through Court Services Online, with authority to discard items that don’t meet the Rules of Court. It’s a practical fix aimed at protecting open courts from being gamed by invented paperwork, without closing the door on real claims.
From there, we pivot to the high‑stakes world of civil forfeiture and unexplained wealth orders in British Columbia. Unlike criminal forfeiture, these tools can target property without a conviction and sometimes on reasonable suspicion alone. We break down how the civil standard shifts burdens, why Section 8 privacy arguments matter, and what “in rem” actions mean when the state goes after assets rather than people. You’ll hear how cross‑border conduct can still count as “unlawful activity,” what judicial discretion really looks like at this threshold, and why “constitutionally permissible” isn’t the same as wise policy.
Across both stories runs a shared question: how do we keep the justice system open, efficient, and fair when it’s pulled between access and abuse, privacy and enforcement? We offer clear explanations, grounded examples, and practical context to help you form your own view on filing limits, registry triage, property rights, and the true cost of suspicion‑based powers. If this conversation helps you see the legal system with sharper edges, share it with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful breakdowns, and leave a review to tell us where you stand.
Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan is live on CFAX 1070 every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. It’s also available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Legally Speaking, Jan 8, 2026
Adam Stirling [00:00:00] This time for our regular segment, joined as always by Barrister and Solicitor with Mulligan Defence Lawyers, Michael Mulligan with Legally Speaking on CFAX 1070. Afternoon, Michael. Happy New Year.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:10] Hey, thanks so much. Always great to be here.
Adam Stirling [00:00:12] Some interesting items on the agenda. I’m wondering if I’m reading this correctly. It says a man was ordered to stop sending material to a court registry after sending, amongst other things, does that say 1,235 letters?
Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:24] Indeed it does, and you would think he would be the poster child for the Canada Post, given the all letters being sent and the implications of that, but indeed this actually showed up in court in the form of the Attorney General of British Columbia seeking an injunction to prohibit this man from continuing to write letters to the Smithers Supreme Court Regsitry. And so first of all the registry, if you go into a courthouse have not only like court rooms, but there’s also the registry where things would be you know filed. If you’re suing somebody you go and file documents, there about that or replies to things all sorts of stuff might come into the court registry. Who would have the task of you know examining it, stamping it, and filing it and you know all that sort of thing. Well If you wonder whether you might send too many things to the court Registry this would be a case dealing with that. This fellow started sending letters to the court registry along with various other things which were described as sort of quasi legal documents trying to like to get in touch with judges or other judicial officials and it sounds like he has some actual litigation going on. Some cases he’s involved with. He’s been sending things including described with various titles that he’s kind of made up self-titled documents including things entitled things such as a non-negotiable notice of acceptance. That’s not the real thing. A notice of dishonour. Whatever that might be a notice of repentance of sins for cause or a notice of rescission and requisition for general cause and further certificates of dishonour. And so he’s sending all these things, and I should say in this decision, He was described as generally polite, civil in his attendance is in person, you know, mailing these things coming in. He’s not, you know, threatening someone, but he’s sending a lot of stuff. And maybe as a result of the postage Implications of you know 1200-some-odd letters and I must say that was in less than a year.
Adam Stirling [00:02:32] Wow.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:02:33] That was between 2003 and 2024, and it carried on He adopted a practise of sending bulk deliveries, so I guess like bundling up a bunch of these things, certificates, and letters and various things, and then sending them in in bulk. And the judge on the application gave an example of one of these things, a notice of repentance of sins for cause, where the person, for example, started by in this kind of quasi-legal form he’d made up. He described himself as a sentient moral being, having examined the path his feet were on, and having concluded that he’s dishonoured many, including various Supreme Court judges and so on, names enacted for this decision. And so he was filing this notice of repentance for his sins. But it became so much that the court registry, I mean, the staff there, right? They would have an obligation to, when things come in, file them away correctly, right. And for example, the registry evidence was that particular registry might receive on average five pieces of mail per day, interestingly, five things by fax, so somebody still got a fax machine they’re working on, and 30 emails. But with this guy sending hundreds and hundreds of things in bulk delivery, the staff at Court Registry was spending between two hours and three days. Reviewing, scanning, filing, and otherwise trying to deal with all of these things the guy kept sending in because you never know when the, you know, notice of repentance for sins for cause might also include a reply to a statement of claim or something.
Adam Stirling [00:04:11] Yeah, you have to check it all.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:04:13] Yeah. You gotta check it. All you’re the court registry. So they’re doing that, taking days and days of work going through all these things. And some of the things apparently cause even though he’s is generally polite and civil. Some of the things like, you know, notices of sins and so on cause it was referencing various people who, You know like worked there and sheriffs and judges and judicial officials, some of the thing like the you know, communication about somebody being a notice of sin or talking about them repenting and various things, I guess cause some mild worry, among some of the staff there, in addition to just the vast resources being consumed and dealing with this guy’s pseudo legal stuff that he was dropping off there. And so the judge first of all, to figure out like, okay, what, what authority is there to do anything about this? The man’s not threatening, he’s not assaulting anyone. He’s just sending a bunch of stuff. And so the judge looked at some authority, there’s some acts, there is a thing called the Supreme Court Act, which for example says that the Attorney General of B.C. has an obligation to deal with operations and maintenance of court facilities, registries, and administrative services. There’s the Attorney Generals Act, which speaks about things like the attorney general’s general obligation to superintend matters connected to the administration of justice. You know, that’s a, you know, something. And then sort of some inherent jurisdiction for the attorney general to try to do things, Alleviate public nuisances and so on. And ultimately the judge on this application concluded that they did have authority to restrict this and decided to do so but of course there’s a concern about restricting somebody’s ability to go to court after all the guys involved in some actual litigation. and so you can’t just say you can file anything. That’s not on. And so the middle ground the judge found on this was to restrict how the person can communicate, including not allowing him to mail things. I’m not sure that’s going to solve it, but he can’t mail things, that’s the order, and he’s maintained various ways in which he can file correspondence. So the correspondence can be filed at the registry it can’t be it can be filed at The Registry not by mail, any longer including by bulk mail, bad news for Canada Post, but he can submit documents for filing either in person through a thing called court services online, like a way you could file documents you know electronically given it is 2026.
Adam Stirling [00:06:49] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:06:49] Or through an agent filing things, but the judge has tried to admonish saying you can only submit documents if they are in accordance with the rules of court or a specific direction of the court and has given authority to disregard and discard correspondence received by the registry. That’s not that, but it does leave me wondering. Are they still not going to have to go through all this stuff?
Adam Stirling [00:07:11] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:07:11] You know, even if he’s not mailing, somebody’s going to, does this thing comply with the rule of court? I don’t know. If somebody sent you 200 letters, you’re probably, so you have to start opening them, scanning them, looking at them, and consulting the rules of court. So anyways, it’s bad news for Canada Post to be less postage there. And maybe this will provide some relief for the poor staff at the registry there. But in any case, that’s what’s going on and the answer is you can send just too many letters to the court registry you might find yourself at the end of an injunction.
Adam Stirling [00:07:42] So.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:07:43] Latest of the smithers court register
Adam Stirling [00:07:45] I was just going to say, if he breaks the rules, is there a punishment or can he be held in contempt? Like, is this a steppingstone to sanction or does it say?
Michael T. Mulligan [00:07:54] Could be. This is a court order, so it would be like any injunction, that’s what this is, right? It’d be like, just like an injunction saying, stop blocking the logging road.
Adam Stirling [00:08:02] Yep.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:08:03] If he was to do otherwise, like he was to mail something in rather than in person submitting his document, I mean, you would wind up with all kinds of arguments potentially about things like, you know, is this in accordance with the rules of court? You could readily imagine how, you know there’s no reference of course in the rules of court to a notice of rescission and a notice repentance of sin that’s not on.
Adam Stirling [00:08:26] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:08:27] But you know what what if it turns into well they’re now just all attached as an affidavit or to some piece of legislative litigation or something so you know if he persists and he’s prepared to show up in person, polite as he is. That still seems to me somebody there is going to have to go through all this stuff so maybe it’s another example, we all just depend, in life, on resonableness, and it’s pretty hard to sort of put down in words what exactly I want to let you do here.
Adam Stirling [00:08:54] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:08:54] Yeah, you can engage in litigation. Yeah, you might have things you want to file, but please don’t start making up notices of dishonour. That’s just not the real thing. It does have, I must say, there is this unfortunate thing about these people that call themselves, like free men on the land.
Adam Stirling [00:09:08] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:09:09] Who will like do things like refuse to get driver’s licences and, you know, just insist they can kind of walk the earth like cane and, you know. You’ll occasionally see these people sort of showing up. You know, in court, I’ll sit there as they go, oh my goodness. I thank God I’m not a provincial court judge having to deal with this person who shows up and insists that they’re a sentient being and not a real person and they don’t have a name or something. But anyways, there is a theme of that. I don’t know how that quite spreads, but there is this kind of thread. In, at least in British Columbia, people that come up with these kind of pseudo-legal things that cause other problems in the justice and legal system. Some of them seem to be obsessed with things like notarizing documents. And so there’s this whole thread of people that like to make up various just completely fictitious things and then try to get appointments with things notaries public and try to get them to stamp them. And then think that I guess they’re whatever the thing they’ve dreamed up their you know notice of dishonour or whatever somehow has some Official character because they managed to get some kind of official to stamp the thing. So there are all these weird, you know themes and so on going on out there and I guess for some people it can be hard to distinguish reality from fiction, but anyways, this is the result. We seem to have staff at the court registry spending hours or days on end picking through bulk mailings, trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff. So I guess we’ll see whether this particular injunction has the desired effect and whether he just stops making these things up.
Adam Stirling [00:10:44] All right, let’s take our first break there, Michael Mulligan. We will continue with Legally Speaking right after this.
[00:10:51] COMMERCIAL.
[00:10:51] Legally speaking continues on CFAX 1070 back on the air with Michael Mulligen from Mulligan Defence Lawyers. Michael, up next in our agenda, says an unexplained wealth order concerning seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars found to be constitutional. What happened?
Michael T. Mulligan [00:11:07] Well, this is a product of a piece of legislation we’ve got in British Columbia dealing with what’s called civil forfeiture. And the background of that is this, really. We’ve had for a long time in the criminal code provisions whereby if you’re convicted of a crime relating to something, like the thing that you got due to your crime can be forfeited. It’s probably not a surprise to anyone, right. It’s like if you you know, got a bunch of money, you’re convicted of it by selling drugs, you are convicted of the drug offence, the government can take the money you got from the drug sales. It’s probably not a big surprise to anyone. But what’s changed over the past few years in British Columbia is that we’ve introduced here, the Government of BC has introduced here legislation that’s called civil forfeiture legislation. It was first introduced in 2005 and then there were a bunch of amendments in 2024 replacing the original act. And the concept there is that even if somebody is not convicted of any criminal offence at all, or never even charged with any criminal offence, the government can try to take property on a civil standard of probably, if they can make out that the property was like the proceeds of unlawful activity, or the instruments of unlawfully activity, things like that. And in the civil context, things that apply in a criminal context don’t apply. Like for example, you’re not presumed to be innocent. And you don’t have any right to remain silent. And it’s good enough to prove that probably that money you had there was not one of those kinds of things. and so there are some really big policy questions there about that and it’s a good reminder to everyone and maybe people have thought about it too in the context of that Aboriginal title case in Richmond, right. Property or what you own is really to a large extent beyond what you’re able to, you know, fend people off and push around in your shopping cart. It’s really a matter of, well, what is the government going to let you have?
Adam Stirling [00:13:00] Exactly. Yeah. What will the government defend for you?
Michael T. Mulligan [00:13:03] Yeah, that’s right. You mean, can you stop people from taking your fill in the blank if not, and the government’s not willing to, it’s not really yours. So this has an interesting background. The background is this. So the person involved in this case was involved with some securities allegations in the United States about 10 years ago, and he was alleged to have been involved in a pump and dump stock scheme. Which is like, you know, talking up some flimsy company and then getting a price to go up and then dumping all of the shares at the higher price. So he was alleged to have done that by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And he entered into an agreement back in 2017 to settle that investigation, whereby he didn’t admit any wrongdoing, but agreed to pay back or pay seven hundred and eighty some odd thousand dollars plus a bunch of interest to the Securities Change Commission. So we entered into that agreement in the United States and he paid it. So he didn’t agree that he did anything wrong but agreed to pay this money. And so you think that might be it, but no, it’s not because this fellow had also sent a whole bunch of money up to a law firm in British Columbia. Now, that eventually attracted the attention of the Law Society of British Columbia, who investigated the lawyer at the law firm, who eventually the Law society found was engaged in things that could be associated with money laundering. And the lawyer was ultimately disbarred by the Law Association. But the money is still there in BC, right? And this sort of account, the trust account of the law society, you take it over the management of. And so this fellow from the U.S. wants his money back. and that prompted British Columbia, the government here, the civil forfeiture people, which is just a part of the provincial government to seek this thing, which is called an unexplained wealth order. Basically it’s a thing that can be applied for under this legislation on a fairly low standard and the, that was part of this case. Which was just reasonable grounds to suspect, like a suspicion. That the money might be somehow like you know something you’ve got from some illegal activity, no proof of it not even reasonable grounds to believe you’ve done something, certainly not a criminal standard just sort of a suspicion. And the legislation now allows for them to apply for you to it’s basically explain yourself if they’re suspicious in this way. And so basically what it means is that if the government’s suspicious of money that you’ve got. How could you possibly have any money in this, you know, economy, whatever, right.
Adam Stirling [00:15:47] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:15:48] Explain yourself. Where do you get it? You know, how did you, how do you save up that money? Did you inherit it from who? Let’s see.
Adam Stirling [00:15:54] Yeah Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:15:55] and so the fellow was opposing that. And it was a constitutional argument saying that this really amounts to a breach of his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Right? Everybody’s heard of that concept.
Speaker 3 [00:16:07] Hmm
Michael T. Mulligan [00:16:07] Um, and he was arguing that, hey, you know, I, people shouldn’t have to be, um, required to sort of account for themselves, right? Particularly in a circumstance where you haven’t been convicted of anything. It’s just a suspicion. Um, in sort of arguing that look, you could have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to somebody’s financial affairs, right. I suspect most listeners would not want to have to. Go and explain to them about where to get that money in your bank account, who do you inherit that from, how much are you making, what’s going on over there, right? I think it should make some inherent sense, right, many people want to be private about their financial affairs. But in British Columbia, if there is now a suspicion that that money might be, for example, the product of, quote, unlawful activity, you may have to explain yourself. Now that’s another interesting thing here because that definition, well, what is lawful activity. And it extends even beyond what might be unlawful in British Columbia, right? The unlawfully activity, there’s no allegation this man did it committed any crime in British Colombia, right. He’s some guy from the U S who sent some money to a law firm up here saying that it was to like settle a claim or pay fees or do something. Right. And it can be unlawful activity, even if it occurred somewhere else. First of all, if it is an offence under the act of that jurisdiction, which you might, if you think about that for a minute, cause you some worries because you know, do you really want somebody who maybe committed the offence of failing to wear their burka or something, right? But it also has to be the same activity would have been an offence in British Columbia if it had occurred in British Colombia. So that would at least eliminate the worry that you might be committing some offence of moral turpitude in some, you know country that has values that are very different from Canada. But it could be some activity somewhere else and that’s kind of what’s alleged here and so the judge found that yes there can be a section 8 charter analysis that can apply even in the context of civil things not just criminal where that most often comes up but found ultimately that this legislation was constitutionally valid that it did have a sort of a balance balancing of interests in it, it was sufficient to survive that charter challenge. There is some residual, there is some judicial discretion, although I must say in fairness, not much, because once you get this sort of suspicion, reasonable grounds to be suspicious that the money or property or whatever it might be, might be like something that was unlawful and that’s all there was here, right? You know, from on the face of it, the argument was, well look, they had this investigation and didn’t admit a liability, I paid the agreed upon amount, I’m done. Right? Appreciate it or might be suspicious. Maybe you did something else or maybe you got some other money nobody else found out about, but just a suspicion. And so if you get to that fairly low threshold, a judge could only refuse one of these, uh, uh explanations to basically explain your wealth. If it would be quote, clearly not in the interests of justice, which is a pretty high bar, right? Clearly on the interest of justice. So it’s, well, there is some judicial oversight that ain’t much. It’s not what some judge saying, I think this is a good idea or I agree or I’m finding something. And so in the civil context, that was upheld. One of the other interesting arguments is this, so this is also important to the decision. One of arguments, and it’s accurate from a legal perspective, is that these sort of things, like these applications to like, the government wants to take the money ultimately. They want to get the money that was in the trust account that was this guys. The Application is what’s referred to as in rem. It’s like with respect to the money rather than the person, and so you could just say, well, I’m not going to challenge it. I’m not going to try to let the government just take my money or take my car or take my house or whatever. Right.
Adam Stirling [00:20:06] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:20:06] What’s at stake is the property rather than you, like you’re not going go to jail over it. You could just walk away from all of your money or walk away from your car or walk away from your house. And so that was a factor, too, for the judge in determining that this was constitutionally acceptable. And also, I should say this. Of course, we’ve talked about this before. A decision that something is constitutionally permissible is not a judicial finding that is wise, fair, or a good idea, or anything else, right? It’s just that, yeah, that’s allowed. And I think I might have used this analogy before. It’s sort of like, you know, when you determine what dose of drugs somebody should be taking, you don’t figure out what’s going to kill them and say, well, we’ve just backed it off just a tiny bit and therefore that’s just the right amount. Go for it.
Adam Stirling [00:20:54] Yeah.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:20:54] And that’s all you get when there’s a constitutional challenge is not the judge saying, yeah, this is a really fair way to do it. Or yeah, people should have to explain themselves, but they’re just saying, this is permissible. And so I just leave for everyone who’s listening to all this, just to think about those sort of things. Do you want to live in a place where you can have property taken away on the basis of probably? And do you want to live in place where if there’s a government that has a suspicion about what you’re doing, you’ve got to get up and explain yourself and where did you get that thing? And how did you get, and how did you pay for it? Who gave you that? But that’s what we have. And you know on one level people might think well I don’t like people who have all this money it might be illegal, but on the other hand you probably don’t want to be called out to have to explain all your financial affairs because the government officials gotten suspicious of you, and a judge can’t get to the level of clearly not in the interest of justice to not allow it. So that’s what we have and the man’s gonna have to explain himself or he’s got to walk away from his money, so as for latest from the BC Supreme Court on unexplained wealth order in British Columbia.
Adam Stirling [00:21:57] Alright, legally speaking, during the second half of our second hour every Thursday, Michael, thank you so much. Pleasure as always.
Michael T. Mulligan [00:22:03] Thanks so much, always great to be here.
Adam Stirling [00:22:04] Alright, quick break. News next.
Automatically Transcribed on January 16, 2026 – MULLIGAN DEFENCE LAWYERS