Prime Minister Jean Chrétien may have consented to being hit in the face with a pie last summer, a PEI courtroom heard yesterday.
As the trial of a Charlottetown man charged with assaulting Mr. Chrétien began, the legal argument over the issue of consent was mixed with evidence about how to concoct and conceal a cream pie.
Evan Brown, 24, a playwright who says he is a member of a loosely organized group called the PEI Pie Brigade, was charged last Aug. 16 after Mr. Chrétien was hit in the face with a whipped-cream pie at a Charlottetown fair.
The pie toss was shown on television across North America and caused a major review of security around the Prime Minister. Yesterday, a Provincial Court judge rejected a last-minute attempt by Mr. Brown's lawyer, Jim Hornby, to delay the trial so the defence could make a final legal attempt to force Mr. Chrétien to testify.
Chief Provincial Court Judge John Douglas, who saw several videotapes yesterday showing Mr. Brown hitting Mr. Chrétien with the pie, said the Prime Minister's testimony wasn't needed for the accused to make a full answer and defence in the case.
The Supreme Court of PEI has ruled that Mr. Chrétien can't be forced to testify in the widely publicized case, but Mr. Hornby said he is taking that decision to the province's highest appeal court.
The lawyer said Mr. Chrétien's testimony is essential to determine whether the Prime Minister was harmed by the incident or whether he somehow consented to the act by condoning earlier pie tosses at prominent politicians in Quebec.
Mr. Hornby said that in June of 1998 Mr. Chrétien was quoted in the Quebec newspaper La Presse as saying that many prominent people had been hit with pies and it was "an honour and distinction" (the French word prix).
But Judge Douglas said that even if Mr. Chrétien made the statement it did not constitute an invitation to throw pies at public figures.
In a statement of fact entered as evidence yesterday, Crown prosecutor Valerie Moore said Mr. Chrétien was "visibly startled and not amused" by the pie incident.
Throwing pies at public figures as a form of protest has become widespread in Quebec in recent years as a group called the entartistes has targeted personalities such as federal cabinet minister Stéphane Dion and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.
Ms. Moore said Mr. Brown's roommate told police that two entartistes from Quebec and social activist Aaron Koleszar met with Mr. Brown at his apartment to discuss tossing a cream pie at the Prime Minister.
But Mr. Brown told police that he acted spontaneously and would not say whether anyone else was involved in the planning.
He said he threw the pie to protest against everything from actions of the International Monetary Fund to the lack of labelling on genetically modified food.
In the police interview he said that he purchased some artificial whipped cream about 20 minutes before the Prime Minister's arrival. He entered the Charlottetown Civic Centre and went to a washroom where he placed it on a paper plate, which he folded and hid under a leather jacket that made him sweat as he waited for the Prime Minister.
Mr. Brown told police that he didn't use real pie or a metal plate because he didn't want to hurt Mr. Chrétien and insisted he was making a political statement, not a personal attack on the Prime Minister.