True confession time Steve!

Steve has left a new comment on your post, "The Fugatives! starring the MMF & Company Inc. Theatre Players"

My wife and I are actually great fans of The Fugitive and we couldn't believe that there was a stage play running based on this classic TV series. We're actually writing you from Omaha, but we'd definitely be willing to come out to Winnipeg to see this. Can you let us know where, when, how much, all the usual?

Steven and Arlene Chipman
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Dear Steve,

Thank you for writing. Great series wasn't it!

We don't quite know how to break this to you but there is no MMF & Company Inc. Theatre Players. To explain:

(1) The Manitoba Metis Federation Incorporated is a Canadian taxpayer funded organization with an annual budget of about $25 million. In May, 2005 it filed a defamation lawsuit against a website (www.CyberSmokeSignals.com) which since the Summer of 2000 had been openly critical of its lack of accountability, organizational transparency and spending practices

(2) It might help in our saterical, imaginary re-make of the original The Fugitive if we gave you a little insight into why we choose the cast we did:

(i) Fugitive 1 - Terry Belhumeur was and is the registered owner of CyberSmokeSignals. He's a guide and operates an outfitting business in Manitoba during the duck and goose hunting season. CI 05-01-41955 is the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Registered File Number for the case

Terrance Paul Belhumeur

(ii) Fugitive 2 - me who contributed many articles to CSS.com

Photograph unavailable - enrolled in RCMP's Witness Protection Program

(iii) The One Armed Man - Lionel R. Chartrand a Manitoba Legal Aid attorney who was serving as the site's pro bono General Legal Counsel. As far back as September, 2003 sources had advised us the MMF had assigned one of their solicitors (likely Murray Trachtenberg) to monitor CSS looking for litigious material. In effect, we'd been placed on a "defamation watch" which is why we retained Lionel Chartrand. But get this, if you can believe it he was the one who conceived the idea for the allegedly defamatory article, yes, wrote it and gave his permission to post it on the internet. We've got the black print (i.e. e-mail) to prove it.

Lionel R. Chartrand

It just gets better. Unbeknownst to us at the time, he entered into a personal services contract with the same MMF which we later learned about quite by accident. Wonder if that's why he has never been named a Co-Defendant in the lawsuit? Doesn't end there. Documentation we saw strongly suggests Manitoba Metis Federation President David Chartrand was prepared to ask one of their attorneys who is now suing us (Murray Norman Trachtenberg) to draft a retainer agreement if Lionel Chartrand were interested

(iv) Police Lieutenant Paul Girard - we couldn't think of anyone better suited to play the role than MMF and Winnipeg attorney Murray Norman Trachtenberg. His relentless, obsessive-compulsive .... fixation with such a piddly lawsuit is legendary. We estimate over the years he's raked up at least $150,000 in publicly financed billables (he charges a minimum $250/hour)

Murray Norman Trachtenberg

(v) Stafford Chief of Police - a Chief must be an exemplary citizen of impeccable character right?

David "Noble" Chartrand

So if you visit Winnipeg, Steve, please don't come to see The Fugitives as a stage play. God, we hope Arlene is still speaking to you.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk