POLITICAL PRESSURE COST MACCAN LEGION ITS CHARTER - SIMPSON

Rick Simpson vows he will bring his message to the people of the
Maccan area.

However, it will not be at Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 134, in
Maccan.

The facility lost its charter on Wednesday as statements issued by the
executive supporting Simpson's production of hemp oil were deemed
contrary to the charter the legion operates under.

"I think it's a total farce. (the legion) is not following their own
rulebook. They are supposed to stand for freedom of Canadian people,'
Simpson said.

"I sent evidence to Maritime Command three years ago showing them how
this worked and they did nothing. So who's controlling them?"

Simpson's father, a veteran of the Second World War was wounded in
Normandy when the troops landed. He has had a strong affiliation with
the legion and what it stands for, but feels political pressure forced
Legion Command to pull the plug on his meeting.

"The Royal Canadian Legion is not supposed to have any political
affiliation. But what other reason for shutting this down other than
political pressure caused this,' he asked?

"They were told do something about that legion. You have to shut them
up,' he added.

Following the charter being pulled, Branch 134 president George Theal
is tasked with finding members of the community to serve in an
executive fashion in order for the charter to be reinstated.

"We don't have a plan in place yet. Hopefully we can get this up and
going by the first of the week,' Theal said.

"We will be working with the command to get it open and get activities
like Bingo back up and running. We had to temporarily shut that down
as well,' he said.

Rick Dwyer, a past president of Branch 134 and advocate of Simpson's
production of hemp oil, disagrees with Legion Command statements
saying the executive was setting their own policy.

"We are not trying to set policy here, we are just trying to inform
the people what's right,' Dwyer said.