Having to deal with a man who has harassed her for years has made learning the job of being the mayor of Montreal’s largest borough more difficult, Côte-des-Neiges—Notre Dame-de-Grâce Mayor Sue Montgomery said during Robert “Robin” Edgar’s trial on Tuesday.
“It distracts me from my work. I manage the biggest borough in the city and I have to look over my shoulder all the time. It is difficult,” Montgomery said while testifying before Quebec Court Judge Flavia Longo at the Montreal courthouse where Edgar is undergoing his second trial this year on three charges related to his alleged harassment of the borough mayor.
Initially, the 59-year-old former photographer was charged with harassing Montgomery before and after the 2017 municipal election. Then, in August, he was charged with violating conditions he had agreed to for his release in the first case.
On March 12, a different judge found Edgar guilty of having violated his conditions (he has since appealed the judge’s decision) and now Longo is hearing evidence in the original case filed against him.
Montgomery described how she first came to know about Edgar around 1998, shortly after he began regular protests at a Unitarian church in N.D.G. that she attended. The church later decided to have Edgar removed as a member of the congregation. Montgomery said that, in turn, Edgar repeatedly asked her to write a story about his removal while she was a reporter at the Montreal Gazette.
“I didn’t see a story there,” Montgomery said while explaining how Edgar then turned his sights on her and, for many years, alleged she was part of a cover-up of “clergy abuse” within the church. While she was a reporter, the newspaper sent Edgar a cease and desist letter arguing that what Edgar was alleging was libellous. Montgomery said that instead of stopping the allegations, Edgar appeared eager to go to court over the issue. She said that the newspaper decided to drop the issue after learning that, at the time, Edgar was homeless and residing at the Old Brewery Mission.
Months after Montgomery retired from the Montreal Gazette, she tried her hand at politics by attempting to become the NDP’s candidate as the MP for her riding. She described how attempting to join the political process, with its open debates, created an opportunity for Edgar to make allegations in public.
This intensified when she ran in the municipal election, Montgomery said. She described an incident during a public debate in which Edgar showed up, sat in the front row and recorded everything on a video camera. Edgar asked all three candidates, including Montgomery, if they would respect Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and his right to protest.
When it came time for Montgomery to answer the question she gave a brief history of Edgar’s harassment and said: “This is what women put up with in our society and it has to stop. Stop filming me, please.”
Edgar posted the video on a blog he maintains. The video was played for Longo on Tuesday.
“I was emotional, fed up. I just wanted it to stop,” Montgomery said when she was asked how she felt during the debate. “(I’m) scared. I don’t know what he is going to do. The police say he is not violent, but it is psychological harassment.”
She also described how two days before the election, on Nov. 3, 2017, she was heading to a debate that was going to be aired on CBC radio early in the morning and found Edgar standing in the pouring rain outside the café where it was held.
“He said: ‘The tougher the cookie the harder the crumble’ — I think. It was a reference to how I had previously described myself as a tough cookie,” Montgomery said.
She also said she finally decided to file a complaint with the police after, following the election, she spotted Edgar standing on the same street where she lives. She said Edgar told her he was disappointed that he didn’t have his camera on him and uttered: “You’re going to have to show penance.”
Defence lawyer Trevick Jordan told Longo that he is “seriously debating” whether he will present a defence when the trial resumes Wednesday morning.