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The following is the text of a protest statement I handed out at the corner of City Hall on a Thursday and Friday, the last week of September, catching the lunch crowd around City Hall and the courthouses. I also visited downtown businesses. I wore a legal display of Royal Buchanan and Royal Stuart tartans. My Royal Stuart tartan wool shirt is older than I am, being made at the "cotton mill", as a Bradshaw Stradwick product. That's where my parents met. Dietrick, of Dietricks' Mens' Wear, estimated the value at $175. I was holding a sign that said "Enforce Ontario Law in Welland". A legal and public display of tartan is a call to arms.

When I, John Watt, first ran for mayor in 1985, I was fired as an Evening Tribune reporter and music columnist, for saying the Ward family was a crime family. My family, friends and I were victims. I was told Yvette Ward and eight un-named city councilors told police I was crazy for saying that. I was put in the hospital twice for two weeks, missing all public debates.
     In 1997, I handed out an eight page campaign statement detailing Ward family crimes and described the many gangs of organized crime that dominate Welland. The founding president of Satans' Choice in St. Catharines became the chamber of commerce head and the provincial Conservative candidate. Cindy Forster and her husband, the founding president of the Welland chapter of the Vagabonds. The Outlaws, the Italian and French mobs. I described massive financial frauds committed by city council and those business partners, including Americans. Those frauds, and your disappearing tax dollars are ongoing.
     I was told that Yvette Ward and eight un-named city councilors told police I was telling lies for handing out this statement. I was arrested for federal defamatory libel and provincial libel. "Her Majesty the Queen VS John Watt, file no. 984626, 984626". After two years in court all charges were dropped. I won. That court case cost taxpayers $28,000. After that, a Justice of the Peace, a crown attorney and a member of the Ward family were arrested for cocaine distribution, money laundering and home invasion. As my campaign continued, two members of the Ward family were jailed for life and another for sixteen years. Three became Hells' Angels.
    Mayor Campion said city hall couldn't afford a by-election, and Claudette Ward (Richard) was appointed by a secret vote. When the Ontario Ombudsman came to investigate, he was told faulty technology was to blame, and Mayor Campion wouldn't tell him who voted for her.

These are the most important questions you could ask candidates.

Did you vote for Claudette Ward?

Do you know the Ward family is a criminal organization?

I would suspect any member of city council who was willing to let that happen, and sit with her,

without complaining to their voters in person and through the media.

As a six time candidate, my life has been made to suffer in such a way I was unable to file the nomination forms in time. When I went to city hall in the morning, the deadline was 5:00. When I went back for more nomination forms for voter signatures, new signs said 2:00.

Welland needs a provincial inquiry more than another election that is made to look like an election. One statement proved that.
My younger brother was murdered by a drug overdose and held in a position of rigor mortise, so that he was in the same pose as one of the "canal worker" statues that Yvette Ward erected in Merritt Park. Do you think they would let me appear on COGECO TV and legally say the Ward family is a criminal organization and describe how my brother was murdered?

Election year 2018

After being a six-time candidate, and surviving in Welland for another four years,

there is one simple reason I am not a mayoral candidate for this election. John Ward came

to the store where I visit and help a friend when he's open Saturday and Sunday. He had

a bodyguard with him, very tall, without saying a word. He said he was angry with me,

saying he blamed me for him losing an election when he ran as a councilor candidate.

He called the next weekend to talk again while I sat with my friend. That's when the horrors of my life began to visit me again in my new apartment. That will be a new page.

I always had my nomination forms handed in as soon as possible, so everyone could see I was going to be a candidate, and qualify for all the media attention possible. That was when Welland was gaming, formerly called rigging, elections. The province passed new laws that made Welland City Council change their election procedures, including moving up the final date to apply so all candidates had more time before the vote. This allowed new candidates to have the bylaw permission to have time to go door-to-door before the vote.

For the first time, after the horrors continued, I decided to wait until the final few days, letting those criminals think they won, and back off because I wasn't a candidate.

That didn't work, but I overcame theft of money, equipment and poisonings, to keep going.

City Hall election officials didn't give me enough nomination forms for citizen signatures. I went back Friday, the last day of filing with the last day of filing deadline being when City Hall closed, 5:00. When I went back as I was easily finding people to sign my forms, there were typewriter sized print-outs saying the filing deadline was now 2:00.

Welland City Hall buys discredited voting machines from the United States. I doubt there will be any ability to let me be a write-in candidate. I always had legal options,

but using a judge for politics is for me, like doing business by lawyer. Now I have to.

A team of outside lawyers has said, going back three elections, after I won my defamatory and libel lawsuits, that I shouldn't sue the individuals and businesses that made the lives of my family and myself suffer. I should sue the City of Welland for failing to protect me. They say the province will make the city pay. Fifteen years ago, they were saying two and a half million for me, and two million for them. That total can only have increased after more additional suffering, injury and pain, when police records become evidence for me.

The Federal and Provincial governments subsidize me and offer encouragement.

The five letters of support on the page "House of Commons", from different members of Conservative, Liberal and N.D.P Members of Parliament are my first proof of that.

The first job of Mayor, what makes him Mayor over Councilors, is keeping them honest.

The second job is telling the Police Chief what to do. Our newspaper never printed that.

If my brother can be murdered, the worst example, if I can be physically assaulted and threatened and have a cup of urine splashed on me while I'm being threatened, in front of a business owner and customers, before the filing date, and police only take reports,

you can imagine who is saying don't help my family or myself.

Different police officers can say they want to help me, but are told they can't.

They also say they would like to arrest members of the Ward family, but the judge won't convict them. I have court documents and an eighteen minute video of a mob lawyer that would be a fix for that, if I was Mayor. Here, I'm not going to disclose other witnesses.

The date today, 9/28/2018, is when I begin new pages that could redefine Welland,

for the voter, the taxpayer, those who use municipal services, and the canal park-lands.

My All Peace Be Upon You.

Protest Statement

Here we have Mayor Campion and Claudette Ward (Richard) with the same campaign slogan.

They are saying they are about positive change. Claudette Ward can't really be about positive change when it's about the Ward family continuing their criminal and political domination of Welland. She also can't say "re-elect" because she wasn't elected. City Council appointed her as a city councilor. They do vote to do that, but as you saw above, this vote was against the municipal act. Politicians in Welland know that you will get some votes if you can say re-elect, because some voters will vote for the politician in power, thinking they will win again, so they can go up to them and say I voted for you and you should help me. Claudette Ward is also using an old photo, some say a very old photo. That's the comment I'm hearing the most when I'm talking with voters.

As far as Mayor Campions' slogan about "continuing positive change", you can see the positive change he wants to continue, where his power base comes from, The Ward Family.

The Ward Family called themselves The Ward Gang when I was in high school, but then changed it to The Ward Family. That meant you didn't use their names, just saying a brother or a sister was there, and if they said the mother said something, it had to be that way. When I moved back to Welland before my first election in 1985 and started talking about The Ward Family, people would tell me to be quiet, being afraid, saying don't say their name.

Is Claudette Ward (Richard) going for voter sympathy, telling them about her two brothers that are in jail for life, and her other brother who got out of jail after thirteen years? Is she blaming the new president of Hells' Angels for kicking out three of her brothers because he said their pedophile activity was too disgusting for the other Hells' Angels?

When John Ward ran for city council, the most comments I heard from voters was that they were afraid to see a member of The Ward Family standing outside their door. People who call City Hall to complain about a city service can get a visit from a couple of the Ward brothers, knocking on their door after City Hall hours. Being a daughter of Yvette Ward was very different from being a brother. My favorite Yvette Ward quote is "I don't care if you arrest two of my sons, I have two more to take their place". If Claudette Ward (Richard) has distinguished herself at all, it's because she's the only one of fourteen children to go to university.

I understand The Ward Family, how children can be raised to end up like this. It must be horrible for them, the criminal and political upbringing of M.P.P. Judy LaMarsh and Yvette Ward.

The long, very dark shadow they cast over their sons and daughters and their children weighs heavily on them as being who they are, and that dark shadow carries the weight of the Order of Canada that Yvette Ward took to her grave.

Do you want to know how psychotic and sadistic your family is, Claudette Richard? Do you remember that election where your family got so many people to complain to the flyer delivery service, they decided to stop handing out my campaign statements? In heavy snow and icy winter weather, I started handing them out myself, not as a candidate, just as a delivery boy.

The last day before the election, probably waiting so any Tribune reporting would be after the vote, you sent your son out, posing as a jogger, knocking me down, holding me down, and then kicking me in the ribs. I was tired, delivering 400 campaign statements in the morning and another 400 after a break, into the evening. Right away, I moved my delivery bag around and let the thick layer of paper absorb the kicking.

When I realized your son was going to keep kicking me until he broke some ribs, I cried out a couple of times and heard his psychotic and sadistic laughter. As he waddled away, having a side-to-side motion, walking slowly to a waiting van, I could have run up from behind and jumped up on his shoulders, driving him to the sidewalk and cracking his forehead down on it.

I didn't do that. Did you also enjoy the continuing email he sent me after that happened?

That sadistic pleasure, only in your head, when you didn't hurt me, should be proof for you.

The homeowner who saw this attack on his driveway called the police, asking me to sit inside and warm up. Officer Aiello came and drove me around to your house, where I said I saw him earlier, and then to the police station, where he asked me to lift my shirt to see any markings or bruises. He said he wasn't going to arrest your son because I wasn't beaten up enough. That's your neighbourhood, those are your voters and that was one of your police officers. That's not positive change if you want to keep all that going on... and on... and on...

as long as there are Ward Family members who feel your same sense of criminal entitlement.

I'm a victim. I'm not going to murder, rape, drug addict or poison the food in the residences of members of your family. You should be happy all I do is act legally, not that you will ever understand the power of the truth.

Is David Clow telling voters that Sam Ward, your family member who runs British Columbia,

drove him around to help him take photos of environmental sites to build his political protest domain? That's what he told me when I first met him. Sam Ward used another name, trying to take over the Rose Festival at a meeting held in City Hall. Do voters really think that someone who moved back to Welland a couple of years ago really knows the corruption he says he is fighting? In a way that's true, knowing the Ward Family, but he's just running under your cover.

Say your name, say your name, Ward, and let your voters catch that old negative rush.

It's only fair to explain what I understand that you don't. This also includes your mother bragging about having over 250 grandchildren. What you have never thought is that you, your brothers and sisters, your children, and the over 250 grandchildren, are the punishment for the Ward Family as created by M.P.P. Judy LaMarsh and Yvette Ward. All through the Liberal and Quebecois eras of Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau to Jean Chretien, including Brian Mulroney,

your mother began each year by going to the first and only Liberal Party meeting she attended,

to pick up a cheque for $1,000,000 for her work in Welland. How much of a shadow is that account casting over your lives, after it disappeared?

I know what it would take for The Ward Family to wake up in the land of the new rising sun.