Doc about RCMP shooting reveals larger issues

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This article was published 24/01/2024 (972 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ian Daffern wishes his latest documentary wasn’t a true story.

He’s undoubtedly proud of the work, but it only exists because four years ago when a British Columbia man named Barry Shantz needed mental-health support, an army of police showed up at his doorstep instead.

Not a single mental health worker responded to the call, and Shantz, 63, was shot and killed by a member of the RCMP.

If Shantz’s name sounds familiar, it might be because of Abbotsford v. Shantz, the 2015 B.C. Supreme Court case that put the longtime activist at the heart of one of the country’s most consequential decisions for homeless rights. The decision in that case found Abbotsford’s ban on temporary shelters in public spaces unconstitutional — an unprecedented ruling in Canadian housing rights.

Daffern, a Toronto filmmaker, heard about Shantz’s death, for which no charges have yet been laid, through a colleague who knew Shantz’s sister, Marilyn Farquhar.

Soon after, Daffern called Farquhar to ask her blessing in making a film about her brother.

A Bullet Pulling Thread plays tonight at 7 p.m. at the Dave Barber Cinematheque as part of the theatre’s Human Rights Through Film series, sponsored by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Farquhar told Daffern she was making grief quilts called kairos to keep her brother’s story alive and apply pressure on the government to press charges and change policy. Farquhar agreed to meet Daffern, who went to her home to capture footage of the quilts as they were being made.

“Before I even had funding, I was sending camera people to her house to film the final moments of the film’s creation,” Daffern says. That early footage paved the way for Daffern to get funding through the Canada Council for the Arts for a feature-length documentary.

What Daffern discovered, through conversations with colleagues and friends, was that Shantz led an extraordinary life.

At 18 years old, he left his hometown of Kitchener, Ont., to become a drug smuggler in British Columbia. After spending time in prison, he became an outspoken and respected advocate for the homeless and people experiencing mental illness and addiction, boldly reaching out to politicians and anyone who would listen about the mistreatment he witnessed in Abbotsford and the surrounding area.

“You watch this person go on an incredible journey,” Daffern says.

But Daffern says that as much as his film tells the story of Shantz’s life, it documents the after-effects of the RCMP’s arrival at his doorstep in January 2020 and the mission his sister took to create social change through her art.

Aside from interviews with Farquhar and archival footage of Shantz on the frontlines, Daffern’s film features an interview with the director of the Independent Investigations Office of BC, the civilian-led police oversight agency akin to Manitoba’s Independent Investigation Unit.

“I got to hold his feet to the fire, asking him the questions Marilyn and Barry’s lawyers were asking,” says Daffern.

A Bullet Pulling Thread will be showing at Yukon’s Available Light Festival in February, and Daffern hopes it will be screened elsewhere across the country.

“Because every city and every town has a story like this,” he says.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com