I’ve never done a bad thing to a good person and have always stuck up for the weak.
HARLEY GUINDON
Durham Regional Police Constable James Ebdon came calling to an Oshawa crack house in 2011 with questions for Harley’s friend Bradley Cox. The patrol officer escorted Cox outside and said, “You give me attitude and I’m gonna fucking drag you uptown. I’m gonna say you assaulted me. I’m gonna say you threatened me.”
Cox stayed silent while Ebdon had plenty to say, including: “I hurt people…and then I make their cocaine fucking appear.” Ebdon, who was armed and standing close to two other armed officers, invited Cox to assault him: “Shut your fucking mouth and do something…do something please, do fucking something.” Cox declined the invitation and Ebdon gave instructions on what Cox should say the next time they met: “Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, whatever the fuck you want. Can I suck your cock, sir? Can I do a backflip?”
That was an unpleasant enough story for Harley to hear, but it actually got worse. Ebdon, speaking into his police radio, gave a possible reason for why Cox generated so much interest and vitriol: “We think he is associated to Harley Guindon.”
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In the summer of 2012, Guindon and Suzanne rode from Ontario to Vancouver Island in nineteen days. Harley, who was out on parole, followed along in a trailer but didn’t make it far. His friend was handcuffed and put in the back of an OPP cruiser somewhere around Wawa in a dispute over a payment for gas. Suzanne raced back and covered the bill, but by this time, police dogs were sniffing through his truck and marijuana was discovered in a ski boot.
Erslavas rode west with Guindon and Suzanne from Thunder Bay. “It was a fantastic ride,” Erslavas said. “We stopped at all the provincial borders for pictures, and most of the Harley dealers, where Bernie was often overwhelmed with attention. Most of all, for me it was an opportunity to take ‘the long ride’ with Bernie. We had talked about it, but because of circumstances and timing, it never worked out, so taking that ride for me was something really special. Let’s face it: none of us is getting any younger.
“We rode on, motoring across the endless prairie, just enjoying the miles, the wind, the burble of the pipes and the easy lope of the Harley engines. It’s euphoric, almost Zen-like as one day flows into the next. The best rides always end with a certain level of regret, and that was the case, for sure, when we parted company.”
Later in 2012, a telephone call from Harley hit Guindon like a stiff punch in the kidneys: Harley would be representing Ontario in a Hells Angels boxing match against a former pro in Vancouver.
“Can you give me some tips, Dad?” Harley asked.
There was only time for a twenty-minute lesson, and Guindon ran over the basics of footwork and punching combinations. Then Harley was off to fight the pro in a six-round match. Harley was a veteran of scores of prison and street brawls, but he had never actually boxed in a match before.
“I was fucking going crazy,” Guindon recalled.
The pro Harley was supposed to fight had a cut under his eye from a bout two weeks earlier, and his trainer wouldn’t let him take the fight. Another fighter stepped in to face Harley.
The next thing Guindon heard about the bout was Harley describing how he won it in the fifth round, after the ref called the fight on a standing eight count to protect his battered opponent.
“He was a man,” Harley later said of the boxer. “He was strong. He was tough. He went three rounds toe-to-toe.”
Harley was just twenty-six when he was back in the news in August 2012, as Durham police announced the results of a sweep called Project Kingfisher. The operation, which also involved Peterborough police and the OPP’s biker enforcement unit, resulted in the arrests of twenty-eight suspects and the seizure of drugs, including heroin, cocaine and marijuana. Harley, who was on parole at the time, was now facing the possibility of a fresh prison stint for trafficking cocaine.
Harley often faced misconceptions about his name and upbringing. “People ask what it was like growing up with the last name Guindon and believe it to be a luxurious upbringing full of fun, adventure and respect. I did not inherit his respect. I inherited a name to defend, and honour, through the toughest times and protect it with my life. The life I knew was motorcycles and a crest with a devil on the back, with one parent, my father, with a mother on the run. I have been through a lot growing up, being kidnapped twice, held at gunpoint, etc.
“I look past how I was brought up and believe it to have instilled a moral compass to differentiate between right and wrong. I’ve never done a bad thing to a good person and have always stuck up for the weak…I love my father. I have earned his pride in me.”
The little boy who once cried at having to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion at Catholic elementary school was facing charges that threatened to put him behind bars for seventy years. Harley wasn’t about to blame fate or his father for his predicament. He also wasn’t about to give empty apologies to his father for ending up back in jail. “I don’t need to continue to think about what my father would think, because I am my own man now.”