Mark BourrieJust a few notes to bring people up to date on speech issues in Canada. We are still waiting for the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Pointes Protection and another case involving Ontario’s law against Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). These are lawsuits, usually for defamation (but not always. Pointes Protection is actually a breach … Read moreLibel Law update (Ontario)
Update: CBC has been awarded $500,000 in costs . That is a huge deal for free expression. We may very well see an end to lawsuits being fled to shut down media inquiry, and this kind of cost award deters corporations from trying to use the courts to muzzle environmentalists and anyone else who criticizes … Read moreCBC wins SLAPP motion against Subway Restaurants
The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a decision that suggests journalistic source protection, which many reporters and editors believe is guaranteed under a law brought in by the Trudeau government, is far from absolute. Now, though, judges have clear guidance on how to weigh the rights of the accused against society’s need for media … Read moreSupreme Court of Canada upholds media source protection law, affirms the rights balancing test to be used by judges
Some words of warning from the courts: if you do something embarrassing at a party, you can’t sue if your soon-to-be-ex friends post a picture of it on Twitter, Facebook or some other social media (at least, outside Quebec, where privacy laws are pretty strict). This week, the Supreme Court of Canada turned down an … Read moreYou can’t sue just because you’ve embarrassed yourself (or your friend betrays you).
Ken Rubin is a professional investigator who is one of the country’s most skilled access to information users. Rubin’s clients include media and corporations who want information on the way all levels of government conduct business. ATIP and its provincial variants are supposed to give structure to the public’s access to public documents while protecting the … Read moreCourt decision protects ATIP rights
LeRoy St. Germaine, the publisher of the Toronto publication Your Ward News has been sentenced to one year of strict house arrest. Its editor, James Sears, will spend a year in jail, if he loses his appeal. They were both convicted of spreading hate against Jews and women. This is the first time a court … Read moreYour Ward News commentary and reportage
I have been enjoying a sort of holiday — doing the things I need to do for my practice, and to get ready to move into new accommodations in downtown Ottawa while trying to have some family recreational time. I am working on a piece on free expression during election campaigns, and the balancing of … Read moreNew stuff to come in the next few days
The Economist has published an outstanding feature article on the attacks on free speech by autocrats, but also by governments, like India’s, that are still considered democratic. The writer has the intellectual sophistication to understand that free speech is undermined in three ways, which I explained in my book Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper’s Assault … Read moreThe fight for free speech
Newspaper publishers love opinion writers for the same reason TV news networks use so many journalist panels: they’re cheap. In fact, they cost much less, per word, than reporters. The copy flows in every day, for spots that are laid out long in advance. No risk, no surprises. Punch in at 9 a.m., leave at … Read moreThe Problem with Columnists
We are coming up to the 50th anniversary of the Manson Family murders, and the cash registers will be ringing at bookstores and movie theatres as we relive a ghastly weekend that most people are too young to remember. We’re helped along by Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood¸which, despite mixed … Read moreThe Manson murders 50 years later: sometimes a psycho killing is just a psycho killing