Wednesday’s Editorial: Use the hammer of the courts sparingly
EDMONTON JOURNAL OCTOBER 1, 2014
One of the best ways to draw attention to commentary that you find offensive is to loudly complain about it. And there are few venues in Canada that provide a bigger megaphone than its public courts.
Local social media has been abuzz for days now over the $500,000 defamation lawsuit filed by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees against a trio of people that includes Edmonton commenter Kathleen Smith (also known as KikkiPlanet) for portions of their commentary — including a series of tweets — on an ongoing labour dispute with Support for Artspace Independent Living (SAIL).
As an unlikely cross-section of supporters from across the political spectrum announces they are #unitedwithkikki against what they deem to be a frivolous lawsuit, the union has turned a debate about issues at the core of the labour dispute into a discussion about what constitutes fair comment.
Unlikely cross-section, indeed!
Support for Kathleen and - thanks to all this added attention - what AUPE has been doing to the Artspace community, has been coming from all over. Staunch unionists are as appalled over both the suit, and AUPE's actions here, as staunch ant-unionists, and everyone in between.
There are two things both extremes have been able to agree on. 1) the defamation suit is a SLAPP suit and a terrible mistake on the union's part and 2), on seeing the videos, the behaviour of the picketers towards the community is abhorrent and should never have happened, regardless of the labour dispute.
The editorial draws comparisons between what AUPE is doing with their suit to what Justin Trudeau isn't doing to Ezra Levant.
But there is also a “fair comment” defence, which allows writers a wide degree of latitude when it comes to hurling insults. It’s defamatory to say someone is a thief if they’ve never been convicted of stealing. It’s not defamatory to call someone an idiot, a windbag or even — dare we say it — a bully or a slut. The latter word is extremely offensive, and absolutely deserves an apology if uttered. But it does not rise to the level of lawsuit.
That is why it is so bizarre to see Alberta’s biggest union, which relies on the cornerstone charter rights of free expression, association and assembly, to slap others with a lawsuit tied to commentary. We should not use the law to regulate what merely offends us. We should use it to regulate what causes individuals real harm.It does seem bizarre, and many have wondering why they would do something that was so obviously stupid, and would damage their own reputation even more than the behaviour here at Artspace already has.
The best explanation anyone's come up with is that they've probably done this before, and it's worked. Then they would have had no reason to think it wouldn't work again.
Except that the Artspace community isn't like anything else.
Just as that piece of legislation was an out-of-proportion attack on labour groups, the AUPE’s defamation lawsuit is an over-the-top reaction to the local blogger’s alleged offence, and risks creating legal precedent on commentary and speech that could one day come back to bite its own members.
...
The call for an apology — which Trudeau received Monday from Sun Media officials, if not Levant himself — was a better move than the AUPE’s decision to reach for the big hammer of the courts. It’s the difference between demanding civility and imposing a chill on free expression.
Very true.
Well done, Edmonton Journal.
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