Supreme Court overturns homophobe's libel suit against Rafe Mair

Excellent news:

CBC.ca

quote:Rafe Mair, a former host with CKNW, was sued for a remark he made about Christian values advocate Kari Simpson in 1999 during an on-air editorial. ...

In 1999 Simpson had campaigned against schools in Surrey keeping books in their libraries depicting gay couples.

Simpson spoke at a public rally against the books. After hearing a recording of that rally, Mair delivered an editorial calling Simpson a bigot.

Simpson sued for libel soon after and lost, but the B.C. Court of Appeal later ruled in Simpson's favour.

But on Friday the Supreme Court of Canada issued a ruling saying Mair's remarks contained no evidence of malice and were fair comment.

Here is the full text of the decision, although I admit I haven't read all 112 paragraphs yet. [img]frown.gif" border="0[/img]

ETA: Skip right to the end and you can read the full transcript of Rafe Mair's original broadcast. It is excellent IMO. It is also outrageous and unbelievable that any of the lower courts could have found in favour of the homophobic bigot's lawsuit. Thank God for the Supreme Court.

[ 27 June 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

Yeah, I know... Shortcut-y writing...

Speaking of LeBel: he also wrote a dissent in today's Honda decision. Unlike his colleagues, he would NOT have set aside the additional damages for manner of dismissal (bad faith of the employer). Here's a juicy snippet:

quote:These excerpts are troubling. The implication is that Dr. Brennan’s objective is to recommend the “accommodation” that is best for Honda, not the one that is best for the employee. Although he suggests that he is only giving a “medical” opinion, his opinion is focussed on maximizing an employee’s productivity for Honda in light of the employee’s condition. His goal is clearly not to find ways for Honda to make it easier for the disabled employee to do his or her current job. Certainly, disabilities may make it impossible for individuals to continue in their current positions. But if accommodation is truly a cooperative and collaborative process, it requires give and take on both sides. Dr. Brennan’s approach suggests that rather than assisting disabled employees to continue in their current roles, employers can simply place disabled employees in other roles that do not require any true accommodation on the employers’ part. This approach makes the disability the employee’s problem, not a problem shared with the employer. This is of concern from an equality perspective because it limits the employment options available to disabled persons.

I'm not deeply knowledgeable about the stances/philosophies of current SCC judges but I would have thought that Abella would have sided with LeBel and Fish in that decision... Wouldn't have been enough to change the outcome, obviously, but still, I'm slightly surprised...