Can you imagine the almighty hoo-ha that would break out across this country if the Alberta NDP ponied up the dough for its leader to sue Postmedia or the Western Standard for defamation?
Don’t worry. It’s not going to happen. And not because of the impeccable journalistic standards of those news organizations, either.
But just ponder for a moment the unholy hullabaloo about free expression that would ring out from coast to coast if it did happen.
Now, turn your mind to the latest story about Danielle Smith.
Friday, Alberta’s premier told the Canadian Press that her United Conservative Party (UCP) is picking up her legal tab while she threatens the CBC with a defamation suit for a series of stories about her efforts on behalf of anti-vaxx, anti-Trudeau, pro-convoy insurrectionists facing criminal charges like Calgary street preacher Artur Pawlowski.
Ask yourself, is using libel law to suppress inconvenient media reports a suitable use for tax-deductible political donations in a democracy?
On Monday, Smith read a statement at a news conference at which reporters were waiting to ask her about her now notorious 11-minute chitchat last January with Pastor Pawlowski, who has been charged with criminal mischief for a speech at the Coutts blockade last year that prosecutors say was intended to stir up violence.
“As you know, there’s been a great deal of inaccurate, misleading and likely defamatory reporting about my discussions with Justice officials regarding amnesty for COVID prosecutions,” she read – somewhat misleadingly, since despite his views on the topic Pawlowski’s prosecution is not about COVID-19.
“I have been clear that neither I nor anyone within my staff have contacted any Crown prosecutors, as has been alleged,” Smith read on. “Indeed, Alberta’s Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed this to be true. To continue saying or suggesting otherwise, is malicious. As this matter is now likely to be subject of legal defamation proceedings, I will not be commenting about it further, as per the advice of counsel on the matter.” (Emphasis added.)
There ended the reading.
But every time a reporter asked a question about her conversation with Pastor Pawlowski, as they did several times, she would respond with a version of the following words: “I have sought advice from my Justice officials on several matters and the advice that they have given is that there are matters that need to be resolved before the courts, nothing more can be done until those court cases are decided, and I’ve taken that advice.”
So while she clearly stated the legal matters in question included her threats to sue the CBC, her argument for not commenting was ambiguous about whether she was referring to the defamation threat or the criminal charges against Pawlowski.
In light of her revelation that the party is paying her legal bills in the defamation case, this also raises and interesting ethical and policy question about whether she should also be consulting government lawyers about the same matter.
Plus, of course, if the statements in the CBC’s story are legitimately defamatory, as Premier Smith claims, why is her bill not being covered by the MLA Risk Management Insurance fund available to Members of the Legislative Assembly who face legal problems as a result of doing their jobs as elected representatives of the public?
NDP Opposition Leader and former premier Rachel Notley said that if Smith “believed that she was truly the victim of defamation as a result of doing her job as premier,” she should have been able to access that fund.
“I would argue, the premier is so offside with the law, she is instead going to a partisan source of funding so that she can use this legal action as a political tactic, not as a genuine legal claim,” Notley, a lawyer by profession, told CP.
This seems likely, since the principal utility of the threat to sue the CBC for the premier and the party is the excuse it will give everyone on the UCP side to refuse to talk about her efforts on behalf of Mr. Pawlowski, which as Andrew Nikiforuk wrote in The Tyee, “Thirty years ago, if a premier was shown to have held a conversation with a criminally charged extreme separatist, and she sympathetically told him she was discussing his case and others’ with officials in the judicial system, that politician would have been hounded from office.”
Well, no more. Not in Alberta, anyway.
The CBC, meanwhile, says it stands by its story and will defend it in court if necessary.
It was easier for Art Pawlowski, facing criminal charges, than for Amarjeet Sohi to meet the premier!
It tells you something about Premier Smith’s priorities that Pastor Pawlowski got a meeting with Alberta’s premier long before Amarjeet Sohi could.
But then, Pawlowski is an important guy – he’s the gentleman who told the insurrectionists at Coutts last year that their illegal border blockade ought to become Alberta’s Alamo, a reference to the bloody battle in San Antonio de Béxar in 1834 during the effort by Americans living in what is now Texas to secede from Mexico.
By contrast, Sohi is just the mayor of Edmonton.
Pastor Pawlowski got 11 minutes of the premier’s valuable time in January, during which she made sympathetic noises about his troubles with the law and promised to see what she could do for him despite not having the powers of a U.S. President. Then he posted a recording of the conversation on social media.
Sohi couldn’t get a meeting with the Premier until March 7.
But then, in addition to being the chief magistrate of Alberta’s solidly New Democrat capital city, Sohi is also a former federal Liberal cabinet minister. So what did anyone expect?
From Smith’s perspective, one supposes, who cares if he represents nearly a million Albertans? They’re not the right Albertans.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
