Kielburgerka’s mother’s defamation lawsuit against Canadaland will go to court

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TORONTO – A defamation lawsuit filed by Marc and Craig Kielburger’s mother against the Canadaland podcast and its host will go to trial after an Ontario court denied a motion to have it thrown out, saying there was reason to believe the claim had a “substantial basis.” “

Canadaland, podcast host Jesse Brown and others involved in the podcast sought to have the lawsuit — centered on an August 2021 episode about the Kielburger-founded WE organization — dismissed under laws intended to protect people from litigation designed to silence critics. or public debate.

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In a ruling issued earlier this month, an Ontario Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit against Isabel Vincent, a reporter who was a guest on the episode, but ruled that the case should have been brought against Brown and Canadaland.

Justice Edward Morgan’s ruling found there was no reason to believe Brown and Canada had “any valid defense,” noting the episode omitted key information in a way that undermined its objectivity and Brown showed a “callous disregard” for Theresa Kielburger’s reputation in a statement .

At the heart of the dispute are comments made during a podcast episode that referenced a 1996 article about WE, then called “Free the Children,” according to the ruling.

The article, written by Vincent, alleged that Theresa Kielburger was handling funds on behalf of an organization that was not yet registered as a charity at the time.

An article published in Saturday Night magazine reported that $150,000 donated by the Ontario Federation of Labor in 1995 was deposited into the family’s bank account.

In a pre-publication interview, Kielburger was interviewed and stated that she did not handle the money for Free the Children nor did she or her family have access to it, but the court document shows that this was not included in this story. Additionally, both the family accountant and OFL’s president wrote to the magazine to refute the allegations and explain where the money was deposited after the article was published.

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The defamation lawsuit was filed with Craig Kielburger, not his mother, as the plaintiff. It resulted in a settlement of nearly $320,000 before going to trial.

In 2021, Canada revisited the issue, finding that the allegation “repeated as a theme” in an episode titled “White Saviors,” the ruling said. The document states that information from the accountant and OFL was not taken into account, nor was Theresa Kielburger contacted for comment.

Brown and Canadaland never gave Kielburger a chance to refute allegations that she deposited large sums of money in the family’s personal bank account, the judge wrote. Brown told the court that it did not seem appropriate to ask her to respond given that she was not a party to the earlier lawsuit, the document states.

“However, it is of course irrelevant whether the plaintiff was a party to the earlier suit; The point is that a statement must be made to her about the plaintiff so that she can respond to it,” the judge said.

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The judge paid particular attention to Brown’s affidavit, in which the podcast host said: “We did not seek comment (from the plaintiff) for the same reason I did not seek comment from my own mother; none of them were involved.”

The statement shows that in Brown’s eyes, “plaintiff’s feelings are worthless,” Morgan wrote.

“The fact that he spoke about the plaintiff and caused her personal pain by repeating allegations about her that he was aware were seriously disputed, if not found to be completely false, he considered to be irrelevant,” he said. .

“The cynicism of Brown’s explanation not only highlights the defamatory emphasis of his words, but may come across as overbearing and oppressive.”

Meanwhile, Kielburger’s testimony about the emotional impact of the allegations was “credible and impactful,” the judge said.

In assessing whether Brown and Canadaland had done due diligence in trying to verify the allegations, the judge noted that there was no mention of the letters the accountant and the OFL president wrote to Saturday Night.

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“Canadaland’s omission of this important point in its history undermines any factual objectivity the program may claim,” he said.

The evidence allows a reasonable understanding that Canadaland and Brown suggested that the 1996 allegations were true and that Kielburger had misappropriated donations, Morgan said in the ruling.

“It is much less clear whether Vincent participated in these statements,” the judge wrote. “Her words were carefully chosen and she did not comment, summarize or repeat (the allegation) in the way Brown did.”

The WE charity, part of WE, came under national scrutiny and lost a number of corporate sponsors in 2020 amid controversy over the Liberal government’s plans for the youth organization to run a multi-million-dollar student volunteering program.

That same year, WE Charity said it would close its operations in Canada, and co-founders Marc and Craig Kielburger – who founded the organization as children – would step down once the transition to a new board was completed.

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