Sunday, April 6, 2008

File Six Lawsuits, Get the Seventh One Free!

Here we go again:

Sask Premier serves notice to sue The Canadian Press over headline on video story

REGINA - Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has advised The Canadian Press he intends to sue the national news agency for defamation for a headline it ran on a story featuring controversial comments he made on a home-movie videotape made more than 16 years ago.

"The headline of the article is false and defamatory of Premier Wall and, given the breadth of its publication, is likely to result in significant damage to Premier Wall's reputation," says the letter from the premier's lawyers, dispatched Friday to The Canadian Press.


And what exactly did this "false and defamatory" headline say?

"Tape with Sask premier and Tory MP has racist, sexist, homophobic comments: NDP."


False? No. Sorry. That headline is completely accurate: Premier Wall did appear in the tape, and the tape did include racist, sexist, homophobic comments. Besides which, they are merely repeating the accusations of the NDP. It could possibly have been worded more clearly, but that is hardly grounds for a libel suit.

Honestly, what is with these guys? Are Harper's lawyers offering volume discounts now? Does every right-wing party in the country get to collect stamps for their customer loyalty card?

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UPDATE: And quicker than you can say "What the fuck was he thinking?", it's all over.
Sask Premier no longer plans to sue Canadian Press over coverage of video story

REGINA - Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says he is dropping plans for a defamation lawsuit against The Canadian Press over its coverage of the release last week of an old videotape containing offensive comments.

These guys really need to re-examine their policy on boozy late night office parties. Never drink and sue, man.

3 comments:

  1. Where are the free speech warriors now that you need them?


    Whoops.

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  2. One can only assume he made the "threat" prior to talking to a lawyer whose response likely would have been "are you kidding".

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  3. Actually, he's filed an official notice of intent to sue, which would require the participation of one or more lawyers.

    My dad's a lawyer, and he found out the hard way on more than one occasion that sometimes the client simply refuses to listen to reason.

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