An Ontario judge has thrown out a lawsuit launched against The Globe and Mail by a former Ontario provincial Liberal cabinet minister, ruling there is an important public interest in protecting an investigative journalist’s use of confidential sources.
Michael Chan was claiming $10-million in punitive and personal damages after Globe journalist Robert Fife and Sam Cooper, a former investigative journalist with Global News who now publishes independently, reported extensively on China’s alleged foreign interference efforts in the 2021 federal election.
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Justice Loretta Merritt of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Wednesday found Mr. Chan failed to provide evidence of a conspiracy and concluded that his lawsuit didn’t seriously challenge The Globe or others’ reporting.
She also found the suit was an effort to obtain the identities of the reporters’ confidential sources.
“Mr. Chan’s lawsuit is what the Supreme Court has recognized as a SLAPP lawsuit: a tactical action that seeks to suppress expression on matters of public interest,” Justice Merritt wrote.
SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation.
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Mr. Chan complained in his suit that The Globe was provided “unfounded and inaccurate” information by the confidential sources when they said segments of CSIS were of the view that he was improperly associating with people who might be intelligence actors on behalf of the Chinese government on matters that were election-related.
In February, 2023, The Globe reported that then prime minister Justin Trudeau and senior aides had been warned that government MPs should be cautious in their dealings with Mr. Chan because of alleged ties to China’s consulate in Toronto. The Globe cited confidential sources who risked prosecution under the Security of Information Act.
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Mr. Chan has been of interest to CSIS before. The Globe reported in 2015 that Mr. Chan had been the subject of CSIS security briefings in Ontario over fears he was too close to the Chinese consulate. He was a cabinet minister for former Ontario Liberal premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne from 2007 to 2018.
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Mr. Chan should be on the hook for all costs and be defending himself against a countersuit. And the lawyer that took this case should be disbarred.