‘SLAPPs must be stopped,’ says group
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- The Government of Ontario should introduce legislation to protect environmental and ratepayer groups, and ordinary citizens, from frivolous lawsuits by vested industrial interests, says Environmental Defence.
“The problem is so serious it warrants immediate legislative action to prevent future abuses of the democratic process,” said Jennifer Foulds, acting executive director of Environmental Defence.
“SLAPPs must be stopped if our public participation processes are to have any legitimacy.”
The group goes on >>>
Environmental Defence has intervened before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) in the infamous Big Bay Point, Lake Simcoe, mega-marina cost award application to argue that the developer-initiated cost claim of $3.6 million against the Innisfil District Association (IDA) and its lawyers is highly damaging to the public interest. The issue has received attention in the current issue of Toronto Life magazine.
Lawyer Clayton Ruby, who represents Environmental Defence, suspects that the $3.6 million demand was intended to intimidate ordinary citizens. “The provincial government has an obligation to ensure the OMB operates democratically, so that everyone can take part in the process,” said Ruby. “Otherwise it becomes a game that only the wealthy can play. It is urgent and crucial that these OMB hearings not be permitted to become a mere pretense of public welcome.”
Environmental Defence believes that only the provincial government can solve this problem. “The problem has become so serious in the province of Quebec that the government has responded by introducing legislation to protect their citizens from this threat,” said David Donnelly, counsel to Environmental Defence and one of the targets of the $3.6 claim. “What’s the use of having Canada’s most robust environmental protection regime if people are afraid to speak out and engage it?”
In a letter sent yesterday to Premier McGuinty, Environmental Defence drew the Premier’s attention to the fact that the claim against the IDA and Mr. Donnelly was launched on December 21, 2007, but that a hearing date has been set for October 14th and has been scheduled for four days. Proponents can easily afford to spend huge sums of money on an Ontario Municipal Board process; most citizens and environmental groups cannot, making even the cost of defending the OMB cost claim prohibitive.
According to the Anti SLAPP Resource Center in Denver, Colorado, most SLAPPs lose in court.
They are not intended to win: their “success” comes from silencing opposition in the public arena. Fending off a SLAPP requires an incredible investment of both money and time.
Given the power imbalance between environmental and citizen groups and vested industrial interests, SLAPPs can engender such incredible anxiety in their targets that they effectively quell dissent.
Blogs are, of course, also increasingly being subjected to SLAPP-type lawsuits.
“Attempts to stifle, if not completely gag, people and sites whose views run contrary to those of the (usually) corporate mainstream are becoming commonplace,” p2pnet posted almost exactly a year ago, adding:
” ‘Some might accuse me of exaggeration when I say that Canada’s libel laws are currently the most outdated and repressive in the English speaking world,’ said well known Canadian media lawyer Dan Burnett’.”
SLAPP is short for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation and p2pnet is the defendant in two cases, both launched in British Columbia.
It’s absolutely impossible for ordinary people with ordinary resources to adequately defend themselves when they’re up against a multi-million dollar organisations, or wealthy individuals.
(Thanks, Ilena)
.
.Stumble It!
Environmental Defence – Indiana Gregg versus The Pirate Bay, July 5s, 2008
p2pnet – Is freedom of speech dying online?, July 18, 2008
defendant in two cases – SLAPPING Freedom of Speech, July 23, 2008
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
