More than a decade ago, I was sued for defamation by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW.)
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I won.
But let me take you back to the situation that existed in the summer of 2014.
Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the Israel Defence Forces struck back.
In Canada and other places in the world, some took to the streets to blame Israel in what they called pro-Palestinian rallies.
Sound familiar?
At a demonstration in Ottawa, we at Sun News TV saw video of a man carrying a Hamas flag, in close proximity to another man carrying the flag of CUPW.
Were they marching together or just accidentally adjacent?
A TV producer contacted CUPW asking whether the union supported terrorism, supported Hamas and whether it would make available a spokesperson to come on television with me to discuss.
CUPW replied that it would not appear on the show but would send a statement.
The statement led with an assertion that “working people have as much right as anybody else to hold and express opinions on international issues.”
We never asserted they don’t. But that wasn’t the question.
They attached a link to the minutes of the meeting at which CUPW adopted its official position on the Middle East conflict.
They gave no specific condemnation of terrorism or Hamas by name. They did say they decry violence but did not specifically address the question of terrorism and Hamas.
Did they condemn violence only by the group they regularly condemned — Israel — or by Hamas as well?
They did not say.
I was left to come to my own conclusions, which I did.
I hosted a segment on Sun News TV with my guest, Avi Benlolo, then president and CEO of an organization called the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.
I also wrote a column for the Sun newspapers.
CUPW sued on both the broadcast and the column, asserting that some of our statements were defamatory. It also sued Quebecor Media Inc.
I was a freelancer for the TV network as was, and is, the case with the Toronto Sun.
The union took exception to my column from July 28, 2014.
In it I wrote, “CUPW’s position was hammered out at its 23rd ‘Triennial National Convention’ in April 2008 in Ottawa.
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The proceedings of that convention mention Israel 120 times and Hamas 12. Many mentions of Hamas were made by members protesting the position the union ultimately adopted.
An individual identified as Mr. D. Watson (Fundy Local) said, “Have we lost our collective minds? Why no resolutions on Darfur? Sudan? Ethiopia? Rwanda?”
I specifically quoted Mr. D. Watson to point out not all union members agreed with what became the official CUPW position on Israel.
The case went to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice earlier this year in front of Justice Graeme Mew.
Here are some of his findings:
Mew wrote: “I agree that Mr. Agar had an angle. And, as already discussed, Mr. Agar was a long-time critic of CUPW’s political activities in relation to the conflict in the Middle East. But malice is a high bar. It requires a degree of spite or ill will that I find not to have been established on the evidence. Both Mr. Agar and Mr. Benlolo acknowledged in the broadcast, and in Mr. Agar’s case, the article, that if you want to support the Palestinian cause, so be it, it is your right to do so. The converse is also true.”
Mew wrote: “It should be no surprise to CUPW that its active engagement in the charged debate about events in the Middle East provokes discussion that at times has become heated. When CUPW failed to respond to the opportunity the defendants provided to disavow any implied support for Hamas or terrorists, the reaction that followed afforded the defendants protection from their defamatory comments that might otherwise have been harder for them to establish.” Mew wrote that, in those circumstances, CUPW was “too quick to cry foul.”
Mew ruled that my comments were at times inflammatory, but he wrote: “Comment does not have to be reasonable. It can even be far-fetched or extreme. The necessary factual substratum for the opinions expressed by the defendants has been adequately demonstrated.”
Mew wrote: “A plausible interpretation of CUPW’s unwillingness to address the question … is that CUPW wanted to avoid directly answering the question.
“While I am not suggesting that CUPW’s failure to take the opportunity to deny its support for Hamas could reasonably be construed as an acknowledgement that it did, in fact, support Hamas, it nevertheless left the door open for Mr. Agar and Mr. Benlolo to make the comments that are the subject of this action.”
Had CUPW condemned Hamas by name, I doubt I would have had a story.
One could wonder why a union for Canadian postal workers needs to be involved in international politics, but that is more an issue for the membership of the union than the general public.
The membership can discuss among itself whether the risk of having to pay my lawyers’ bills as a result of this decision was, in the long run, money well spent.
“On the one hand, CUPW is a harsh critic of the media and its representation of events in the Middle East,” wrote Mew. “On the other hand, Mr. Agar and Mr. Benlolo deplore aspects of the Union’s activism. Nevertheless, the debate of these issues is what a free and democratic society does.”