Appeal Court rules former radio talk-show host's comments to be defamatory
The Vancouver Sun
Wed 14 Jun 2006
Page: B2
Section: WestCoast News
Byline: Neal Hall
Column: News Update
Dateline: VANCOUVER
Source: Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER - Comments made by former CKNW radio talk-show host Rafe Mair almost seven years ago were defamatory and he didn't have a defence of fair comment, the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled in overturning a lower court decision.
In a unanimous decision released Tuesday, the appeal court found Mair and WIC Radio Ltd., then parent company of the Vancouver radio station, should be held liable for defamatory comments made in 1999 against Kari Simpson, who at the time was the executive director of the Citizens Research Institute.
The decision by Appeal Court Justices Mary Southin, Jo-Anne Prowse and Allan Thackray found the defence of fair comment could not succeed, even though Mair held an honest belief in his comments.
The appeal court is sending the case back to the trial judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg, to assess damages and court costs against the defendants.
The lower court dismissed Simpson's libel lawsuit in 2004, allowing the defence of fair comment and allowing Mair's libel counterclaim over an article posted on the Citizens' Research Institute website, which contained defamatory comments about Mair, who was awarded $100 in damages. The article was not written by Simpson.
Mair, a former Social Credit cabinet minister, made the defamatory comments Oct. 25, 1999 on CKNW during an editorial about Simpson, a Christian family values advocate.
Mair had taken issue with Simpson publicly supporting a Surrey school board decision to ban three books depicting same-sex parents.
During the editorial, Mair slammed Simpson and made allusions to skinheads, Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, although he acknowledged Simpson did not condone violence.
At trial, Simpson's lawyer Lianne Potter argued that Mair wrongly implied that Simpson was preaching intolerance toward homosexuals, which was denied by Simpson.