Three Ontario nurses are suing the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) and a news organisation for libel. The nurses organised protests outside hospitals across the country on Sept. 1, 2021, against mandatory vaccinations for hospital staff.
They say the organisations went beyond disagreeing with their stance on COVID measures, that they instead spread false and defamatory information. CNA defended its statements, according to court documents, saying they were “fair comment, made in good faith and without malice, on matters of public interest.”
Ontario Superior Court Justice Marie-Andree Vermette dismissed the case on Dec. 23, but the nurses say they will appeal that decision. Vermette dismissed it under a law meant to prevent Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).
“SLAPPs traditionally refer to legal proceedings brought by powerful and deep-pocketed interests that are not aimed at vindicating a genuine wrong, but are used as a vehicle to intimidate, punish, deter, and ultimately silence their critics,” the nurses’ lawyer, Alexander Boissonneau-Lehner, told The Epoch Times.
“In my clients’ view, the purpose that anti-SLAPP laws are meant to address is turned on its head when it effectively provides proponents of institutional or government policies a licence to libel their critics,” he said.
His clients—Kristal Pitter, Kristen Nagle, and Sara Choujounian—are not deep-pocketed, he said, but rather at a disadvantage compared to the resources of the CNA. They have lost their jobs due to their stance on COVID measures, he said. And the organisation they founded, Canadian Frontline Nurses, relies on donations.
In the nurses’ perspective, he said, they are the ones being intimidated by CNA to stay silent and not the other way around. The Epoch Times reached out to CNA for comment, but did not receive a reply as of publication.
In using anti-SLAPP law to test a case’s merit, judges balance the public interest in allowing a lawsuit to proceed against the so-called “chilling effect” of people being sued for speaking their minds.
In the appeal, Boissonneau-Lehner will argue that Vermette gave weight to the chilling effect on CNA and similar organisations, but did not give sufficient weight to the chilling effect on his clients and others like them.
Protests
Following the Sept. 1 protests, some news reports contained testimony that hospital workers felt harassed and that some protesters were aggressive. The nurses testified that they did not observe any of this behaviour at the protests they personally attended.While they received negative publicity from many sources, Boissonneau-Lehner said, the defendants arguably took it further than most by making “factual assertions that were untrue and damaging to [the nurses’] reputations.”
The CNA published a statement on Sept. 9, 2021 titled “Enough is enough: professional nurses stand for science-based health care.”
Part of it reads: “The reckless views of a handful of discredited people who identify as nurses have aligned in some cases with angry crowds who are putting public health and safety at risk. They have drawn in anti-science, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-public health followers whose beliefs align with theirs.”
The nurses, according to the court documents, say the statement “was understood to mean that, among other things: the Plaintiffs were not professional; did not stand for science-based healthcare; put public health and safety at risk; were reckless; were dangerous; deliberately misrepresented personal ideology as facts, and science as conspiracy; and were unethical.”
Boissonneau-Lehner said, “My clients organised the Sept. 1, 2021 protests across the country because they are proponents of medical freedom and the principle of uncoerced consent. They do not believe that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing transmission of the COVID-19 virus.”
Vermette said in her decision that the nurses’ claim against CNA for defaming them “has a real prospect of success.” However, she ultimately found they “have failed to establish that they have suffered sufficiently serious harm” as a result of the CNA statement and the news article in question “which outweighs the public interest in protecting the expression in these publications.”
CNA leaders testified that they felt fearful of speaking publicly on COVID-19 matters, worried they might be sued again.
Boissoneau-Lehner said CNA and the news media have “every right to forcefully advocate for their own position,” but should do so without “false and defamatory invectives.” He continued, “Such publications are not conducive to the public debate. These types of attacks chill the very debate that anti-SLAPP laws seek to promote.”
Vermette said the causal link is unclear between these specific publications and the harm the nurses have experienced to their reputation. This is because the nurses are facing discipline by the College of Nurses of Ontario, and they have received negative publicity from a number of sources. These factors would also damage their reputations, she said.
Boissonneau-Lehner said there is enough harm caused by the defendants to outweigh the public interest in protecting the expression of the defendants.
A Precedent-in-the-Making
In Chilliwack, B.C., school board trustee Barry Neufeld spoke out against provincial plans to teach children about gender identity. He received public criticism from former B.C. teachers’ union head Glen Hansman.Neufeld sued Hansman for defamation. His case was similarly dismissed under provincial anti-SLAPP laws, which are practically identical to Ontario’s, Boissonneau-Lehner said. The case was brought before the Supreme Court of Canada, which heard it last year.
The Supreme Courts decision, which it has not yet announced, will set a new precedent for how to determine if a case is a SLAPP or not, Boissonneau-Lehner said.
