Winnipeg man seeks apology from People’s Party

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This article was published 17/09/2019 (2232 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man is demanding the People’s Party of Canada post an apology on its social media sites after it posted a photo of him labelled as a “terrorist,” next to his contact information.

A lawyer representing anti-racism activist and Fascist Free Treaty 1 organizer Omar Kinnarath sent a demand letter Tuesday to Winnipeg-area People’s Party of Canada (PPC) candidates Steven Fletcher and Yogi Henderson, former party CEO for Winnipeg Centre Monique Choiselat, and party leader Maxime Bernier.

The letter requests an “unconditional public apology and unspecified monetary compensation” for the July 23 Twitter and Facebook posts, as well as for comments Fletcher and Henderson made to the Winnipeg Free Press defending the posts.

The Winnipeg Centre riding association of the PPC had claimed online that Kinnarath was the reason an Exchange District gallery owner cancelled a rally the party had planned. The activist on social media said he had contacted the owner of Cre8ery Gallery and Studio to let her know about the “blatant racism” and “anti-LGBT stance” of some of PPC’s members. The riding association said the gallery owner felt threatened.

“Our rally is cancelled because this guy terrorized the struggling gallery owner into cancelling our venue,” said a post on the Winnipeg Centre riding association web page and Choiselat’s Facebook page. It showed a photo of Kinnarath, called him a terrorist and included a home address and phone number, both of which were out of date.

The posts are false and defamatory, Kinnarath’s lawyer, Benjamin Tinholt of Waterloo, Ont., said in Tuesday’s letter. The conduct of then-Winnipeg Centre riding boss Choiselat was an invasion of Kinnarath’s privacy and intended to inflict mental suffering, his letter said. Kinnarath “has suffered and will continue to suffer serious damage, including visible and provable injury, as a result of the […] libel, slander, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of mental suffering” and Bernier and the People’s Party of Canada are vicariously or otherwise liable, the letter said.

It said Kinnarath was accosted on Aug. 30 at his Portage Place business by PPC supporters who harrassed him. Kinnarath said Tuesday that he asked the two harassers to leave and called mall security when they refused. A customer in his store at the time “was kind of distraught” over the incident, he said.

Kinnarath’s lawyer is demanding “a clear and unqualified apology and retraction for publication in an equally conspicuous position on the PPC’s relevant Twitter and Facebook pages, as well as clear and unqualified apologies from Mr. Henderson, Mr. Fletcher, and Mr. Bernier to be published in the Winnipeg Free Press.”

Fletcher, the former Conservative MP and Independent MLA who is running for the PPC in Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley, told the Free Press in July that Kinnarath urging the gallery owner not to host the PPC event was “threatening a free and democratic activity and a business.” He said it was “ironic” that Kinnarath’s group, Fascist Free Treaty 1, is “doing is exactly what fascists do… using severe bully tactics to prevent free and democratic activities.” On Tuesday, Fletcher was the only PPC member who could be reached for comment. He said he stands by his remarks and has nothing to apologize for. “It was a perfectly true statement,” he said.

“This is a larger issue in our society,” said Fletcher. “People with different points of view on X are being called all sorts of things by people who have a different position on X. People are not talking about the issue, they’re just calling each other names and what they’re calling their opponents is what they themselves are doing.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca