Premier’s chief-of-staff takes stand in lawsuit

The premier’s chief of staff was questioned in a Winnipeg court Thursday about his role in preparing a news release that an independent candidate in the 2022 byelection claims was defamatory.

Mark Rosner — along with the NDP and its candidate Trudy Schroeder — is being sued for defamation in civil court by Patrick Allard, an outspoken opponent of COVID-19 public health restrictions.

Allard was an independent in the March 2022 Fort Whyte byelection that was won by Obby Khan, who was recently selected as Tory party leader.

In the news release, the NDP described Allard as having used “racist rhetoric.” Allard filed the lawsuit in December 2022.

Rosner, who was NDP leader Wab Kinew’s chief of staff and was on the party’s byelection committee, was cross-examined by Allard’s lawyer, Scott Cannon, on Thursday.

Rosner told Court of King’s Bench Justice Shane Perlmutter he stands by that description and believes it to be a fact.

“The choice of words was deliberate,” said Rosner, when asked by Cannon whether the intent was to infer Allard was a racist.

The news release was issued on behalf of Schroeder after Liberal candidate Willard Reaves called for an all-candidates forum that would include Allard. A Free Press request for comment on Reaves’ proposal prompted the release.

The release quoted a campaign spokesperson as saying the proposal would give “Allard a platform to spout his anti-vaccination and racist rhetoric” and the party declined to participate. Rosner had written that section of the release.

Rosner told court he was aware of Allard’s opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and his commentary on the matter at the time, including the comparison of reporting violators of health orders with people who reported “attic-hiding Jews” in Nazi Germany.

Rosner said he believes that comment trivialized the Holocaust and contributed to a diminished appreciation of the wrongs and the truth of the genocide in which six million Jews were killed by Nazis.

“That rhetoric, that argument, is racist in character,” said Rosner. “The government did not murder people in Manitoba.”

Earlier this week, Abram Silver, lawyer for the NDP, questioned Allard about social media posts in which he compared the two, which Silver alleged were clearly racist.

“Make sure to turn in any attic-hiding Jews, while you’re at it,” Allard wrote in a reply posted on Facebook in late 2021 or early 2022 and later uploaded to Reddit.

In court, Allard had said the comments were taken out of context and specifically compared the Nazi policy that encouraged citizens to turn in their Jewish neighbours to that of the Canadian government encouraging citizens to report public health violators during the pandemic.

Allard said in court he does not think those comments trivialize the Holocaust, but elevate concern about official overreach.

On Thursday, Cannon argued Rosner was not aware of those specific comments prior to when he helped write the news release. Rosner denied that.

He suggested to Rosner he was reckless when he used the term “racist rhetoric” — which the political staffer denied.

Cannon has argued the news release was a political strategy motivated by malice to damage Allard’s reputation and improve the NDP’s standing in the byelection.

In August 2022, Allard was fined $34,000 for repeatedly breaching public health orders in 2020 and 2021. He was a fixture at anti-lockdown rallies in the province.

Ousted NDP MLA Mark Wasyliw briefly sat in the public gallery at Rosner’s cross-examination Thursday morning. Wasyliw, a defence lawyer, sits as an independent in Fort Garry after being booted from the NDP caucus last fall.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca