Judge rules NDP candidate didn’t defame anti-vax, failed far-right opponent in 2022 byelection campaign

Failed political candidate and vocal vaccination critic Patrick Allard has lost a court fight alleging he was defamed by the NDP and a former candidate.

The trigger for Allard’s lawsuit was a 2022 news release issued on behalf of Fort Whyte byelection NDP candidate Trudy Schroeder in response to Liberal candidate (now party leader) Willard Reaves’ call for an all-candidates forum that would include Allard, an outspoken opponent of pandemic-related public health restrictions and a supporter of the far-right Peoples Party of Canada.

“Trudy is happy to have a debate, but the Liberal proposal to give Patrick Allard a platform to spout his anti-vaccination and racist rhetoric is wrong. Our campaign is surprised and disappointed,” the press release said, quoting an unidentified campaign spokesperson later identified as co-defendant Mark Rosner, Premier Wab Kinew’s chief of staff.

Allard argued the NDP was motivated by malice to damage the reputation of a competing candidate.

Now-Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan won the March 2022 byelection to fill former premier Brian Pallister’s seat.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Shane Perlmutter, in a written ruling issued Thursday, said Rosner’s comments weren’t driven by malice, but represented an “honestly held belief” based on Allard’s own “public commentary,” including Facebook posts in which he talked about “attic-hiding Jews.”

At trial, Allard testified the Facebook comments were taken out of context and that he was comparing the policies of Nazi Germany that encouraged citizens to turn in their Jewish neighbours to that of the Canadian government encouraging citizens to report those who violated public health orders during the pandemic.

Lawyers for the NDP, Schroeder, and Rosner conceded Allard was defamed, but argued the press release comments were defensible on grounds of justification, responsible communication, qualified privilege and fair comment.

Perlmutter accepted the qualified privilege defence, saying Schroeder had an interest in communicating her decision to voters why she would not participate in the proposed debate.

“In my view, the information published in the press release was information about which the public had a corresponding interest to receive,” Perlmutter said. “Objectively, this was the occasion on which the impugned words were communicated, and I find that on this occasion, a qualified privilege existed.”

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Perlmutter said there was no compelling evidence the NDP, Schroeder or Rosner acted with malice or intentionally lied about Allard, noting Rosner “took care” not to label Allard himself a racist, but instead focused on his “rhetoric.”

On Thursday, Allard said he had no comment about the ruling.

In August 2022, Allard was fined $34,000 for repeatedly breaching public health orders. He was one of five co-defendants individually charged with 50 counts of violating public health orders restricting outdoor gatherings between November 2020 and May 2021.

The five organized, attended or spoke at anti-lockdown rallies in Winnipeg, Steinbach and Winkler.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.