Boyd, CBC settle lawsuit over GTH stories
No financial settlement as sides submit to confidential mediation process
The CBC and a former high-level Saskatchewan politician have settled a 2016 lawsuit.
Bill Boyd, who was a senior Saskatchewan Party government minister, filed the lawsuit against CBC and reporter Geoff Leo in the wake of two stories relating to land transactions that occurred while Boyd was responsible for the Global Transportation Hub (GTH).
The lawsuit claimed many of the “allegations, implications and/or assertions published by the Defendants conveyed, by the plain meaning of the words and by innuendo, that Boyd had acted unlawfully.”
The resolution of the suit was reached after the parties participated in a confidential mediation process.
David Hutton, CBC Saskatchewan’s managing editor, said in a statement regarding the settlement that, “The CBC reported on a matter of public interest. We regret if Mr. Boyd or anyone else believed that the CBC was implying criminality or illegal conduct on the part of Mr. Boyd. That was not the case.”
According to the news release, the matter was resolved without any financial consideration. Boyd was originally asking for an unspecified amount in damages and costs when the statement of claim was filed.
“For me, this was never about the money,” said Boyd in a statement. “This was about defending my reputation.”
The claim referenced two stories written by Leo and published and broadcast by the CBC titled, “Businessmen made millions on Regina land that wound up in taxpayers’ hands” and “Sask. politicians call for review of puzzling land transactions uncovered in iTeam investigation.”
Several land transactions were described, including a land sale between the Ministry of Highways and the GTH. The claim refers to transactions involving individuals and companies whom the stories connected with the Saskatchewan Party and, in one case, Boyd’s election campaign through donations.
Prosecutors in Manitoba are currently reviewing the findings of an RCMP investigation related to the land transactions detailed in Leo’s reporting.
In the lawsuit, Boyd claimed statements made in the stories “have an implied defamatory meaning.
“The clear implication upon a fair reading of the Stories is that the Defendants were suggesting that there was some wrongdoing involved in the transactions,” the claim reads, detailing comments made by various people interviewed.
In April in an unrelated case, Boyd was fined a total of $35,000 after pleading guilty earlier this year to a pair of environmental charges laid in connection with illegal riverbank modifications.
The former MLA for Kindersley was booted from the Sask. Party caucus and subsequently resigned last summer, after a business trip he took to China was found to be in violation of conflict of interest laws.