NPCA gives new meaning to sore losers
Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority is like a Monty Python skit. Absurdist comedy at its finest.
Case in point: NPCA’s reaction to a judge’s order that it pay more than $130,000 in court costs to Ed Smith, the St. Catharines against whom the authority launched an unsuccessful defamation lawsuit.
In its news release, NPCA states that it “stands by its decision to defend its employees and the organization itself.”
In expressing this pride, it neglects to acknowledge the decision in question triggered a legal process that ended up exposing the authority’s leaders as self-absorbed, arrogant, bullying, spiteful, thinskinned, tone-deaf and a bunch of sore losers.
Hilarious!
NPCA, as has been its wont throughout this affair, tried to pin the blame for the entire legal and fiscal fiasco on Smith.
He was asked on three separate occasions to retract and correct “the most offensive statements” he made against the authority, the news release asserts, but he “refused to do so.”
“This was never about silencing an individual asking questions; it was about correcting defamatory statements made against an NPCA employee, and the organization as a whole.”
The authority added it was “grateful” to the court for confirming that Mr. Smith’s claims were false. It then asserted that had Smith, when asked to so, corrected his original document “there would have been no case, and therefore no associated costs.”
OK, let’s review this.
NPCA sued Smith for defamation. It lost. Thus, it stands to reason his statements were not judged to be defamatory.
Justice James Ramsay determined that a couple of negative points raised by Smith in his document were based on information that proved to be false. But Ramsay said Smith made his allegations without malice and, given the information he had at the time, “had a compelling interest and moral obligation to raise matters that had come to his attention.”
Now for NPCA’s teary-eyed lament that all of this could have been avoided if a simple retraction had been made in timely fashion.
For this, like NPCA itself, we are grateful to the court. Because this is what Ramsay wrote:
“I share [Smith’s] disappointment at his treatment by the authority. A private citizen, he raised questions about the governance of the authority. He was met with a public accusation of forgery and the threat of litigation from ‘his own government’ as he put it, together with a demand that he issue a written apology, undertake never to again publish ‘the document’ which contained many things that are not said to be actionable and reveal his sources.
“There are many places in the world where I might expect such a thing to happen, but not in our beloved dominion.”
Later, Ramsay noted that the letter NPCA presented to Smith in November 2016, which alleged inaccuracies in his document, “did not explain anything.”
“It simply contradicted his information … and threatened to sue him if he didn’t come to heel as demanded.”
The judge said it was reasonable Smith “would not have been inclined seriously to reconsider the accuracy of his information based on this letter,” which read “like the opening salvo in a war.”
Yet, the bully boys at NPCA think the $130,000 hit is all Smith’s fault.
Funny stuff, indeed. Although perhaps a little too surreal.
Citizens might well wonder why NPCA leadership continues to employ a strategy aimed at absolving itself of blame in this matter. I mean, what’s the upside to coming across as this thickheaded?
Why not eat some well-deserved humble pie, accept the court’s admonishment, resolve to react differently in the future and move on?
Because while the authority’s leadership dislikes Smith, it really despises the opposition forces that have rallied around the St. Catharines activist, particularly the politicians among them.
Apologizing for its bull-in-a-china-shop approach would mean its perceived political enemies were right and the NPCA board was wrong.
The authority’s leaders, most of whom also sit on Niagara regional council, are never going to provide that satisfaction to their critics, no matter how small and petty such a position makes them look.
Mind you, belief in the righteousness of their decision to take Smith to court only goes so far.
NPCA refuses to reveal how much it spent on the case. I guess it doesn’t believe it was that noble of a fight after all.
Otherwise, why not proudly note how much it was willing to spend to defend its honour?