Brown vows to ignore Wynne’s libel threat

Tory leader won’t retract suggestion premier is on trial in Sudbury bribery case

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is being accused of bringing Trump-style politics to Ontario after refusing to apologize for his false claim about Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Brown erroneously said the premier was on “trial” in the Sudbury byelection bribery case and she has threatened him with a defamation suit unless he retracts the statement.

“Yesterday was a sorry spectacle,” Brown said Thursday, referring to Wynne’s testifying as a Crown witness in a Sudbury courtroom where her former deputy chief of staff and a key Liberal activist are on trial for alleged Election Act violations.

“Regrettably, Kathleen Wynne compounded the problem by this threat of a lawsuit. Her baseless lawsuit will be ignored,” said the PC leader, who refused to acknowledge he misspoke Tuesday when he said Ontario had “a sitting premier sitting in trial” and that Wynne “stands trial” in Sudbury. Deputy premier Deb Matthews said Brown appears to be copying U.S. President Donald Trump’s politics of prevarication.

“There is a principle in Canada that you do not make defamatory, misleading comments about another political leader,” Matthews said.

“In Canada, we actually expect people to be honest. There is, south of the border, a change in that culture. I do not want to see that change coming to Canada.

Deputy premier says Patrick Brown is copying Donald Trump’s politics of prevarication

“He’s a lawyer — he knows exactly what he did. He knows that he said something that was not true about the premier.”

In Washington, where she is meeting with U.S. officials to discuss NAFTA, Wynne said she hoped Brown would withdraw his comments before she has to proceed with a libel action.

“I have to say if there was a mistake that he made, I think it would be a good thing for him to step forward and say that,” she said.

“The fact is that this whole issue has been put into the hands of the courts. And so it has become a legal issue.”

Her lawyer, Jack Siegel, said “this conduct by Patrick Brown is extremely disappointing.”

“As a matter of law, a full and fair retraction prevents a plaintiff from recovering punitive damages,” Siegel said. “Mr. Brown’s refusal to take that simple step therefore suggests that this was not an accident and that his remarks were deliberately made with the intention of harming the reputation of the premier.”

On Wednesday, he served Brown with a letter stating that he “made a statement about the premier of Ontario that is false and defamatory.”

“Contrary to your statement, Premier Wynne is not standing trial. Your statement is false and misleading and appears to have been made with the intention to harm the reputation of Ms. Wynne,” Siegel wrote.

“As you should well know by now, especially in light of the notice letter sent to your colleague Bill Walker just last week, the premier is not subject to any charges and will not stand trial for anything,” the lawyer continued, referring to the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Tory MPP forced to apologize for public comments he made about the premier.

The letter stems from comments made by Brown at a Queen’s Park scrum on Tuesday with reporters.

Before the 2014 election, Wynne launched a similar action against former Tory leader Tim Hudak and MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton). That matter was settled in 2015.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Thursday that Brown should apologize.

“Both the premier and Brown seem to be in this tit-for-tat. The more important thing to be doing here is focusing on people,” Horwath said.

Brown’s snafu came six days after his chief of staff issued an edict to Tory MPPs and staffers to “please refrain from commenting” on the trial lest they cause the party problems.