Brown dares Wynne to take him to court

Leader says there’s no reason to correct ‘trial’ statement

The Liberal defendants were acquitted and the case is closed, but Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is refusing to apologize for claiming Premier Kathleen Wynne was on “trial” in Sudbury.

Despite the verdict, and Wynne’s libel notice against him, Brown told the Star on Wednesday there’s no reason to correct or clarify his statements.

“The premier knows it’s a baseless legal threat and, if she really wanted to move on, she’d proceed to a public hearing on an expedited basis,” he said, daring her to take to take him to court “right away.”

On Sept. 12, Brown told a Queen’s Park press scrum that Ontario had “a sitting premier sitting in trial” and that Wynne “stands trial” in Sudbury.

In a four-page notice of libel last Friday, her lawyers said the Tory’s statements were “false and defamatory” and meant to suggest “that Premier Wynne was on trial for bribery, which was not the case.” Brown’s comments had come on the eve of the premier testifying as a Crown witness in the trial of Patricia Sorbara, her former deputy chief of staff, and Liberal activist Gerry Lougheed.

Sorbara and Lougheed were acquitted after Judge Howard Borenstein dismissed the Election Act case against them for lack of evidence in a rare directed verdict, before any defence witnesses were called.

Sorbara’s lawyer Brian Greenspan said that after such a “total exoneration,” it’s clear “these charges ought never to have been brought.”

The two Liberals were accused of offering prospective candidate Andrew Olivier jobs or positions in exchange for abandoning his bid for the Liberal nomination in a February 2015 byelection.

Brown, whose Tories have been plagued by nomination controversies across the province, conceded that Borenstein’s 20-page ruling could set a precedent that would clarify things for all of the political parties.

“Certainly, parties are allowed to run their nomination process . . . we do have the right to disqualify candidates,” he said.

Asked about the similarities between the Sudbury case and a Hamilton police probe of the Tories’ Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas nomination contest in May, Brown bristled.

“I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. We haven’t had any concerns brought to us by Elections Ontario, so I don’t think this is the comparative,” he said.