Activist seeks $140K from Tories after winning case

Jim Karahalios wants party to cover legal costs, damages

Adissident conservative activist who beat the provincial Tories in court is seeking more than $140,000 in damages and legal costs from the party.

Jim Karahalios, head of campaigns called “Axe the Carbon Tax” and “Take Back Our PC Party,” wants the Progressive Conservatives to pay $110,000 to cover his lawyers’ bills and $33,500 in special and punitive damages.

Last month, Superior Court Justice Paul Perell threw out a legal case the Tories filed against Karahalios, ruling it was a SLAPP — a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” to stifle dissent.

“The application is precisely the kind of application for which the anti-SLAPP provisions were introduced to counter,” Perell wrote, referring to a 2015 Ontario law designed to stop such nuisance lawsuits and blasting the PC party for using dubious “legal theory.”

“Its articulation of the basis of its claims against Mr. Karahalios is fuzzy,” the judge said.

Asked Monday about Karahalios’ settlement demands, Conservative officials said the party is appealing the ruling.

In their appeal, PC lawyers contend Perell “erred in law” with his decision.

Karahalios, a Cambridge, Ont., corporate lawyer and outspoken critic of PC Leader Patrick Brown, was incredulous that the Tories would appeal such a devastating judgment against them.

“I’m surprised they’re being so brazen. My legal bill is already $110,000 . . . who knows what theirs is?” he said, noting the Conservatives’ funds come from donors.

In the suit of theirs that was tossed out, the Tories claimed Karahalios broke the law by using the party’s membership list to contact activists for his grassroots campaigns against the carbon tax and Brown’s leadership.

But Perell did not buy that argument. “There was no transfer of wealth to Mr. Karahalios in the case at bar. The information in this case was not used for its monetary value, but for its communicative value in the blood sport of politics,” the judge ruled. “In any event, it is reasonably arguable that Mr. Karahalios did not disclose any confidential information, but rather gathered his own information from non-confidential sources, some of which were in the public domain.”

At the November Tory convention in Toronto, Karahalios, who had his PC membership revoked, was barred from attending the one-day conference.

He is unhappy that Brown’s Tories will be campaigning in the June 7 election on a promise to have Ontario join the federal carbon tax.

Instead of being part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national carbon-pricing scheme, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals joined a “capand-trade” market with Quebec and California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

“My legal bill is already $110,000 . . . who knows what theirs is?” JIM KARAHALIOS DISSIDENT CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST