Conservatives try to shut down election lawsuits in seven ridings

Document uses obscure prohibition to hinder court challenges of Tory victories

Just days after a judge overturned the election of a Conservative MP in Toronto, the Conservative Party of Canada has moved to try to shut down a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn the election of seven other Tory MPS.

The party filed a 750- page legal brief Tuesday night, complete with highly political denunciations of the Council of Canadians, the citizen advocacy group sponsoring the challenge of election results.

The motion is based on an obscure and ancient legal prohibition against “champerty and maintenance” — meddling in another party’s lawsuit to share in the proceeds.

It seeks to dismiss the legal challenges, backed by the council, which are aimed at throwing out election results in the seven closely contested ridings across the country. The ridings involved were all won by Conservative candidates.

The applications all claim voters received misleading telephone calls intended to suppress the vote. The applications were filed in Federal Court on behalf of identified voters in each riding and the council is not itself a party to litigation.

In the motion made on behalf of the Conservative candidates, the party argues that the cases should be thrown out because the council is not an elector and has brought the legal action to damage the Conservative brand.

The council’s “involvement is for the improper motive of attacking only

The purpose is twofold. One, is to delay the process as much as they can. And two, to sling mud. Because they think if they sling enough mud some of it will stick.

GARRY NEIL

COUNCIL OF CANADIANS

Conservatives, consistent with their very vocal opposition of and malice towards the Conservative Party of Canada,” the motion claims.

The motion also claims the council is using the publicity from cases to raise money on its website and calls the group’s national chairwoman, Maude Barlow, a “professional agitator” and “virulent critic” of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The motion, from Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton, even assails his opposing counsel Steven Shrybman, calling him “an avowed adversary” of the party. It is backed up with an affidavit from another lawyer in Hamilton’s firm that traces the union connections of council board members and support for the Occupy movement and asserts the council “is of like mind with labour union elites.”

Last week, the Conservative party also filed a motion arguing the applicants did not present any evidence that an individual elector was denied a vote. The party further contends in the motion, filed in March after news of the robocalls scandal broke, came outside the 30- day window for making such claims. The court has yet to rule on either motion.

Champerty and maintenance forbids legal cases in which the litigant has no legitimate interest, but engages in “wanton or officious intermeddling” by a the litigant with an “improper motive.”

Champerty hinges on showing that an agreement exists to share in the proceeds of litigation. In this case, the Conservatives argue that because The Council of Canadians is raising money to fund the case on its website, it is able “to share in the ‘ proceeds’ of the litigation before the applications are decided.”

The council is hardly profiting from the case, says executive director Garry Neil. “That’s the funniest part for us, that this is somehow a gold mine for us,” he said Thursday. “If only it were. I would be delighted.”

Neil said the party is trying to bog down the council’s lawsuit with costly paperwork.

“The purpose is twofold,” he said. “One, is to delay the process as much as they can. And two, to sling mud. Because they think if they sling enough mud some of it will stick.”

Conservative party spokesman Fred Delorey says the council is the one slinging mud. “It’s a bit rich to accuse us of slinging mud when their entire purpose since they were formed is to attack Conservatives, as the affidavit clearly lays out,” he said. “This is a transparent attempt to overturn certified election results simply because this activist group doesn’t like them.”