November 13, 2007
Cusson v. Quan et al (Ottawa Citizen) and Barager
Earth-shattering or simply incremental change to Ontario's libel law... it depends on your perspective. Justice Sharpe, on behalf of the Ontario Court of Appeal reviewed recent libel developments around the world and Canada, and incorporated a new made-in-Canada Reynolds/Jameel "public interest responsible journalism" defence into our law. The “chill” from the traditional Canadian common law of defamation is gone, replaced by the "thrill" of publishing stories that journalists investigate and have "every reason to believe" are true, on matters “the public has a legitimate interest in hearing”.