Paul Jaffe： Barry Neufeld Court Case Update
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Summary
In this episode, we are joined by Glenn Hansman, a lawyer who is representing Barrie Barrie, a school trustee in Chilliwack, British Columbia, in a defamation case brought against him by the BCTF and CUPE unions.
Transcript
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Well, thank you for having me on. My role in this whole affair really is to advance
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a defamation claim for Barrie in relation to a number of publications which included
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some remarks from Glenn Hansman, all of which started in the fall of 2017 after Barrie went
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public with his views about SOGI and the harm which, in his view, it could be inflicting
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on these kids at school. And, of course, any Canadian anywhere in the country has the right.
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We've got these fundamental freedoms of expression, thought, opinion, belief to speak out on these
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matters of public interest. And as an elected school board trustee, it's not just Barrie's
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right to express concerns, but it's his duty as the voice of the parents out there in Chilliwack
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who elect him. He's both exercising his fundamental freedoms as a Canadian and his statutory duty
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as the spokesperson for those parents whose kids are in the schools. So very solid constitutional
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He was, as was quite predictable, targeted by what we've referred to as a smear campaign,
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in which Glenn Hansman was a principal participant. And the usual array of defamatory imputations
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was launched against Barrie throughout numerous publications covering a wide scope of different
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media, the internet, of course, including the instigation of some very, in my view, frivolous
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human rights complaints. Those, you know, carrying with them the stigmatization that comes with being
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named as a defendant in a human rights case for merely expressing one's views on this very
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controversial program. In any event, after almost five years since the instigation of those proceedings,
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there's two separate unions, both the BCTF and CUPE have laid those complaints. No hearing date has been
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set. Neither union has found one union member that I'm aware of to say that they felt somehow
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threatened in the workplace as a result of Barrie's views about SOGI. It seems to be rather patently
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absurd on the face of these complaints. But the Human Rights Tribunal, some would argue that to be
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a bit of an oxymoron, has placated the unions by not having immediately dismissed these complaints. And
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here we are almost five years later without any progress being made at all in that forum. But in any
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event, the unions and Glenn Hansman in particular use the instigation of those human rights complaints
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as a further means by which to defame Barrie in the media. And over the course of about a year
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since Barrie first spoke out about SOGI, there were, we've alleged in the claim, 11 publications in
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which Mr. Hansman defamed Barrie. And so the case is really just a libel claim launched on the basis of
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those publications. And of course, Barrie having expressed the views he did and the concerns about
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the damage being done to the kids in the schools from SOGI, he was imputed with, among other things,
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And those, you've been focusing on this event and the mystery in Turkey.
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And Boseman said, if so, about not Warselon was indistinguishable,
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or in other things, Ben Stero there were there that we've seen in breakouts.
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So we were ya'w in this event even after one of the we've been on Friday at the event,
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this event has been someiami' broadcast that they said quickly but the way
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And thus the effect of this event became an grasp of a lot of force that we came out for,