Category: SLAPP

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Second Anti-SLAPP Motion Commenced In University Of Guelph Lawsuit

Wednesday, February 28th, 2024, Byram Bridle, the high profile professor from the University of Guelph, was back in Court. This was a short hearing to set down another anti-SLAPP Motion to dismiss his December 2022 lawsuit.

Guelph has previously filed a Statement of Defence, on behalf of all their Defendants. But now, their lawyer, Lynn Turnbell, is asking that the case be thrown out altogether. Their stated reason is that the contents of the Claim are covered under Section 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act, which is the anti-SLAPP provision.

Guelph further states that the subject matter should be tossed for a lack of jurisdiction. Bridle is a university employee, as are most Defendants. It’s argued that the matter should have gone to arbitration instead of litigation. And they’re not wrong.

The initial anti-SLAPP Motion was filed by Kate Costin, the lawyer for David Fisman. Yes, it’s that David Fisman. It’s unclear why his content (Twitter related) is being connected to this. That will be heard on November 19th, 2024.

Counsel for Bridle requested that everything be moved back to 2025. He stated that he will be taking his annual 2 month vacation to Turkey — for medical reasons.

However, Justice Dow refused that request. The Fisman anti-SLAPP Motion will still be heard in November 2024, and the Guelph Motion is now booked for October 16th, 2025.

University of Guelph Faculty covered by collective agreements

The University of Guelph publicly posts their collective bargaining agreements, which include ones with faculty members. This particular one took only seconds to find.

Article 40 of the agreement, beginning on page 131, makes it clear the steps that are to be taken in the event of a serious problem within the university.

  • Informal resolution
  • Formal grievance
  • Arbitration

This wasn’t difficult to find. Not only does Bridle presumably have a copy of this document, but it’s publicly available on the school’s website.

True, there may be the power of a Court to review the findings of an Arbitrator, depending on the rules that are set out. This would be analogous to filing an Appeal. However, what happened here was suing in Court instead of going to arbitration. These are not the same thing.

40.1 The Parties agree to attempt to resolve disputes arising from this Agreement amicably and promptly.

40.2 In order to ensure that Grievances of Members are remedied in a reasonable, just, and equitable manner, the University and the Association mutually agree that the procedure for submitting and dealing with Grievances shall be as indicated in the remainder of this Article.

Informal Resolution
40.9 The University and the Association mutually agree that it is the desire of the Parties that differences in the interpretation, application, administration, and alleged violations of this Agreement shall be dealt with as quickly as is reasonably possible. If a Member has a complaint or dispute that may give rise to a Grievance, they and/or an Association designate shall first discuss the matter at a meeting arranged for this purpose with the Dean, University Librarian, or, in the case of Veterinarians, Director, or designate, within twenty (20) days after the Member would reasonably be expected to have become aware of the circumstances giving rise to the complaint or dispute.

40.11 Failing informal resolution of the complaint or dispute and within ten (10) days following receipt of notification of the proposed resolution under the informal process, the Association has the right to present the written Formal Grievance to the Provost, or designate, pursuant to this Article.

Formal Grievance Procedure
40.14 Following receipt of a Formal Grievance, the Provost, or designate shall convene a meeting within ten (10) days with the Member and/or the Association designate. With reasonable notice to the other Party prior to the meeting, either Party may have others attend who have information relevant to the specific Grievance. The Provost (or designate) shall reply in writing within fifteen (15) days of that meeting.

40.19 Failing resolution of a Grievance, the University or the Association will provide notification that a matter shall be submitted to Arbitration. Such notification must be made in writing and addressed to the other party within fifteen (15) days of the date of receipt of the Formal Grievance decision.

40.22 The decision of the Arbitrator shall be final and binding upon the Parties.

40.23 All arbitration expenses, including the remuneration of the Arbitrator, shall be shared equally by both Parties, subject to the award of costs by the Arbitrator as part of the remedy.

Looking at Article 40.22, it seems that the Arbitrator’s ruling is meant to be final. There’s no obvious way to challenge it further, unless the process is demonstrated to be corrupted. Since no arbitration took place, that would be difficult to prove.

The process outlined is pretty straightforward: (a) informal resolution; (b) formal grievance; and (c) arbitration, if needed. There’s no mention whatsoever about having an option to pursue litigation. This is typical in unionized and Government workplaces.

But according to the Statement of Claim, that’s not what happened.

After the grievance process went against Bridle, he didn’t pursue arbitration. Instead, he sued everyone involved. This included Nick Duley, and outside HR consultant, who was hired for an investigation. Also named is Laurie Arnott, Vice President of Faculty Relations. It’s alleged that there’s a grand conspiracy against him.

Paragraph 100, it’s stated that Guelph refused to investigate online harassment that happened outside of school grounds. It fell outside the scope of the collective bargaining agreement, and hence, no ability to do anything. This comes across as reasonable.

Paragraph 136 of the Claim says that Bridle refused to participate in Duley’s investigation, calling it a “kangaroo court”. Duley is referred to as a “hired gun”. That won’t sit well without proof.

The content in the Claim comes across as being so over the top, it’s difficult to determine what’s factual, and what’s overblown.

Now, it’s possible that the Court may find that the grievance process was corrupted and unworkable, but that’s for the Plaintiff to establish. This is sometimes referred to as “residual jurisdiction”. While a major conspiracy is alleged, it seems that it would be very difficult to prove.

Contending with the anti-SLAPP Motions

Fisman appears to have nothing to do with the University of Guelph, so including him in this case seems unproductive. Even if he did interact with some of the online content, he’s not involved in essentially what is a workplace dispute at Guelph. Considering how hard it is to prove defamation, and to get damages, this will be a tough sell in November.

The Kulvinder Gill/Ashinder Lamba, Boraks and CSASPP cases are also good examples of how much bad lawyering can impact clients.

Gill v. Maciver, 2022 ONSC 1279
Gill v. Maciver, 2022 ONSC 6169
Gill v. Maciver, 2023 ONCA 776
Boraks v. Hussen, 2023 ONSC 4294
Boraks v. Hussen, 2023 ONSC 6420
Galati v. Toews et al, 2023 ONSC 7508
Galati v. Toews et al, 2024 ONSC 935

There’s also this gem from March 2021, with a Motion scheduled for this Fall.

The trend in recent years is to implement mechanisms designed to screen out cases as abusive. For defamation type cases, these are called anti-SLAPP laws. SLAPP is of course an acronym for a strategic lawsuit against public participation.

Again, it’s hard to tell from this Statement of Claim what’s real, and what’s hype and distortion. Hopefully, more will come out in the pending Motions.

To survive an anti-SLAPP Motion, the Plaintiff is required to prove at least some of the damages. This means submitting Affidavit evidence, and being cross examined on it. The Plaintiff must also establish that there are no reasonable defences that could be relied upon. Will this happen?

How will all of this end?

It’s possible that there will be a negotiated settlement to discontinue the case entirely. Although s.137.1(5) “stays” the case, the parties can always agree to drop it. This sort of thing has happened many times before.

If not, it’s going to be very expensive for Bridle. He’s facing full indemnity (100% of costs) on 2 separate anti-SLAPP Motions. This could set him back $100,000 or more. Courts tend to be very harsh to Plaintiffs who bring lawsuits to silence public speech improperly.

An open question is why this case was even brought. Even a quick read through the collective bargaining agreement would have indicated that this was not the path to take. Should the Guelph Motion not succeed under anti-SLAPP provisions, it will likely still get dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction.

Reading through the Claim, it looks as though large parts of this are simply cut and pasted from earlier lawsuits. The same sorts of allegations come up over and over again. This isn’t original content.

It appears that Bridle was poorly advised both in employment law, and defamation law.

(1) https://www.ontario.ca/page/search-court-cases-online
(2) https://canucklaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/Byram-Bridle-Statement-Of-Claim.pdf
(3) https://canucklaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/Byram-Bridle-Statement-Of-Defence.pdf
(4) https://canucklaw.ca/byram-bridle-lawsuit-unlikely-to-ever-get-anywhere/
(5) https://www.uoguelph.ca/facultyrelations/collective-agreements
(6) https://www.uoguelph.ca/facultyrelations/system/files/UGFA_CA_2022_FinalPrint_Nov20_2023.pdf

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Following Anti-SLAPP Appeal, Another $1.85 Million Malpractice Lawsuit In The Works?

Last Friday, a Notice of Action was filed with the Ontario Superior Court, at their Toronto Division. A woman intends to sue her former counsel, “Mr. Bad Beyond Argument”, for: (a) professional negligence; (b) breach of fiduciary duty and/or breach of contract in the amount; and (c) aggravated and/or punitive damages.

A Notice of Action is not the same thing as a Statement of Claim. Instead, this document is occasionally filed when a lawsuit is in the works, but the Statute of Limitations is approaching. Justice Stewart dismissed the Gill/Lamba suit on February 24, 2022, and this Notice was filed February 23, 2024. This came just a day before the 2 year anniversary.

Once filed, a Plaintiff has 30 days under Rule 14.03 to serve all Defendants with this Notice, and the Claim itself. (Pardon the error which previously listed the time as 6 months).

Jeff Saikaley and Albert Brunet are listed as counsel for Kulvinder Gill. They also represented her at the Court of Appeal which ultimately dismissed the Maciver anti-SLAPP Appeal.

What does the Notice of Action say?

1. The Plaintiff, Dr. Kulvinder Gill, claims against the Defendants, Rocco Galati and Rocco Galati Law Firm Professional Corporation as follows:
a. General and special damages for professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and/or breach of contract in the amount of $1,500,000;
b. General damages for pain, suffering and loss of reputation in the amount of $250,000;
c. Aggravated and/or punitive damages in the amount of $100,000;
d. Prejudgment and postjudgment interest in accordance with sections 128 and 129 of the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.43, as amended;
e. The costs of this proceeding on a substantial indemnity basis, plus all applicable taxes, and;
f. Such further and other relief as the plaintiff may advise and as this Honourable Court
may seem just.

2. The Defendants acted for the Plaintiff with respect to various litigation matters starting in late 2020, including defamation actions and disciplinary proceedings initiated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Their representation of the Plaintiff was negligent, constituted a breach of contract and a breach of the fiduciary duties, causing the Plaintiff significant damages.

Of course, this isn’t the entire pleading. The real Statement of Claim is presumably in the works, and it should be interesting to read. Ashvinder Lamba also has a $600,000 malpractice suit pending, alleging many of the same things as Gill.

Brief timeline of some major events

Pre-2020: Gill and Lamba have prior issues with Maciver and Alam. These predate the “pandemic” and the debate over lockdown measures.

Summer/Fall of 2020: Gill’s public opinions, which contradict the “approved” narrative, lands her in trouble with the CPSO, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. This is the regulator which is responsible for licensing in that Province. They’re not too happy that her views don’t toe the line.

Summer/Fall of 2020: Gill gets into many trivial arguments on Twitter, leading to some harsh replies. These are screenshotted to use as evidence.

December 2020: Gill and Lamba, sued 23 individuals and organizations for defamation. This was primarily (although not entirely) brought over Twitter spats that Gill had engaged in.

March 2021: Gill sues the University of Ottawa and one of its professors, Amir Attaran, for $7 million. This is over 2 rude comments on Twitter, one where he calls her an “idiot”. This is obviously a frivolous lawsuit, and mere insults aren’t actionable.

September 2021: Over the course of 3 days, several anti-SLAPP Motions are argued before Justice Stewart in the Superior Court. These are Motions to dismiss, based on Section 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act. This is a section of the law that allows for rapid screening of lawsuits brought to “stifle public interest speech”.

February 2022: Justice Stewart dismisses the suit was dismissed under Ontario’s anti-SLAPP laws. This wasn’t at all surprising to anyone who understands defamation law. It was an extremely weak case. At this point, costs have yet to be determined.

March 2022: The lawyer for Gill and Lamba files a Notice of Appeal, despite the fact that he doesn’t intend to stick around. It also becomes apparent that counsel doesn’t fully understand the purpose of anti-SLAPP laws, nor the standards applied.

May 2022: Counsel for Gill and Lamba succeeds in getting himself removed from the case for “health reasons”. This come despite him actively being involved in other litigation, and even commencing other lawsuits.

July 2022: Gill and Lamba (with new counsel) try to get new cost submissions filed. They claim that their previous lawyer didn’t do anywhere close to an adequate job.

September 2022: The Appeal is “perfected” meaning all the documents are submitted. Note: there still hasn’t been an award of costs yet for the original decision from February.

October 2022: Gill and Lamba are hit with $1.1 million in legal costs from the Defendants, who were successful in getting the case thrown out. But to be fair, Gill took the bulk of the hit. She had sued all 23 Defendants, while Lamba was only pursuing a case against 2 of them.

October 2023: One of the Respondents, the Pointer Group Inc., argues a Motion that Gill should have to pay her costs up front, given how weak the Appeal is.

November 2023: The Motion for security for costs is denied.

December 2023: After many delays, the Appeal is finally heard, but with only a few Respondents left. Most have cut some sort of deal to accept partial payment.

February 2024: The Court of Appeal for Ontario throws out the Appeal against the few remaining Respondents who hadn’t yet settled over this. (CanLII version available)

February 2024: Ashvinder Lamba, Gill’s then co-Plaintiff, files a $600,000 professional malpractice lawsuit against their former counsel.

Gill’s baseless and abusive defamation suit with Attaran

Anti-SLAPP laws exist for a reason. It’s to stop people from using the legal system as a weapon to silence critics on issues of public interest. And nothing screams frivolous like attempting to bankrupt a person over some name calling. Here’s the background on this one.

SLAPP of course refers to a strategic lawsuit against public participation.

Gill has been before the CPSO several times

While the comical defamation lawsuits have made national news, Gill’s adventures with the CPSO have pretty much flown under the radar. She has attracted several complaints since 2020, over her public stances and comments. Lawsuits were brought in Court to try to resolve it there, largely on the grounds of free speech. Such litigation has been repeatedly thrown out as “premature”.

In fairness, prematurity just means there’s a lack of jurisdiction.

The problem, realistically, is that the CPSO — like many professional organizations — mandates that problems be resolved internally first. Here’s one of Gill’s decisions, from 2021. Starting at paragraph 31, it’s explained that this is a long established policy, going back decades. The rationale is that if this isn’t followed, it leads to fragmentation and splitting of cases, along with overlapping rulings.

This isn’t to justify in any way what the CPSO has been up to. They’ve shown themselves to be a willing accomplice to the Ford regime, and deserve no sympathy.

It’s to recognize that had Gill been competently advised, it seems unlikely she would have pursued this path. In the Notice of Action, she alleges that former counsel was negligent.

There is a parallel between:

  • Doctors suing the CPSO (instead of using the internal disciplinary process first); and
  • Public sector and unionized workers suing their employers (instead of filing grievances)

In both instances, lawsuits are likely to be thrown out. The burden is on the Plaintiff to show that the other remedies are unworkable and/or corrupted. Now, the million dollar question in these cases is whether they were advised of this in advance.

Who will ultimately be on the hook for this?

Doctors, lawyers, and pretty much all professionals are required to have insurance. This protects against lawsuits for negligence, incompetence, malpractice, and more. It’s to ensure that there is money available for successful claims, and that it won’t bankrupt them.

One caveat: insurance providers typically refuse to pay out if there are accusations of dishonesty or misrepresentation. But Gill and Lamba are just alleging negligence and of breach of contract, which should be okay.

We’ll have to see what the Statement of Claim looks like, when it’s eventually filed. But just going off of the Notice, it doesn’t look good.

Why pursue this? One possibility is that Gill really needs the money. Even “settling” with most parties in the case with Lamba, she still owes hundreds of thousands of dollars. Saikaley and Brunet want to get paid as well, and this may be a way to do it. Then there’s that anti-SLAPP Motion pending with Amir Attaran and the University of Ottawa.

Update: On March 25th, 2024, the actual Statement of Claim was filed, and it’s a doozy.

GILL PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE CLAIM:
(1) Gill Malpractice Notice of Action
(2) Gill Malpractice Statement Of Claim

LAMBA PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE CLAIM:
(1) Lamba Statement Of Claim

MOTION FOR SECURITY OF COSTS
(1) Gill V. Maciver Amended Notice of Motion – 26 Sept 2023
(2) Gill v Maciver – San Grewal’s appeal for support M54554.MPF.PointerGroup – October 2023.PDF
(3) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PbEewt3dAKqAT5Udp6BIIqrM9Y_AhPHv/view
(4) Ruling: Motion For Security Of Costs – Denied

KULVINDER GILL/ASHVINDER LAMBA CASE:
(1) Gill/Lamba Defamation Lawsuit December 2020
(2) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-c43/latest/rso-1990-c-c43.html#sec137.1_smooth
(3) Gill/Lamba Factum Of Medical Post Tristan Bronca
(4) Gill/Lamba Case Dismissed As A SLAPP
(5) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1279/2022onsc1279.html#par17
(6) Gill/Lamba Notice of Appeal and Appellants’ Certificate
(7) Gill/Lamba Appeal – Notice of Intention to Dismiss Appeal for Delay, May 12, 2022
(8) Motion To Recuse – Badly Redacted -2022-06-17 – Notice
(9) Motion To Recuse – Badly Redacted -2022 – Motion Record
(10) Gill/Lamba July 15 Letter To Obtain New Counsel
(11) Gill/Lamba Case Conference Brief July 29, 2022
(12) Gill/Lamba Endorsement New Counsel Cost Submissions August 3, 2022
(13) Gill/Lamba Case $1.1 Million In Costs Ordered October 31, 2022
(14) Gill/Lamba Appeal Dismissed As Baseless By ONCA
(15) https://coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/item/22116/index.do

GILL/ATTARAN/UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA CASE:
(1) Gill-Attaran Statement Of Claim
(2) Gill Attaran Affidavit Of Service
(3) Gill-Attaran Notice Of Intent
(4) Gill-Attaran Motice To Recuse
(5) Gill-Ataran Motion To Recuse Motion Record

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Court Of Appeal Confirms Dismissal Under Anti-SLAPP Laws Of Gill Defamation Suit

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has thrown out an Appeal from by 2 Ontario doctors. This was to challenge the result of a $12.75 million defamation lawsuit originally filed against 23 individuals and organizations. Although this was primarily over Twitter comments related to the “pandemic”, some old remarks involving the Ontario Medical Association were included.

The Court also denied permission to appeal the cost award of the initial lawsuit. In Ontario, when cases are thrown out under anti-SLAPP laws, the costs are “presumptively” awarded on a full indemnity, or 100% basis. And that is indeed what happened to the 2 doctors.

The February 2022 decision was very long. But at its core, many of the same finding came up over and over again.

  • The expressions relate to matters of a public interest
  • The expressions may have been unprofessional and insulting, but were not defamatory
  • The expressions are protected as fair comment, and are obviously comment
  • The Plaintiffs (Gill and Lamba) haven’t produced evidence of any real harm
  • Public interest is better served with protecting the expression

Section 137.1 of the Ontario Courts of Justice Act lays out the “anti-SLAPP” laws. SLAPP is of course an acronym for a strategic lawsuit against public participation. British Columbia has very similar laws. The purpose is to have a mechanism to quickly screen out cases that may be designed to silence speech or expression on public interest issues. Justice Stewart stated:

[17] I also conclude that these claims are precisely ones that are of the kind that s. 137.1 is designed to discourage and screen out.

The Court of Appeal ultimately agreed with this sentiment.

What’s interesting is that when the Appeal was finally heard, there weren’t 23 Respondents. There were only 4 of them left. And Lamba herself was no longer involved.

  • Dr. Angus Maciver
  • Dr. Nadia Alam
  • André Picard
  • Alheli Picazo

All of the others had the Appeal against them discontinued. It had been argued by many that this Appeal was simply “leverage”, in order to circumvent the original rulings.

The case was dismissed by Justice Stewart under Ontario’s anti-SLAPP laws, and eventually, a cost award of $1.1 million was handed down. However, the Appeal meant that the case was still open, and that more costs would be required to fight it.

A brief timeline of events:

December 2020: Kulvinder Gill and Ashvinder Lamba filed a $12.75 million defamation lawsuit against 23 individuals and media outlets, largely over a series of spats on Twitter. This was in the Toronto Branch of Ontario Superior Court.

September 2021: over the course of 3 days, several anti-SLAPP Motions were argued. The primary basis for these Motions was Section 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act, which is designed to screen out litigation designed for “libel chill” or “gag proceedings”.

February 2022: Justice Stewart dismissed the claims against all proceedings, on the grounds that the lawsuit was exactly the type of case that anti-SLAPP laws were designed to weed out.

March 2022: the Decision was appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeals.

May 2022, despite filing the Notice of Appeal and Evidence Certificate (a list of evidence to be used), Gill and Lamba find themselves without counsel. It appears from the badly redacted filings that they are rather upset about the mess that they’re now in. If only someone had advised them that filing frivolous defamation claims in Ontario — which has strong anti-SLAPP laws — was a very dangerous and risky idea. Clearly, they got poor advice. (See Record)

July 2022: both Gill and Lamba retained new counsel, who tried to ward off the coming costs awards. In total, they were looking at over $1 million in costs. While this sounds excessive, they sued 23 Parties, which works out to an average of about $55,000 each.

September 2022: The Appeal is finally “perfected”, which means that the Appellants have filed everything they intend to bring to the hearing.

Due to various delays, the Appeal was set back considerably.

October 2022: although the case had been appealed, the issue of costs hadn’t been resolved. It finally was at the end of October, with Gill and Lamba (but mostly just Gill) owing over $1.1 million in Court fees. It must be pointed out that s.137.1(7) of the Courts of Justice Act sets “full indemnity”, or 100% of costs, as the baseline. True, Judges don’t have to award it, but that’s considered the starting point.

November 2023: The Pointer Group Inc., one of the Defendant Respondents, files a Motion for Security for Costs. The rationale is that Gill should have to demonstrate that there’s merit to the Appeal, and that she has money, all in advance.

November 2023: The Motion from The Pointer Group Inc. is dismissed.

December 2023: The Appeal is heard for the remaining parties. As expected, the verdict was reserved (deferred) until later.

February 2024: The Court of Appeal has some harsh words at the end of their ruling.

[25] First, the motion judge found that the offensive language used by Maciver in his impugned tweets was not defamatory. The motion judge noted that there is an important distinction in the law of defamation between words that are actionable for being defamatory and words that merely contain insults and are not actionable. The motion judge acknowledged that some of the language used by Maciver may have been unprofessional and ill-advised, but involved pure name-calling and was therefore not defamatory.

[26] Second, the motion judge found that the appellant had offered no evidence of any harm caused to her reputation as a result of the impugned tweets, other than “vague, unparticularized statements.” Therefore, even if the words complained of were defamatory, and some general damage to the appellant’s reputation is therefore to be presumed, any such damage is likely to be assessed as being merely nominal.

[27] Section 137.1(4)(b) of the CJA provides that if the impugned expression giving rise to a proceeding relates to a matter of “public interest”, the proceeding shall be dismissed unless the plaintiff satisfies the judge that the harm they have suffered, or are likely to suffer, is “sufficiently serious that the public interest in permitting the proceeding to continue outweighs the public interest in protecting that expression.”

[28] Given the at most nominal damages suffered by the appellant as a result of the impugned tweets by Maciver, the motion judge found that the public interest in protecting Maciver’s right to speak out on a matter of public interest outweighs any considerations that might otherwise favour allowing the appellant’s defamation action against him to continue.

Regarding the claims against Picard, Weeks and Picazo, the Court of Appeal found that their expressions were protected by the “fair comment” defence. And as with Maciver, Gill never produced any evidence that she had been seriously harmed by these remarks. The Panel decided that protecting the expression was more important than allowing the case to continue — exactly what Justice Stewart had written.

[62] The motion judge found that the appellant’s defamation claim against the critics of her unorthodox views on effective treatment for COVID-19 was intended to silence those critics. As the motion judge found, correctly in my view, this is precisely the type of proceeding that s. 137.1 was designed to foreclose.

[63] It is unclear why the appellant included the unrelated allegations against Maciver in the proceeding that was otherwise focused on issues related to COVID-19. Maciver had a limited social media profile, his criticisms of the appellant were taken down shortly after they were posted, he apologized publicly and privately to the appellant, and he was subsequently disciplined by the OMA for his comments. The appellant waited nearly two years before commencing a proceeding against Maciver and yet was unable to produce any evidence of reputational or other harm resulting from his tweets. The motion judge did not err in dismissing the appellant’s claim against him pursuant to s. 137.1(4)(b) of the CJA.

[67] It was the appellant’s choice to commence a proceeding against 23 different defendants, one, moreover, that has now been found to be without merit. Given that this proceeding is precisely the kind of action that s. 137.1 is designed to prevent, the motion judge was fully justified in applying the presumption of full indemnity costs set out in s. 137.1(7).

Gill had also sought Leave (permission) to appeal the $1.1 million cost award. That was denied, as the Panel viewed her overall Appeal as without any merit.

Gill and Lamba appear to have been successful at “leveraging” the Appeal into a settlement for reduced costs. In other words, they strong armed their victims into accepting lesser amounts. This comes despite the fact that both the original Claim and Appeal had no merit.

This doesn’t appear to be the end for either of them.

Kulvinder Gill still has an open $7 million lawsuit against Amir Attaran and the University of Ottawa over Twitter insults. This faces another anti-SLAPP Motion.

Ashvinder Lamba is suing her former counsel for incompetence, negligence, malpractice, and for having undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Expect follow up coverage.

MOTION FOR SECURITY FOR COSTS
(1) Gill V. Maciver Amended Notice of Motion – 26 Sept 2023
(2) Gill v Maciver – San Grewal’s appeal for support M54554.MPF.PointerGroup – October 2023.PDF
(3) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PbEewt3dAKqAT5Udp6BIIqrM9Y_AhPHv/view
(4) Ruling: Motion For Security Of Costs – Denied

KULVINDER GILL/ASHVINDER LAMBA CASE:
(1) Gill/Lamba Defamation Lawsuit December 2020
(2) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-c43/latest/rso-1990-c-c43.html#sec137.1_smooth
(3) Gill/Lamba Factum Of Medical Post Tristan Bronca
(4) Gill/Lamba Case Dismissed As A SLAPP
(5) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1279/2022onsc1279.html#par17
(6) Gill/Lamba Notice of Appeal and Appellants’ Certificate
(7) Gill/Lamba Appeal – Notice of Intention to Dismiss Appeal for Delay, May 12, 2022
(8) Motion To Recuse – Badly Redacted -2022-06-17 – Notice
(9) Motion To Recuse – Badly Redacted -2022 – Motion Record
(10) Gill/Lamba July 15 Letter To Obtain New Counsel
(11) Gill/Lamba Case Conference Brief July 29, 2022
(12) Gill/Lamba Endorsement New Counsel Cost Submissions August 3, 2022
(13) Gill/Lamba Case $1.1 Million In Costs Ordered October 31, 2022

GILL/ATTARAN/UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA CASE:
(1) Gill-Attaran Statement Of Claim
(2) Gill Attaran Affidavit Of Service
(3) Gill-Attaran Notice Of Intent
(4) Gill-Attaran Motice To Recuse
(5) Gill-Ataran Motion To Recuse Motion Record

LAMBA PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE CLAIM:
(1) Lamba Statement Of Claim

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Lawyer In Anti-SLAPP Decision Sued For Malpractice, Incompetence & Negligence

A $600,000 lawsuit was filed in Ontario Superior Court by an Ontario doctor who says that her former counsel was incompetent and negligent to the point that she’s suffered damages. She claims that the representation fell far below what should be considered professional. Specifically the Claim cites:

  • professional negligence
  • breach of fiduciary duty
  • breach of contract
  • incompetence
  • conflict of interest

Kulvinder Kaur Gill and Ashvinder Kaur Lamba, both Ontario doctors, made headlines in 2020, filing a $12.75 million defamation lawsuit against 23 parties. It was primarily over petty online drama, and predictably, it was thrown out. The case was appealed, to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Soon afterwards, their lawyer, “Mr. Bad Beyond Argument”, abandoned them. This was allegedly over prolonged health issues.

Asher Honickman went on to represent Lamba in 2022. It’s interesting, since he’s also the one to commence proceedings against her former lawyer.

One of the main points of contention is that Gill and Lamba should never have joined their cases. While Gill alleged defamation from 23 parties, Lamba only had isses with 2 of them (Angus Maciver and Nadia Alam). Even then, she never really had a case against one of them. It’s argued in this malpractice suit that the asymmetry led to Lamba getting dragged into something much larger than she wanted.

Due to deficiencies in the original suit, it’s pleaded that Lamba wants damages from all 23 Defendants, even though she admittedly had nothing to do with 21 of them.

Also in this suit, Lamba claims she was never properly advised about the cost consequences — full indemnity (or 100%) — which are typical if they’re dismissed under anti-SLAPP laws.

There are many more problems to cover, and we’ll get into that. But first:

Timeline of major events

Pre-2020: Gill and Lamba have prior issues with Maciver and Alam. These predate the “pandemic” and the debate over lockdown measures.

Summer/Fall of 2020: Kulvinder Gill gets into many trivial arguments on Twitter, leading to some harsh replies. These are screenshotted to use as evidence.

December 2020: Gill and Lamba, sued 23 individuals and organizations for defamation. This was primarily (although not entirely) brought over Twitter spats that Gill had engaged in.

September 2021: Over the course of 3 days, several anti-SLAPP Motions are argued before Justice Stewart in the Superior Court. These are Motions to dismiss, based on Section 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act. This is a section of the law that allows for rapid screening of lawsuits brought to “stifle public interest speech”.

February 2022: Justice Stewart dismisses the suit was dismissed under Ontario’s anti-SLAPP laws. This wasn’t at all surprising to anyone who understands defamation law. It was an extremely weak case. At this point, costs have yet to be determined.

March 2022: The lawyer for Gill and Lamba files a Notice of Appeal, despite the fact that he doesn’t intend to stick around. It also becomes apparent that counsel doesn’t fully understand the purpose of anti-SLAPP laws, nor the standards applied.

May 2022: Counsel for Gill and Lamba succeeds in getting himself removed from the case for “health reasons”. This come despite him actively being involved in other litigation, and even commencing other lawsuits.

July 2022: Gill and Lamba (with new counsel) try to get new cost submissions filed. They claim that their previous lawyer didn’t do anywhere close to an adequate job.

September 2022: The Appeal is “perfected” meaning all the documents are submitted. Note: there still hasn’t been an award of costs yet for the original decision from February.

October 2022: Gill and Lamba are hit with $1.1 million in legal costs from the Defendants, who were successful in getting the case thrown out. But to be fair, Gill took the bulk of the hit. She had sued all 23 Defendants, while Lamba was only pursuing a case against 2 of them.

October 2023: One of the Respondents, the Pointer Group Inc., argues a Motion that Gill should have to pay her costs up front, given how weak the Appeal is.

November 2023: The Motion for security for costs is denied.

December 2023: After many delays, the Appeal is finally heard, but with only a few Respondents left. Most have cut some sort of deal to accept partial payment.

February 2024: The Court of Appeal for Ontario throws out the Appeal against the few remaining Respondents who hadn’t yet settled over this.

Now, what other problems are alleged in this malpractice suit?

Lamba’s relief sought incorrectly lists “all” Defendants

This is from page 7 of the Statement of Claim. Even though Lamba is pursuing defamation claims from just 2 of the Defendants (Gill from all 23), she seeks aggravated and punitive damages from everyone. This is a horribly amateurish error to make. These damages make up $2 million dollars, and it’s demanded that people who aren’t alleged to have wronged her have to pay.

This is the problem with the cut-and-paste lawsuit business. Important proofreading like this gets overlooked.

Claim wrongly lists all Defendants liable to BOTH Plaintiffs

From page 81 of the Statement of Claim, it’s alleged that all the Defendants are liable to both Gill and Lamba for: (a) libel and slander; (b) conspiracy; (c) negligence; and (d) breach of professional obligations.

But, as stated earlier, Lamba had nothing to do with 21 out of the 23 Defendants. Her only stated grievances were with Maciver and Alam. The poorly worded Claim doesn’t distinguish that though.

What else is there?

Lamba alleges she wasn’t advised to file Affidavit

Paragraph 17(d) the Claim reads that Lamba didn’t produce any evidence. By this, it means that she never submitted a sworn Affidavit against the anti-SLAPP Motions.

That matters because the 3rd branch of the anti-SLAPP test requires that the Plaintiffs submit evidence of at least some damages. While it doesn’t have to be a “fully developed brief”, there has to be something for a Judge to conclude that damages occurred.

By failing to do this, it’s guaranteed that the case would be thrown out.

Lamba alleges she was neglected in favour of Gill

Paragraph 17(f) of the Claim reads that the anti-SLAPP Motions Lamba received got nowhere near the attention that the ones targeted at Gill. As such, she felt neglected by her own representation.

Lamba alleges she preferred to settle or discontinue

Paragraphs 17(g), (h), and 33(c) of the Claim read that Lamba would have been better off to go the route of apology, settlement, or possibly discontinuance. This would substantially mitigate cost exposure. She states that her lawyer should have taken that approach.

Lamba alleges junior lawyers did work they weren’t trained for

Paragraphs 17(j) and 33(g) of the Claim read that junior lawyers and/or staff were doing parts of the work that they weren’t trained for, or competent in. There was apparently little oversight to ensure that it was done properly. Then again, it seems that senior counsel isn’t competent either.

By junior lawyers, this presumably refers to Samantha Coomara, who works at that firm. Gill and Lamba have a separate lawsuit in Brampton that names her.

As an aside: Coomara was the lawyer of record who sued this site, after sending threatening letters. She is grossly incompetent, and lacks understanding of basic procedures.

Lamba alleges conflict of interest with her legal representation

Paragraphs 17(k), 33(l) and (m) of the Claim read that Lamba’s own lawyers had their own agenda, and put their interests above their own. Presumably this refers to the Action4Canada and Vaccine Choice cases which allege that there was a global conspiracy. This led to the highly publicized but poorly drafted lawsuits that kept getting thrown out.

Lamba was interested in a straightforward and (relatively) private defamation case. She apparently never wanted to get involved in any of this. She openly calls this a conflict of interest.

Lamba alleges she was never informed of the risks

Paragraph 33(b) of the Claim reads that Lamba was never properly advised about the risks of starting a defamation suit in Ontario. Between the strong anti-SLAPP laws, and the “presumptive full indemnity on costs”, this can get very messy.

The Claim mentions repeatedly that Lamba wasn’t kept in the loop about major decisions within her own case. It’s also claimed many times that the representation she got was incompetent.

Furthermore, she blames the quality of the pleadings on incompetence. It’s stated that her claims focused on the insults which aren’t actionable, versus the actual defamation.

Lamba is resentful at having her name tied to Gill, and to her lawyer’s overall agenda. She views it as very unhelpful. The $7 million suit Gill filed against Amir Attaran for calling her an “idiot” probably doesn’t help. While Lamba may have had valid grievances on her own, connecting with Gill and her lawyer seem to have caused endless headaches.

Keep in mind, all of this is written from Lamba’s perspective. We’ll have to see what the Statement of Defence says.

What are the practical consequences of suing 23 people and organizations? Well, a lot of lawyers are going to get rich billing the hours to defend against these claims.

This was another headache Lamba had to deal with. The bulk of the lawsuit had nothing to do with her, but she was claiming damages against everyone. Once the case was thrown out, she was presumptively on the hook for half of it. Part of the reason Lamba and Gill got separate counsel is that their interests diverged greatly in terms of the costs.

Gill would benefit much more from a 50/50 split
Lamba would benefit from everyone paying their own share

Anyhow, this is only a quick summary. Do read the entire Statement of Claim, as it’s quite the eye opener.

What will happen with this lawsuit?

It’s hard to say, but here’s a personal prediction:

Since it’s a lawyer being sued for negligence and malpractice, insurance will likely cover it. This means they’ll be providing a lawyer to defend it, and pay most of the bills. If it were a claim for dishonesty or misrepresentation, they probably wouldn’t.

Anyhow, insurance companies are businesses, and they don’t like losing money. They may very well force a settlement, or leave the client to fend for himself. They also don’t like insuring high risk subjects.

LAMBA PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE CLAIM:
(1) Lamba Statement Of Claim
(2) Lamba Notice Of Intent To Defend

MOTION FOR SECURITY OF COSTS
(1) Gill V. Maciver Amended Notice of Motion – 26 Sept 2023
(2) Gill v Maciver – San Grewal’s appeal for support M54554.MPF.PointerGroup – October 2023.PDF
(3) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PbEewt3dAKqAT5Udp6BIIqrM9Y_AhPHv/view
(4) Ruling: Motion For Security Of Costs – Denied

KULVINDER GILL/ASHVINDER LAMBA CASE:
(1) Gill/Lamba Defamation Lawsuit December 2020
(2) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-c43/latest/rso-1990-c-c43.html#sec137.1_smooth
(3) Gill/Lamba Factum Of Medical Post Tristan Bronca
(4) Gill/Lamba Case Dismissed As A SLAPP
(5) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1279/2022onsc1279.html#par17
(6) Gill/Lamba Notice of Appeal and Appellants’ Certificate
(7) Gill/Lamba Appeal – Notice of Intention to Dismiss Appeal for Delay, May 12, 2022
(8) Motion To Recuse – Badly Redacted -2022-06-17 – Notice
(9) Motion To Recuse – Badly Redacted -2022 – Motion Record
(10) Gill/Lamba July 15 Letter To Obtain New Counsel
(11) Gill/Lamba Case Conference Brief July 29, 2022
(12) Gill/Lamba Endorsement New Counsel Cost Submissions August 3, 2022
(13) Gill/Lamba Case $1.1 Million In Costs Ordered October 31, 2022
(14) Gill/Lamba Appeal Dismissed As Baseless By ONCA
(15) https://coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/item/22116/index.do

GILL/ATTARAN/UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA CASE:
(1) Gill-Attaran Statement Of Claim
(2) Gill Attaran Affidavit Of Service
(3) Gill-Attaran Notice Of Intent
(4) Gill-Attaran Motice To Recuse
(5) Gill-Ataran Motion To Recuse Motion Record

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Failed “Intimidation Lawsuit” Results In $132,268 Cost Award

December 11th, 2023, Justice Chalmers of the Ontario Superior Court threw out a $1.1 million defamation lawsuit brought against the anti-lockdown group, CSASPP. On February 3rd, he ordered $132,268.17 in costs to be paid within 30 days.

The lawsuit was filed June 28th, 2022 by “Mr. Bad Beyond Argument”, also known as the “King of the Struck Lawsuit”. For more on the CSASPP dismissal, background information is available here.

Justice Chalmers did more than just rule that this was done to stifle debate. He also said that this suit was brought to derail a Law Society complaint filed by Ms. Donna Toews, and to intimidate others from making complaints in the future. In short, this was a deliberate effort to sabotage the internal process of the LSO itself.

From the ruling of Justice Chalmers, dismissing the case

[89] With respect to the claim against Ms. Toews, I am of the view that “what is really going on” is an attempt to intimidate members of the public who may be considering making a complaint about the Plaintiff to the LSO. The effect of the action against Ms. Toews would be to obstruct the regulatory process. The harm this would cause in the LSO’s ability to receive and process complaints about lawyers is, in my view significant.

[98] For the reasons set out above, I find that the Plaintiff brought this action for the improper purpose of stifling debate with respect to his handling of a proposed class action that is being funded by public donations. I also note that the Claim was brought one day before the Plaintiff submitted a response to the LSO with respect to Ms. Toews complaint. I find that the Claim was brought for the improper purpose of limiting the LSO investigation, and to intimidate others from making any LSO complaints about him.

Suing someone to avoid a Law Society Complaint is grounds for disbarment. David Grant Isaac had his licence revoked in November 2022 over exactly this misconduct. But it’s not the only case here.

Multiple lawsuits filed in order to bury Toews complaint

It’s an oversimplification to just say that this is a defamation case. Ms. Toews apparently had the potential to do some real damage by contacting the LSO. It lead to 3 suits, so far. Who knows if more will be brought later?

Galati v. CSASPP et al.
Filed: June 28th, 2022
Case No.: CV-22-00683322-0000

Galati v. Law Society of Ontario et al.
Filed: July 12th, 2022
Case No.: CV-22-00683933-0000

Galati v. Law Society of Ontario et al.
Filed: July 31st, 2023
Case No.: CV-23-00703697-0000

Not only was Ms. Toews sued in order to subvert her LSO complaint, but the Law Society itself was sued itself, twice. And for what?

Taking her story at face value, she donated $1,000 to each of Action4Canada, and to Vaccine Choice Canada. Presumably, she wanted her money back, since neither was advancing an anti-lockdown case in any meaningful way. The value of her donations amounted to a mere $2,000. And it resulted in 3 overlapping lawsuits.

3 lawsuits were filed in order to bury the Toews complaint, over $2,000. Other than in Small Claims, who files a case over that amount? Who files 3 Claims over the same issue? One really has to wonder what people were afraid the LSO would have found during their investigation. What was really going on?

From Justice Chalmers regarding the costs

[7] The Defendants argue that there is no reason to depart from the presumption that the successful party is entitled to their full indemnity costs. The Defendants claim costs in the amount of $159,920.97 inclusive of counsel fee, disbursements, and H.S.T. They argue that the proceeding was complex. The evidence before the court consisted of more than 3,000 pages. The Plaintiff sued four Defendants and cross-examined the deponents of all affidavits tendered on the motion. The transcripts were over 500 pages. The Plaintiff also filed the affidavits of Lee Turner and Alicia Johnson that were subject to a preliminary objection by the Defendants. I found that the affidavits were irrelevant and inadmissible.

[14] I am not satisfied that the Plaintiff’s offer provides a basis for not awarding costs on a full indemnity basis. The offer requires the Defendants to retract and apologize for their comments made about the Plaintiff. In my reasons, I found that the Defendants’ speech was an expression in the public interest. I also found that the defences of justification and fair comment applied. Acceptance of the offer would have satisfied the Plaintiff’s objective in bringing this action, namely, to silence the Defendants from making an expression in the public interest. It is my view that the Defendants were justified in not accepting the Plaintiff’s offer.

[15] The Defendants were required to incur the costs of the motion to strike the action that I found was brought for an improper purpose. I am of the view that there is no reason to depart from the presumption that the moving party is entitled to its costs on the motion and the proceeding on a full indemnity basis.

[16] Although s. 137.1(7) provides that the presumption is that the successful moving party’s costs will be awarded on a full indemnity basis, the court must consider the fairness and reasonableness of the award having regard to the r. 57.01 factors.

[17] Here, the Plaintiff brought an action in which he seeks damages totalling $1,000,000. The s. 137.1 motion was complex and involved a significant number of documents. There had been cross examinations of 7 witnesses. There were over 3000 pages of documents on the motion, including 500 pages of transcripts. The issues involved expressions in the public interest and in particular comments with respect to the counsel retained to conduct public interest litigation. I am satisfied that the issues were of importance.

The case was a typical SLAPP, or strategic lawsuit against public participation. It was lawfare from the Plaintiff, using the legal system as a weapon in order to silence his critics. The case was unnecessary, and involved a huge amount of time and expense to deal with it.

Also, Justice Chalmers was not impressed by the “Settlement Offer”. He stated that it would have achieved the Plaintiff’s goal of forcibly silencing his critics.

Then there is this little gem:

[20] I find that the time spent by the Defendants’ lawyers was excessive. The total hours for the preparation of the motion record, including the review of the file and drafting affidavits was 45.8 hours for Mr. Gleason and 92.4 hours for Ms. Rauff. For the preparation of the reply record and preparing for and attending on the cross-examinations, and drafting the factum was 83 hours for Mr. Gleason and 121.3 for Ms. Rauff. From a review of the Costs Outline, it appears that there was an overlap of the work performed by Ms. Rauff and Mr. Gleason. Both docketed for each item of work. There does not appear to have been an efficient division of responsibility.

[22] It is my view that an appropriate counsel fee for the motions is $112,500. This is a reduction of approximately 25% of the Defendants’ lawyer’s actual counsel fee. With H.S.T. in the amount of $14,625 and disbursements of $5,143.17, the total costs are $132,268.17.

Gleason and Rauff may have been overbilling, but at least they won their case on the merits. The same cannot be said for the Nadon reference case. Gonzo logic!

As reported in the National Post, an Appeal of the CSASPP dismissal is already in the works. Appealing a SLAPP decision (unsuccessfully) is presumably on a full indemnity (100% of costs) basis. Can we expect another $50,000+ ruling to come as a result of this?

Who really funded these intimidation suits?

Now, we get to the interesting questions: who really financed the lawsuit against CSASPP? Who funded both of the suits against the Law Society?

Consider the following timeline:

October 11th, 2023: Justice Dow strikes the Claim against the Law Society (the first one), on the grounds that it doesn’t disclose a Cause of Action. He does permit a rewrite, which doesn’t appear to have happened. He also ordered $14,600 in costs to be paid to the LSO for legal costs.

December 11th, 2023: Justice Chalmers dismisses the Toews/CSASPP suit under Ontario’s anti-SLAPP laws, ruling that it was brought for improper purposes, and as an act of intimidation.

January 18th, 2024: CSASPP publishes the decision, and a lengthy commentary piece.

February 3rd, 2024: Justice Chalmers issues his ruling ordering that $132,000 be paid as a result of this failed lawsuit. While a reduction from the $160,000 sought, this is still a large sum of money.

February 4th, 2024: Action4Canada updates its website to announce that they will be doing an “expose” on the so-called agitators within the Freedom Movement.

February 7th, 2024: Kuntz and Gaw have their stream on Zoom, where they claim to be exposing a coordinated “military style” campaign to destroy their lawyer. There are complaints from observers on Zoom that comments are being deleted. The stream itself is a hit piece designed to deflect from the true nature of the criticism.

The Action4Canada, Vaccine Choice, Adelberg (Federal), and Take Action Canada cases were critiqued in detail. At no point is it stated or implied that it’s not worthwhile fighting martial law measures. Instead, the quality of the documents themselves is looked at. They clearly fail to follow the basics of procedure.

Just because someone is skeptical of long delays, and poorly drafted pleadings, it doesn’t mean they’re anti-freedom. It means they’re anti-grifter. There is a difference.

Are Action4Canada and Vaccine Choice Canada funding intimidation lawsuits, such as the one with CSASPP? Although they explicitly deny it, they do lament the drop in donations since 2021.

Interestingly, it’s stated that “he had to act in order to avoid getting disbarred”. Presumably, this refers to the LSO complaint from Ms. Toews. Suing her either for retaliation, or to subvert an investigation, is grounds for revoking a law licence. So, what exactly was so bad? Was there a fear that the LSO would force an audit of the books?

Who’s paying for the $14,600 over the struck suit against the LSO?
Who’s paying for the $132,268 over the dismissed SLAPP against CSASPP?
Who’s paying for the Appeal lodged against CSASPP and the Chalmers rulings?
Who’s paying for when the the second LSO suit is struck?
Who’s paying for the intimidation suit filed against Canuck Law?

Donors to Action4Canada and Vaccine Choice — if there are any left — really need to be asking these questions. Since neither organization is diligently pursuing a case against the Government, are funds being used to silence critics?

The anti-lockdown cases are considered “public interest litigation”. As the name implies, it’s society as a whole, not just private parties, who are impacted. Why the reluctance to be transparent?

A closing thought: if A4C/VCC money was used to sabotage the Toews LSO complaint and/or to silence legitimate inquiry, does it make them accomplices? Are donors now (unknowingly) complicit in illegal activity? Just something to think about.

CSASPP/RG DOCUMENTS (June 2022)
(1) CSASPP RG Statement Of Claim
(2) CSASPP RG Moving Party Motion Record Volume 1
(3) CSASPP RG Moving Party Motion Record Volume 2
(4) CSASPP RG Moving Party Motion Record Volume 3
(5) CSASPP RG Responding Motion Record Volume 1
(6) CSASPP RG Responding Motion Record Volume 2
(7) CSASPP RG Responding Motion Record Volume 3
(8) CSASPP RG Moving Party Supplemental Motion Record
(9) CSASPP RG Moving Party Record Motion To Strike
(10) CSASPP RG Plaintiffs Responding Record Motion To Strike
(11) CSASPP RG Transcript Brief
(12) CSASPP RG Moving Party Factum (Arguments)
(13) CSASPP RG Responding Plaintiff Factum
(14) CSASPP RG Moving Parties Reply Factum
(15) CSASPP RG Reasons For Judgement
(16) CanLII Posting Of Decision

1ST LAW SOCIETY OF ONTARIO CLAIM (July 2022)
(1) Law Society Of Ontario Statement Of Claim
(2) Law Society Of Ontario Intent To Defend
(3) Law Society Of Ontario Amended Statement Of Claim
(4) Law Society Of Ontario Requisition For Amended Claim
(5) Law Society Of Ontario Motion Record, To Strike
(6) Law Society Of Ontario Moving Party Factum To Strike
(7) Law Society Of Ontario Plaintiff Responding Factum

2ND LAW SOCIETY OF ONTARIO CLAIM (July 2023)
(1) Law Society Of Ontario Second Statement Of Claim

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Take Action Canada’s Case Conference Adjourned Indefinitely, Still No Activity

January 24, 2024, the Ontario First Responders suit (organized by Take Action Canada), briefly appeared in Court for a case conference. It had been expected that this was to set down dates to bring a Motion to Strike the pleading, since it didn’t follow the Rules of Civil Procedure, or for Summary Judgement.

The lawsuit was coordinated in the Fall of 2021, but nothing was actually filed until March 1, 2023. Here we are, almost another year later.

For context, this is a lawsuit involving about 100 current and former: (a) police officers; (b) medical personnel; (c) firefighters; (d) city workers; (e) transit workers; and (f) related employees. They objected to the new requirements to take the injections in order to stay employed. However, there were a few major obstacles to this going forward.

This is not to say that coercing or pressuring people to take experimental injections, for a non-existent virus, was a legitimate move. It certainly wasn’t. Realistically though, this case will have some serious problems.

First, most — if not all — of the Plaintiffs are either employed by some level of Government, or have some kind of union or collective agreement. This means they typically have the right to grieve, which can lead to arbitration. However, they don’t necessarily have the right to sue.

Second, the pleading was written so poorly that it would likely be struck in its entirety. There are specific rules (like 25.06 in Ontario), which lay out the requirements to plead facts and particulars. Simply making bare accusations without specifics isn’t enough.

If prospective Plaintiffs are required to grieve, there are a few limited ways they can get into Court.

(1) If the grievance process is corrupted or unworkable, then the Court may allow the person in anyway. However, the burden will be on them to show that they made every effort to go through proper channels. Keeping letters, emails, texts, etc… would be very handy to have as evidence.

(2) If the matter has already gone to to adjudication or arbitration, and was unfair, a person can sometimes come to Court and ask for a review. This is analogous to appealing a verdict.

However, it doesn’t appear from the pleading that any of the Plaintiffs attempted (1). And (2) wouldn’t apply since there was no internal adjudication.

To be fair, the Amended Statement of Claim does list some 35 workers who sought to get exemptions from the injection requirement. But it still doesn’t say that they tried the formal process to grieve.

The injection mandates happened in 2021, and we are now into 2024. The Plaintiffs presumably let their ability to grieve lapse a long time ago. And even if they were to hire new counsel now, they may be time barred by the Statute of Limitations from refiling in Court. To be blunt, they have no options now.

In the big picture, a lot has been going on, it’s important to remember that this isn’t the only lawsuit happening. Plenty of bogus claims are being filed, with clients oblivious to the realities.

Timeline of major events in this matter

July 6, 2020: Vaccine Choice Canada files an $11 million lawsuit against Federal, Provincial and Municipal authorities in Ontario. The suit is almost 200 pages, incoherent, unintelligible, and fails to meet the basic requirement of Ontario Civil Procedure. Rather than immediately bringing a Motion to Strike, the Parties are okay with letting it sit idly for years. Despite the media blitz, and promises of an emergency mask injunction, there’s no activity.

Summer, 2020: Action4Canada begins regular fundraising for a challenge out in B.C., but it would be approximately a year before anything was filed.

April 20, 2021: Organized by Police On Guard, group of police officers file a Notice of Application, requesting declaratory relief and clarification about what their jobs actually involved. To date, it hasn’t had a single Court appearance, and counsel and admitted that it’s “moot” and not being pursued.

April 20, 2021: Children’s Health Defense (Canada) files a Notice of Application, requesting declaratory relief and clarification about what their jobs actually involved. To date, it hasn’t had a single Court appearance, and counsel and admitted that it’s “moot” and not being pursued. Additionally, these 2 Applications are virtual clones of each other.

August 17, 2021: The Action4Canada lawsuit is finally filed in Vancouver. It terms of being incoherent and unintelligible, it outdoes the VCC case in every way. It’s almost 400 pages, and is almost completely irrelevant in terms of pleading for CIVIL remedies in British Columbia.

Fall 2021: Take Action Canada starts to organize a challenge for “Ontario First Responders” who are going to be impacted by injection mandates. These include police, firefighters, paramedics, and transit workers. Prospective clients are asked to pay $1,500 each, for work that is being sold as top rate. (See archives here and here).

Fall 2021: Take Action Canada puts out this hit piece, gloating over the fact that this site was sued for millions for critiquing these anti-lockdown cases. (See archive here). Keep in mind that despite this, TAC hasn’t actually filed their lawsuit, and they won’t for a very long time.

May 25, 2022: The Adelberg (Federal) suit is filed, challenging injection mandates for Federal employees, and workers in Federally regulated industries. Over 600 Plaintiffs are expected to pay a retainer fee of $1,000 each, making the initial amount over $600,000.

May 31, 2022: The Action4Canada Motion to Strike is heard, with the decision being reserved, or deferred.

June 28, 2022: Ted Kuntz contacts the Law Society of Ontario and tries to assure them that there’s no basis for the Toews complaint. See page 9. He defends the practice of “not revealing [VCC’s] litigation strategy to the general public”. In a backhanded way, he admits that Toews — and everyone else — have been kept in the dark about what’s been going on.

June 28, 2022: CSASPP is sued for $1.1 million. This is (partly) for criticising the lack of activity in the Action4Canada and Vaccine Choice Canada cases. But the real goal was to subvert and undermine the Toews complaint to the Law Society of Ontario, requesting an investigation of donations. Get the backstory here and here.

June 29, 2022: The Law Society is contacted to inform them of the lawsuit against Toews, CSASPP, and its leadership. This is done to further shut down the Toews complaint.

July 12, 2022: The Law Society of Ontario is sued. This is another effort to silence the Toews complaint, and make sure it’s not heard.

July 13, 2022: Before CSASPP and the LSO are even served, the idiotic decision is made to announce their respective cases on a VCC livestream. It takes a special kind of stupid to admit publicly that someone was sued for instigating a LSO complaint. For obvious reasons this isn’t allowed, as it would allow lawyers to bypass complaints, simply by suing whoever made them.

Keep in mind, suing someone in order to ward off a Law Society complaint is something that causes lawyers to get disbarred. There is precedence for this. Suing the LSO itself is even worse.

August 29, 2022: The Action4Canada case is struck in its entirety as “bad beyond argument”. Justice Ross states that it fails to meet any minimum standards of professionalism or coherence. That said, a rewrite of the Notice of Civil Claim is allowed.

September 28, 2022: Instead of filing a proper Claim, Action4Canada appeals the ruling instead. It centered around what types of remedies a Civil Court could pursue. Problem is, none of the necessary legislation exists to allow for such remedies

January 17, 2023: Vaccine Choice Canada finally has their first Court appearance, for their 191 page Claim filed July 6, 2020. That’s right, it sat idly for 2 1/2 years. That’s on top of the October 24, 2019 lawsuit, which hasn’t had a single appearance in over 4 years.

January 19, 2023: The Adelberg Motion to Strike is heard, with the decision reserved.

February 21, 2023: The Adelberg (Federal) case is struck as “bad beyond argument”.

February 24, 2023: Angry and disgruntled clients leak this letter, which demands another $1,000 each in order to appeal the Adelberg ruling. Despite the gross incompetence of counsel, clients are expected to pay more money.

Reminder: despite all of the obvious delays and shoddy work produced to this point, the suit from Take Action Canada hasn’t yet been filed.

March 1, 2023: The Statement of Claim is eventually filed in the FR/TAC case, nearly a year and a half after injection mandates came into effect in Ontario, and elsewhere. Aside from changing the names, it’s about 90% cut-and-paste from the Adelberg (Federal) case, which had just been thrown out. It also has many of the same defects as the Action4Canada case, also struck.

March 11, 2023: Sandra Sable (who helps run Take Action Canada), and Tanya Gaw (Action4Canada) swear out Affidavits against the CSASPP anti-SLAPP Motion. The content is interesting, to say the least. The timing is also curious, as it comes only days after the TAC suit is eventually filed. A cynic may wonder if it was done as leverage in order to get the Sable Affidavit out.

March 13, 2023: Ted Kuntz of Vaccine Choice Canada swears out an Affidavit against CSASPP as well. In it, Kuntz displays anger at having being forced to explain to donors what’s going on. Apparently, he preferred to keep them — and opposing counsel — in the dark about the details of their case.

July 18, 2023: An Amended Statement of Claim is filed in the FR/TAC case. Paragraphs 9A and 22A outline some 35 employees who apparently sought exemptions, but were denied. These changes appear to be an attempt to fix some of the defects that were present in the Adelberg case.

July 31, 2023: The Law Society of Ontario is sued for a second time, while the Toews/CSASPP and other LSO complaints are still pending. While VCC/A4C/TAC and others are assuring clients and donors that their cases are being advanced, counsel is ensuring he’s forced out of the profession.

August 16, 2023: The City of Hamilton files a Notice of Intent to Defend against the FR/TAC suit. This is not the same as filing a Statement of Defence, just an indication that they will at some point.

November 24, 2023: This letter is sent to the Plaintiffs in the FR/TAC case. Presumably, they weren’t happy, and it was soon leaked. This is a demand letter for another $4,500 (per Plaintiff), otherwise, the suit may be discontinued. Considering the number of Plaintiffs, this would be close to another half million. The deadline was given as January 24, 2024. Their lawyer had already received about $150,000 from clients, and had done nothing to advance their interests.

While there were questions about the letter — as it was unsigned — the hearing did happen (sort of) on that date.

January 24, 2024: The FR/TAC suit has their first case conference, which is adjourned. There’s still be no meaningful activity, up to this point. No evidence has been sworn, no Motions or Applications filed, no witnesses called, or other hearings. As with the above cases, there’s no urgency whatsoever to bring this case forward. According to the November 2023 letter, it was to set dates for a Summary Judgement Motion.

January 30, 2024: Vaccine Choice Canada will finally have their Motion to Strike heard, after the case had been dormant for about 3 1/2 years. It’s to be held over 2 days.

This timeline matters, as there was an abundance of information available prior to Take Action Canada filing anything. It doesn’t seem that any consideration was given.

Now, let’s hear from Sandra and Ted themselves!

From the Affidavit of Sandra Sable

In her Affidavit (from the CSASPP case) Sable blames the organization, its leadership, and this website for the comments criticising the other anti-lockdown cases. She specifically states that it caused many prospective clients to either withhold funds, or to demand refunds. In short, these reviews (allegedly) threatened the financial viability of the Ontario First Responders lawsuit.

There is another way to look at this. Sable knew ahead of time that the sort of lawsuits being filed didn’t follow the basics of Civil Procedure. She also knew that they were needlessly delayed, preventing real justice. The truth was staring her in the face, yet she pushed on, soliciting for more clients.

There’s no mention of why none of the 100 or so Plaintiffs never went through the formal grievance process before attempting to litigate. At least, it’s not spelled out if they did. This is very basic employment law.

In regard to Take Action Canada, there’s no explanation offered as to why it took almost 18 months to file a Statement of Claim. It wasn’t some novel pleading, but a rehash of old ones. Beyond that, this case was a rehash of content thrown out, and more than once.

Instead of doing due diligence, Sable lashed out this site, and at CSASPP.

She bragged in 2021 about this site being sued for defamation, and sarcastically says “Good luck, Canuck Law”. Well, thanks Sandy! Good luck when you get sued for fraud, or at least negligence.

From the Affidavit of Ted Kuntz

Ted Kuntz from Vaccine Choice Canada swore an Affidavit in the CSASPP case, and an almost identical one here. And it also is very interesting.

At paragraph 20, he laments the CSASPP/Canuck postings which caused VCC members to demand answers. Although he doesn’t specify, the comments truthfully stated that there had been no meaningful activity since the July 6, 2020 filing. Understandably, clients and donors wanted answers.

Instead, Kuntz comes up with the excuse that VCC didn’t want to expose their litigation strategy, nor reveal solicitor-client information. However, the privileged information is a red-herring, as no one was demanding the release of confidential data. But there were legitimate concerns about the total inactivity, and shoddy pleading of the Claim overall. Clients and donors had real questions.

The defence of “not wanting to reveal the litigation strategy” is absurd. Anyone who has ever been involved in litigation knows you have to show your cards well in advance. The cloak-and-dagger approach isn’t received too well. Springing last minute surprises on opposing counsel is referred to as “sandbagging”, a practice Judges almost universally reject.

At paragraph 25, Kuntz indignantly rejects the idea the VCC is just another “fundraising arm”. He states that it is just a group who hired a lawyer to pursue a case.

However, this is directly contradicted by Exhibit “C”, on page 18.

Exhibit “C”, page 20, Kuntz references a newsletter which stated that VCC was involved with coordinating litigation before the CPSO, or College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. It implies that VCC has helped to finance these cases as well.

For reference, none of the CPSO challenges ever went anywhere. Attempts to remove from internal investigations, and get them into Court, always failed for “prematurity”. This isn’t to condone the CPSO’s heavy handed approach, but they were doomed from the start. Similar to suing union or Government employers, it would be necessary to demonstrate that internal methods were corrupt or inadequate. That didn’t happen.

Exhibit “C”, page 20, Kuntz states that “in concert with the overall plan, other legal actions” had been filed. Page 21, item 4, it’s specifically listed that doctors who have been maligned on social media have also filed suit. This presumably refers to Kulvinder Gill’s December 2020 and March 2021 defamation lawsuits.

Gill and Ashinder Lamba are suing former counsel in a Brampton Court, but it’s a very small amount, less than $6,000. This is probably what they had to pay out of pocket personally. It seems unlikely their joint case was performed on contingency, since it was so weak. There was no prospect of winning. This raises the question of who paid the rest of the bills. And there are a few obvious suspects.

Their $12.75 million case from 2020 was thrown out as a SLAPP, and in October 2022, a cost award of $1.1 million came down. So, who really orchestrated this?

For someone who objects to the term “fundraising arm”, it’s odd that Kuntz is so willing to get involved in other litigation. It’s also implied that Kuntz and VCC arranged (and financed) Kulvinder Gill’s abusive SLAPPs. These were filed in order to silence critics on social media. Perhaps this is the real reason that there was great reluctance to reveal any litigation strategy.

Looking at Exhibit “A”, it also appears that Kuntz contacted the LSO on June 28, 2022 regarding the Toews complaint. It looks like an attempt to undermine it, and consequently, stop the LSO from investigating donations or financing.

Champerty and maintenance aren’t allowed, and for good reason.

Some final thoughts

It should be mentioned that this isn’t to blindly go after everyone associated with these organizations. Surely, there are many good people who just wanted their livelihoods back. And who can blame them?

And there is a natural urge to want to fight back, which is what drives people to go into Court in the first place. This is perfectly understandable.

Nonetheless, the reality cannot be ignored.

Take away all of the smoke and mirrors. What’s left?

The Ontario First Responders case is just another in the long list of frivolous “anti-lockdown” cases designed to go nowhere. This isn’t just sloppiness, as no lawyer could possibly be this bad, especially after being smacked down repeatedly in Court. If there ever is a Motion to Strike here, expect another “bad beyond argument” ruling. Objectively speaking, none of these will ever get to Trial.

There isn’t even a follow-up date booked for the First Responders/Take Action Canada case to return. Again, injection mandates were in 2021.

How much money has been raised, and through whom?

Was donor money used to finance the CSASPP/Canuck defamation suits?

Instead of getting angry at sites like this one, it should be directed at those who funnel other people’s time, money and energy into such dead end ventures.

(1) https://takeactioncanada.ca/
(2) https://twitter.com/Takeactioncan
(3) Ontario EMS Statement Of Claim
(4) Ontario EMS Amended Statement Of Claim
(5) Ontario EMS Requisition To Amend
(6) Ontario EMS Notice Of Intent To Defend
(7) Ontario EMS Demand For More Money

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