Court rules that defamation of Leftist Ottawa blogger was 'fair comment'

A Superior Court judge has ruled that although Ottawa blogger Dr. Dawg was defamed on a conservative message board, the hurtful words fell within the bounds of fair comment in the rough and tumble blogosphere.

“Political debate in the Internet blogosphere can be, and often is, rude, aggressive, sarcastic, hyperbolic, insulting caustic and/or vulgar. It is not for the faint of heart,” Madam Justice Heidi Polowin noted in dismissing the legal claim.

In her ruling, Polowin found that John Baglow, an Ottawa blogger known as Dr. Dawg, had been defamed by an August 2010 chat room post that referred to him as “one of the Taliban’s more vocal supporters.”

The statement was made on the Free Dominion website by Roger Smith, of Burnaby, B.C., in the course of an acrimonious debate about federal politics and the treatment of Canadian Omar Khadr, then a Guantanamo inmate.

Polowin concluded that Baglow’s reputation was damaged by the suggestion that he was a Taliban supporter. The judge, however, accepted the Fourniers’ argument that the defamatory words could be defended as fair comment in the blogosphere.

Fair comment can be used as a defence when the words at issue are based on fact and honestly expressed on a matter of public interest.

The judge said Smith was commenting on a matter of public interest — the Khadr case — and honestly held the belief that anyone who supported the teenager, an enemy combatant in Afghanistan, supported the Taliban.

Polowin decided against awarding costs to either side in the bitterly fought case.

Baglow, a left-wing political blogger and former executive with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, called the ruling a split decision. “If one has to lose a lawsuit, this is probably the way to lose it,” he said.

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