Canadian Climate Science Denier Faces Stinging Words, Libel Charges
Here’s an interesting story out of Canada that addresses their take on free speech. Like America’s, the Canadian Constitution protects citizens’ rights to speak freely under most circumstances. Yet their courts’ interpretation of what we call our First Amendment is apparently a bit different. This climate denier’s (pictured) right to free speech is guaranteed, but he’s still subject to libel charges. Contrast that to the U.S., where things like libel, incitement, child pornography, and several others are explicitly not protected. Check this out:
Climate science denier and Trump transition team advisor Dr. Tim Ball, who (sic) a Canadian court earlier derided as incompetent, ill-intended, and apparently indifferent to the truth, has been further rebuffed in the British Columbia Court of Appeal and must now stand libel for a 9-year-old attack against prominent Canadian climate scientist (and outgoing BC Green Party leader) Dr. Andrew Weaver.
Ball, a retired geography professor who for almost two decades has been giving lectures and media interviews in Canada and around the world denying the science of climate change, actually “won” this case when it was decided in the British Columbia Supreme Court in 2018. In January 2011, Ball had attacked Weaver on the populist website, Canada Free Press, in an article that BC Supreme Court Justice Ronald Skolrood later described as “poorly written,” and “rife with errors and inaccuracies, which suggests a lack of attention to detail on Dr. Ball’s part, if not an indifference to the truth.”
Yet, while finding that Ball had clearly set out to publicly question Weaver’s competence and trash his reputation — “It is quite apparent that this was Dr. Ball’s intent” — Justice Skolrood still let him off the hook, saying, “Simply put, a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the Article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views.”
This disdain Ball claimed as a vindication, calling the decision “a victory for free speech and a blow against the use of the law to silence people.”
Weaver appealed the free pass and Ball’s celebration ended late last month, when a three-judge panel of the BC Court of Appeal found that while the busy climate contrarian is free to speak, he is nevertheless accountable for the sting in his words, giving Weaver ultimate vindication.
I have to laugh. “Accountable for the sting in his words??” The Canadian courts have spoken, using words and phrases like: incompetent, ill-intended, indifferent to the truth, poorly written, rife with errors and inaccuracies, lack of attention to detail, as well as this beauty: “a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the Article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views.”
Ouch. Like those words don’t sting?
