MV Council digs in heels after attacks on The Current: tries to intimidate Current’s lawyer

On September 24 The Current published an article entitled “Come clean Mayor Love – what’s behind the attacks on The Current?” Click HERE to read.Rather than come clean, the mayor and her colleagues on council have instead resorted to playing dirty. As reported previously, when a letter of complaint and request for a public retraction and apology from The Current’s publisher was ignored, local lawyer Robert Howe was retained. Howe’s letter to Sault Ste. Marie law firm Wisharts, who represent both the township and each member of council, explained that while councillors may have expected immunity because their actions took place during a council meeting, there is an onus on them to demonstrate that they acted in “good faith.” That one of their members had uttered a profanity-riddled threat at The Current’s publisher during an earlier council meeting as well as other occurrences suggests otherwise.

In response Howe  received a disturbing telephone call from Wisharts which he described as follows: “The point of which seemed to be to discourage me from continuing to represent the Pauls because of the potential damage to my working relationship to the township on behalf of other clients particularly those involved in land use planning and development.”

Following this unsuccessful attempt to persuade him to terminate his relationship with his clients, Howe has issued two invitations to Wisharts to agree to mediation in the following terms: “Whether the municipality is willing to participate in some form of mediation with a view to establishing a mutually respectful working relationship between the Pauls, The Current and the municipality.”

Lawyer Paul Cassan of the Wishart firm, who authored the letter containing the baseless accusations about The Current’s publisher, and then advised the CAO to make it public, has replied to Howe’s invitations saying, “I am instructed that council does not agree to the proposed mediation.” No reason was given for this rejection which suggests that despite their previous experiences, council and the township have not taken on board the common sense step of perhaps avoiding unnecessary legal costs by first resorting to inexpensive mediation. Readers may recall that what provoked the attack on The Current’s publisher was a letter he sent to the CAO on this very subject.

To sum up, Wisharts have been given every opportunity to explain and justify their clients’ botched hatchet job, yet Howe reports that they have not done so — other than to say that any legal proceedings will “be vigorously defended.” Taxpayers should therefore be concerned whether refusing to disclose the grounds of the “defence” even at a mediation meeting is contrary to their interests.

So, the township and its elected body have thrown down the gauntlet, giving the impression that they are more than happy to justify their conduct to a judge of the Superior Court. This stance has the effect of sending a message that similar attacks aimed at sabotaging The Current’s reputation may well occur in the future – a belief supported by council’s failure to rescind the Resolution it passed at the August 27^th meeting on the back of the Wishart letter that amounts to  an infringement of the publisher’s civil rights.

Is there an upside to this? Residents could benefit as a court hearing may give them full transparency about this, and previous  questionable and costly actions of council which The Current has reported on, as they will be scrutinized in a public forum. Perhaps if nothing else The Current’s owners  will get to learn what they have done that Councillor Peplinski claims (but refuses to justify or retract) merits an apology and payment of $60,000.

Reporter’s Note: We at The Current take no pleasure in having to publish stories focused on our relationship with municipal government, but we sincerely believe that our motivations are sound. This is because they are consistent with our determination to follow the civic “watchdog” ethos that underpins Canada’s ongoing Local Journalism Initiative. This coincides with what members of the community have told us is important to them – honest, investigative reporting in order to help foster an accountable, transparent elected government. It is our opinion that because of this ethos, some members of council, under Mayor Love’s leadership, have been unable to adjust to the different journalistic environment that The Current has introduced.

We do look forward to a time when all of our reporting centres around community news where we are no longer part of the story, but until then we feel compelled to stand up for ethical, informative, and important local journalism.

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