By Staff
September 18th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
ABOVE THE FOLD is a news feature that comes out of Queen’s Park; published by Sabrina Nanji.
While the content isn’t relevant to Burlington the way the political game is played is laid out – it’s ugly and not what the public expects of the people elected to municipal, Regional, Provincial and Federal offices. A link at the bottom suggests a different approach is possible.
SCOOP— GRITS GO FISTICUFFS IN COURT — NATE ERSKINE-SMITH, Liberal MP and runner-up in the provincial leadership race, is taking pollster QUITO MAGGI to court and accusing him of making defamatory statements on social media.
The claim: According to the filings at Small Claims Court, Erskine-Smith is arguing that Maggi made false statements about his political nomination controversy from a decade ago, which resurfaced during the 2023 Liberal leadership contest.
As this newsletter reported at the time, Erskine-Smith was accused of engaging in voter suppression that targeted low-income South Asian communities during his first nomination contest in Beaches-East York in 2014. He denies those allegations.
Now, Erskine-Smith is suing Maggi for $35,000 in damages for tweeting about alleged voter intimidation along with a link to the story.
“Mr. Maggi falsely accused my nomination campaign of suppressing Bengali and other minority voters. Worse, he accused me specifically of canvassing those households and threatening people that their permanent residency status would be impacted if they tried to vote in the nomination,” reads his statement of claim. “The defamatory comments are untrue and have damaged my reputation.”
The defence: Maggi — who worked on the campaign for ANDREW NISKER, one of Erskine-Smith’s challengers for the 2014 nomination, and, more recently, on MPP ADIL SHAMJI’s short-lived leadership bid — isn’t backing off.
“My commentary was based on first hand knowledge of the nomination campaign…None of the comments posted were untrue, they were all documented and passed on to the nomination commissioner at the time,” Maggi insists in his statement of defence. “The plaintiff is emotional and confused.”
Maggi also argues Erskine-Smith shouldn’t be entitled to damages because he’s in line for a pretty pension as a longtime MP. “Since the Member of Parliament is not intending in seeking re-election, what damage is he claiming?”
To top it all off: Maggi recently filed an affidavit alleging Erskine-Smith engaged in witness intimidation when he emailed one of the people on Maggi’s witness list.
According to the latest court document, Maggi claims Erskine-Smith emailed the witness with the subject line “Defamation law suit question”, and name-checked CHAD WALSH, who’s co-campaign director for the Ontario Liberal Party.
“You should know that our team is working to help OLP where we can, many have integrated into the overall OLP team already, and that I’m in regular touch with Chad,” reads a copy of the alleged email.
It goes on to ask why the witness would speak on Maggi’s behalf in the defamation case. “The idea that I threatened people’s [permanent residency] status is to suggest that we engaged in criminal behaviour and it’s beyond the pale.”
Maggi says that amounts to intimidation. “The casual paragraph might appear to a layperson or someone not familiar with political campaigns as small talk, but it is quite deliberate and clearly a threat…It is an attempt to intimidate the witness with the possibility of political ramifications as a result of their testimony…This is how the email was received by the witness.”
Both Erskine-Smith and Maggi pointed me to the court documents when asked for further comment.
What’s next: The pair met informally over the summer and came close to settling, but ultimately, they couldn’t come to an agreement. There are currently no hearings scheduled.
Messy, ugly and not what the public wants. What does the public want and how can that be achieved.
TVO is running a six part series that is a primer on what the political process could look like. Well worth watching – it should be required viewing by anyone who files papers to run for public office.
Link to watching the first of six episodes is HERE
I don’t have a comment for the article itself, but I did watch the first episode of the TVO series that is mentioned at the end. I found it entertaining, interesting and certainly thought-provoking. Turning our blood sport format of decision-making by governments into something better for a collaborative purpose is something we need at all levels. I’m going to watch the whole series of six episodes with anticipation, especially the episode on different balloting methods in elections. I recommend the series to all readers. It’s on at 8 p.m. Sundays.