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OPINION

I’m a pretty simple guy navigating his way through this complicated world, trying to understand it.

Lately, I feel like I’m failing.

I flip through the news and see a BC lawyer suing his own law society. He was made to go through mandatory Indigenous intercultural training and noticed something a little strange in the coursework, specifically about an “unmarked burial site containing the bodies of 215 children on the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds.”

If you’ve been paying any attention to this story at all, you know why that’s problematic. We don’t yet know what the “anomalies” are that ground-penetrating radar found on the site. We all know that’s what they are, but in actual fact we don’t know.

James Heller wanted that simple fact expressed in the coursework and in response, the law society implied he is racist for his actions and the BC First Nations Justice Council, based in Westbank, came right out and called him racist. Now he’s suing them for defamation.

Marshall Jones, managing editor

They're suspected gravesites. That’s the great thing about the English language, it’s got all the words.

Our courts have real trouble with words.

It’s a particular defining feature in Canada that words are considered violence, at least as a tort in family law. Expressing opinions about your terrible ex? That could be family violence. Not helping your children see or deal with a former spouse is family violence. Sending text messages can be family violence. Being a jerk in family law litigation can even be family violence.

Read enough of these cases and you can understand how they lump this stuff together. I’m not defending these behaviours.

But for a guy whose stock and trade is words — and one who tends towards the polemic — seeing the courts equate words with violence is very disconcerting and it should be rooted out immediately.

I’m not holding my breath.

This week, the Court of Appeal confirmed a $35,000 defamation award a candidate in a Chilliwack school board race must pay to a political opponent. He called her a “strip-tease artist”.

Below the belt? Sure, but I’d argue this is the kind of thrust and parry we expect and allow in a political debate, which the offender did argue and the judge rejected. The aggrieved has no problem with strip-tease artists, herself, and doesn’t have a low opinion of them. But she was sure that others do frown upon such work and to be referred to as one has lowered her standing in society. Last year, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Stephens gave no explanation at all for why he agreed and decided it was indeed defamatory.

Why did the candidate say it? Did he completely make up this despicable slur about a woman in politics? He said he was referring to this video she produced. Give it a minute of your time.

Confused yet? The judge said his comment wasn't justified because she is not, in fact, a strip tease artist, that this video is not strip tease artistry. The candidate wasn't saved by fair comment either because he didn't explain to his audience that he called her a strip tease artist because she stripped down to nothing but her boots to make a science video for kids.

Was it a jerk-move from one of the biggest jerks in BC politics? Most definitely. Is this going to put a chill through political debate and discussion for years to come? I'd sure be more careful in what I said. Was it worth such an award? Thirty. Five. Thousand. Dollars. Well, now, with decisions like these, I’m going to bow out before I’m forced to pay as well.

Earlier this month, the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons pulled its citation against Dr. Charles Hoffe. He’s the proselytizing physician from Lytton who convinced or tried to convince his Indigenous patients not to get the COVID-19 vaccines. He miraculously found far-outsized vaccine injuries not seen anywhere else in the world. Then he decided to head out across country to spread his lies about the jab and the medical system and convince others to follow him, all while raising money for his defence.

For three years, he was under threat of suspension or expulsion or worse. What he did was clearly dangerous to public health. We all deserved to know what Hoffe was doing and how the college would handle this.

Instead, the college tucked tail and hid behind the veil of secrecy we in BC and Canada call “privacy”.

"Given the importance of public health and the measures implemented during the pandemic to ensure the protection of the public, CPSBC investigated physicians who were publicly expressing unqualified opinions inconsistent with widely accepted views of the profession. This included Dr. Hoffe who was issued a citation in February 2022,” the college said.

“The circumstances around his citation have materially changed. As such, CPSBC’s Inquiry Committee has determined it is no longer necessary to proceed with Dr. Hoffe’s citation. We are unable to comment further about this matter due to privacy laws.”

What has materially changed? The fact that we're no longer under a pandemic? What does that have to do with anything?

Dr. Hoffe is still spreading his crap.

After all we went through during the pandemic, this is what we get from these clowns, not even an explanation. Yep, the college sure knows how to build public faith in their profession. Good luck in the next pandemic, I guess.

This is the world we live in now, where basic facts are racist, words are violence, you pay damages for describing what you see in a video and once dangerous activities dissipate in thin air.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

— This column was corrected by the author at 3:15 p.m. Feb. 28.

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