Pierrefonds/Roxboro municipal councillor Bert Ward is asking for $100,000 in damages from election-campaign rival Michael Labelle for allegedly defamatory content the latter has been running on his blog since last August.
"I can't comment on it much, it's a lawsuit," Ward, a veteran councillor for the west district since the days Pierrefonds was a demerged municipality and a member of Union Montreal since its merger, told The Chronicle.
Labelle, a councillor at Pierrefonds until 2001, ran for borough council that year and in 2005 with Pierre Bourque's Vision Montreal, but lost. This year, he joined with Projet Montreal after first creating an independent citizens' coalition and ran for borough mayor against incumbent Monique Worth, but lost again.
He first received a cease-and-desist letter from Fasken Martineau, a law firm then representing Monique Worth and Bert Ward, asking him to take down the blog or "modify its contents completely.
At the time, however, he told The Chronicle he would not back down.
On his blog posts, Labelle chastises the current administration for what he deems misspending of public funds, citing personal use of a cell phone by Ward charged to the borough as one example.
The original letter had also taken issue with recurring use of "disgraceful pictures" on the blog by Labelle, without delving into specifics.
Labelle did not want to comment for the record before seeking legal counsel.
More as it breaks.
Ward takes Labelle to court
Ward takes Labelle to court
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- Published on December 8th, 2009
- Published on Febuary 6th, 2010
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Raffy Boudjikanian
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- Murray Levine
- - May 6th, 2010 at 14:04:05
At the March borough meeting of Pierrefonds the law was broken (as it had been previously) when I was denied my legal right to ask a question. Councilor Ward told my witness SPVM Sgt. Sebastien Hebert that Mayor Worth did not allow not allow non residents to ask questions. He then told the sgt. that I had to go downtown to ask a question. Councillor Ward was ignorant of the law and spoke through his hat as if he knew what he was talking about. At the next council meeting I was given the right to ask a question and that was after the Ombudsman of Montreal and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs got into the act. On the same night that I was refused, I emailed the law to Mayor Worth and all of her councilors. Nobody had the decency to inform me prior to the April council meeting that Pierrefonds would comply with the law. In my personal opinion Pierrefonds Councilor Bertrand Ward should know what he is talking about before he opens his mouth or initiates a strategic lawsuit against public participation against anyone, unless he really likes eggs! www.murraymakingadifference.wordpress.com
