Legal bullies - Ezra Levant

A $32 billion energy corporation has filed a massive lawsuit against an Ontario environmentalist named Esther Wrightman.

It?s a SLAPP suit: Strategic litigation against public participation.

It?s not really about legal arguments. It?s about crushing Wrightman with legal bills and burning up her time, so she can?t spend time campaigning against them.

The lawsuit doesn?t allege Wrightman vandalized their property, or trespassed, or anything like that. Their complaint is that, on her homemade website, Wrightman mocked the company?s name. She even had the temerity to publish a satirical version of their logo.

That?s it. That?s why they hired three lawyers at one of Canada?s largest law firms, McCarthy Tetrault, to sue her into the ground.

And the only reason you have not heard of this lawsuit ? the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is not defending her free speech, the CBC has not put this on their nightly news ? is because the corporate bully here is not an oil company like Exxon. It?s a wind turbine company called NextEra.

See, that kind of bullying is OK.

Wrightman isn?t a professional activist, jet-setting around. She?s real. Her husband is on disability. She works at the family tree nursery.

But when she heard

NextEra is building skyscraper-high wind turbines all around her town ? surrounding the local school, in fact ? she decided to fight back.

What she found out is that she can do nothing. Unlike other industrial development in Ontario, wind turbines are exempt from local planning reviews. You can?t build a new deck in Ontario without a permit, but the Ontario government exempts these huge, noisy, flickering, ugly, 400-foot-high wind factories from public review.

By contrast, the proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to B.C. has already had five years of community consultations. A three-person independent review panel has been travelling the route, hearing from local residents.

They actually pay people ? Indian bands, environmental groups ? to come testify, and pay for their lawyers and experts, too. That?s how oil companies are scrutinized.

Wind turbine companies like NextEra? None of that. Their five registered lobbyists at the Ontario legislature are all they need to keep things running smoothly.

One morning Wrightman heard NextEra was chopping down an eagle?s nest to make way for their construction. She went out there and filmed it herself and put it on YouTube.

You?d think the big environmental NGOs would be upset. But they don?t care. They have decided that, for the sake of wind turbines, birds must become a sacrifice species.

A few years ago, the oilsands company Syncrude was prosecuted under the Criminal Code, and fined $3 million, when some ducks landed in a tailing pond. Ducks aren?t endangered like Ontario eagles are. But it?s NextEra. It?s exempt. And they?ve got five lobbyists on the speed-dial.

And three lawyers, too. When Wrightman started mocking NextEra on her website ? calling them Nexterror ? they started badgering her, phoning her day after day after day.

She ignored them. So they contacted her website company, and bullied them into deleting parts of her website.

I guess that?s what happens to $32 billion companies exempt from normal rules. They start to believe they?re above democracy. A company that would chop down an eagle?s nest probably isn?t scared of a young mom.

Except they obviously are. Since they sued her. Because she ?advertised her services in association with a trademark that was confusing with the Plaintiff?s registered trademarks.?

NextEra is saying, with a straight face, that by mocking their name on her website, this country mom is confusing NextEra?s customers. As in, wind turbine customers might think the nursery worker is really NextEra.

And in their confusion, they might try to buy wind turbines from her.

Any court in Ontario will see this as a ridiculous excuse for legal bullying. But this will never get to court. Wrightman can?t afford a lawyer. She?ll be crushed by NextEra long before then. Just like that eagle?s nest.

And just like that eagle?s nest, no one will care.

This column was written for Sun News June 9 2013.

Source: http://ezralevant.com/2013/06/legal-bullies.html

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