2017 November 9

Stringam Denecky LLP v. Sun Media Corp., 2017 ABQB 687

The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench set aside a Master’s order compelling a newspaper columnist to answer questions that would reveal the identity of his source for three opinion columns published in a newspaper, on the newspaper’s website and elsewhere online.  The Court agreed with the defence submissions that the source’s intention or motivation in providing information to the reporter was irrelevant and immaterial to the issue of the defendants’ alleged malice or the issue of the status and reliability of the source. “In this case, the source [the plaintiff] seeks to have identified is not the source of the impugned allegations” because it was a sworn affidavit of someone else that was relied on by the reporter.  The person who swore that affidavit was not the source.  The source merely provided a copy of the affidavit.