2011 December 7

Ward v. Labelle, 2011 QCCS 6753

The Quebec Superior Court awarded the 70-year-old plaintiff municipal councillor the sum of $5,000 for moral damages plus $5,000 for punitive damages over defamatory statements published on a political adversary’s Internet blogs. The Court noted that although the defamatory words were serious, the plaintiff had not lost the esteem of the voters who re-elected him despite the defamation. The Court noted that the defendant’s blog had 833 visitors over several years. The defendant was also ordered to remove the defamatory statements from his blogs and prohibited from making the allegations again in the future.