In the face of a continuing shadow campaign of alleged libel and misinformation, Liberal candidate Dan Veniez filed a notice of civil claim for defamation in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Conservative candidate John Weston on Tuesday morning, April 26.
In a statement issued April 20, the Veniez campaign said people wearing Weston buttons and T-shirts "were openly distributing copies of an email claiming that Veniez was in some way responsible for pension shortfalls incurred when the former Skeena Cellulose operation in Prince Rupert went into bankruptcy."
Weston's campaign denied having provided supporters with such materials.
"This is not about John Weston or his campaign," David Bromley, Weston's campaign manager, said in a statement issued on April 21. "I want to be very clear. We deny Mr. Veniez's claims. At no time did this campaign provide supporters with any materials at any all-candidates' meetings regarding Dan Veniez and his involvement with New Skeena Cellulose."
Bromley told the Squamish Chief in a telephone interview April 21 that the Weston campaign also had nothing to do with a YouTube video clip related to the issue of Veniez' past dealings with New Skeena Cellulose and his statements about the protection of pensions of former Nortel Networks employees.
After emails pre-dating Bromley's comments to The Chief appeared with Bromley's name at the bottom and a link to the YouTube video, Bromley on April 25 clarified his remarks, saying he meant to say that the Weston campaign had nothing to do with the production of the video. He admitted, though, that after checking to ensure the video's authenticity, he had emailed a link to the video to a list of Weston supporters for an electronic newsletter called "campaign confidential."
Bromley said he decided to do that after Veniez was asked a question about the issue at an April 17 candidates' forum in West Vancouver.
"It was distributed to our supporters on a confidential basis," Bromley said.
Asked whether some Weston supporters might have distributed it to some people who weren't on the "confidential" list, Bromley said he didn't know.
"My question to everybody [on the list] was that everyone should make up their own minds," he said.
Veniez, who was president of Skeena until September 2004, denies he was in any way responsible for any such pension shortfalls and accused the Weston campaign of "engaging in an outrageous smear campaign in a desperate attempt to protect his seat.
"John Weston's deceitful behaviour is an absolute disgrace, and an insult to the voters in this riding," said Veniez. "These claims are completely false, and he knows it - yet he continues to distribute and capitalize on what is clearly libelous misinformation, even while claiming to have nothing to do with it. As a MP, and an attorney, he should know better than anyone how completely wrong and unethical it is to engage in such an appalling hatchet job. We think this is completely unacceptable, and we believe the voters of this riding will agree with our assessment."
Veniez called on Weston last week to apologize for the alleged smear campaign.
According to the Veniez campaign team, contrary to Weston's denials, several affidavits have been sworn by attendees at the all-candidates' meeting confirming that they witnessed his workers distributing the materials. In addition, a screen shot of Weston's Facebook comment was captured prior to its deletion. The filing of claim for defamation follows last week's official complaint to Elections Canada.
-With files from David Burke/Squamish Chief
