A judge has dismissed a libel suit brought by one band councillor against other Garden River First Nation band councillors.
The dispute dates back to 2021, when Garden River was wrestling with financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Financial statements were brought to council in May 2021 and another budget meeting took place on June 28.
Coun. Karen Bell was "apparently dissatisfied with the nature of said financial disclosed," said the court transcript of the case, and expressed unhappiness on social media Oct. 24, 2021.
"(Bell) posted a statement on Facebook which stated, inter alia, that, 'During the last term I had requested a number of times our financial statements and a budget. For the last year we have seen nothing.'”
Upset at the post, other Garden River councillors passed a censure motion Nov. 9 that year requiring her to remove the post and acknowledge the information was incorrect.
The band council rescinded the motion Nov. 23, but Bell launched a libel suit Dec. 20. The band brought a motion to have the suit dismissed on the grounds that "the defence of justification was applicable in the circumstances and that there is no genuine issue for trial."
Bell argued that the motion implied that everything she said in the Facebook post was untrue. But in dismissing the case, the judge ruled the motion only referred to comments about the budget.
"The censure motion is not concerned with the honesty or accuracy of the plaintiff’s entire Oct. 24, 2021, social media posts," the transcript said.
"Rather, the censure motion is concerned with the two impugned sentences highlighted above. To find otherwise would not give any meaning to the preamble of the censure motion and would not accord with the normal rules of grammatical construction. There is no genuine issue for trial in this regard."
In addition, allegations in the censure motion were "substantially correct," the judge wrote.
"Accordingly, summary judgment is granted as there is no genuine issue requiring a trial," the transcript said.
"The action is dismissed."
Read the full transcript here.
