Federal Liberal candidate Dan Veniez on Tuesday (April 26) filed a notice of civil claim for defamation in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Conservative candidate John Weston for what Veniez called "a continuing shadow campaign of libel and misinformation."
Weston has yet to file a statement of defence, but in a statement issued to the media on Wednesday (April 27), he refuted the defamation claim, saying, "Daniel Veniez's threat to sue is about desperate politics, not about law."
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. David Bromley, Weston's campaign manager, said in a statement issued on April 21, "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 Chief in a telephone interview April 21 that the Weston campaign also had nothing to do with a YouTube video clip related to Veniez' past dealings with New Skeena Cellulose.
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 Monday (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."
Veniez called on Weston last week to apologize for the alleged smear campaign.
According to an April 26 statement from the Veniez campaign team, 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.
For more on this developing story, please see the April 29 print edition of The Chief.
With files from Ian Jacques/Coast Reporter.
