Talk about your David versus Goliath battle.
We were alone against one of the most powerful men in the country.
We sued David Lametti, the former justice minister. He resigned in disgrace from Parliament a few weeks ago, after the Federal Court ruled that his invocation of the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional.
But on his way out the door, he tried to delete his government Twitter account — and all the government records it contained.
That’s important, because those records (including the private Direct Messages) are important evidence in the upcoming lawsuits by people who had their bank accounts illegally seized by Lametti.
We caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. But no-one did anything. So we sued.
We had three emergency hearings in the last two weeks.
And this morning, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court himself, Paul Crampton, issued the ruling. You can see it for yourself here:
Justice Crampton didn’t give us everything we wanted — we wanted an iron-clad court order to preserve the Twitter account. But he did give us two things instead:
- Lametti is ordered to swear an “undertaking” — that is, a lawyer’s professional promise — not to delete his Twitter records again; and
- The Twitter account will be transferred to Library and Archives Canada, the agency in charge of preserving public records.
It’s not bulletproof. It doesn’t properly condemn Lametti for breaking the law once already. And it puts too much stock in Lametti’s “pinky-swear” promise. But it appears that we actually managed to stop him from destroying evidence.
I haven’t received the legal bill for this battle yet. Our lawyers, Chad Williamson and Scott Nicol, went full-tilt — condensing a year’s worth of work into two weeks. Lametti had five lawyers — all of whom were paid by taxpayers. It’s outrageous.
But a win is a win.
If you think this battle was worth fighting, please help us pay Chad and Scott’s legal fees. I haven’t received their bill yet, but there’s no way it’s going to be less than $20,000.
I think it was worth it. We saved Lametti’s documents from being destroyed, and added an important black mark to his disgraceful career — even as he leaves politics, he’s reminded that he’s a law-breaker, ordered to promise the court that he’ll stop breaking the law.
I disagree with a lot of it, but I can’t deny that the court ordered Lametti to file a written promise with the court to stop deleting government property, and to hand it over to the proper authorities.
In my books, that’s a win.
No-one else lifted a finger to stop this. If you can help chip in to cover the cost of our lawyers, please do so right here on this page — thanks.
