NDP calls Liberal's radio ad 'defamatory'

A B.C. Liberal cabinet minister's attempt to fight back against a mounting recall campaign has prompted legal threats from the Opposition New Democrats.

At issue is a 60-second radio ad from Ida Chong, the Victoria-area cabinet minister who is facing a petition to recall her from office over the controversial harmonized sales tax.

The ad alleges the New Democrats are "heavily involved" in the recall effort and says recently leaked documents reveal party president Moe Sihota's "secret plans" for the recall campaigns.

While the ad doesn't elaborate, documents leaked last month quoted Sihota as telling the party's executive that New Democrats should take an active role in the recall campaigns as "individuals."

The party's lawyer sent letters to the Liberal Party and to a Victoria radio station claiming the ads are "false and defamatory" and demanding they be pulled. The letter to the radio station also warns of "significant damages in the courts."

An NDP official confirmed the contents of the letters, but no one from the party was available to speak on the record.

Free speech at issue

The Liberals, who distributed copies of the legal threats Friday evening, fired back with a letter of their own.

Liberal Party lawyer Robert Anderson said in a letter to the NDP that the legal threats will have a "chilling effect" on free speech, and he denied the ad was defamatory.

Anderson also pointed to Sihota's comments from the leaked meeting minutes.

"It is apparent that the NDP has publicly acknowledged its heavy involvement in the recall campaign," Anderson wrote.

"In the circumstances, the NDP has publicly acknowledged that the words you complain of in your letter … are true or substantially true."

In an accompanying news release, Chong also pointed out that Mike Hayes, the official proponent of the recall campaign in Chong's Oak Bay-Gordon Head riding, is on the local NDP riding association and sits on the party's provincial council.

"There's no room for censorship and legal threats in what should be an open and democratic process," Chong said in the news release.

The recall campaign is the first of what anti-HST organizers promise will be a series of recall campaigns that will continue until the government reverses course on the tax. Under provincial law, campaigners need the signatures of 40 per cent of voters from the previous election to force a byelection.

Smear campaign

Colin Nielsen, one of the organizers of the recall campaign in Chong's riding, called the radio ad "comical."

"It's like smear-type advertising that you would expect to see in American elections," Nielsen said in an interview.

"Mudslinging is what I would call it, because we come from all different political backgrounds, and we're everything from students to seniors. It's silliness."

Nielsen acknowledged some members of the NDP are involved in the recall campaign, including Hayes.

But Nielsen also pointed out he was once a card-carrying Liberal himself.

"What it's all about is the HST and the way it was brought in," Nielsen said. "If an NDP government ... turned around and said they were going to implement the HST even though they said they weren't, we'd be in the same place right now."