The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the request of Radio-Canada and journalist Alain Gravel who hoped to appeal a judgment in favor of businessman Lee Lalli in a defamation lawsuit against the public broadcaster. The latter will indeed have to pay $60,000 in damages to the plaintiff, as decided by the Quebec Court of Appeal.
It was with “disappointment” that Radio-Canada welcomed this decision, regretting that the highest court in the country did not consider this question which “is of great importance for the practice of investigative journalism”.
“Investigative journalism primarily serves the public interest and its practice is essential in a democratic society. The work of our teams dedicated to it raises important questions, added in a press release the Director General of Information for Radio-Canada, Luce Julien. It is at the heart of our mandate and our mission to inform. This is why we will continue to pursue this mission with the rigor that characterizes us and the same professionalism. »
At the heart of the dispute: the report “Terrain miné par la mafia”, broadcast in March 2013 by the program Investigation. In it, journalist Alain Gravel looks at the sale of land acquired by Lee Lalli in 2003 in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough in Montreal. He occasionally discusses the links between the real estate developer and certain people in the mafia.
Believing that the report “falsely links him to the mafia, contains inaccuracies about his involvement in real estate transactions [et] contravenes professional journalistic standards”, Mr. Lalli decided to turn to justice. He initially claimed $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for damage “to his honor and reputation”.
His defamation suit was first dismissed in 2018 by the Superior Court. Judge Lukasz Granosik had decided that the proof of these damages was “non-existent” and had described the journalistic work as “rigorous”.
But in October 2021, Judge Jocelyn Rancourt of the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned the decision and agreed with Mr. Lalli. According to him, Alain Gravel was above all trying to “tell a more catchy, more sensational and more interesting story than it really is” in his report. “I am of the opinion that the judge [de première instance] was mistaken. […] He did not stop to analyze the general impression emerging from the report to assess the fault. The manner used to collect the information and present it is faulty,” Judge Rancourt concluded in his judgment.