At this year’s Canadian Labour Congress Convention in Winnipeg, I spoke with Broadbent Institute Executive Director Jen Hassum to discuss the organization’s ongoing legal battle, the stakes for journalists and progressive organizations in Canada, and how Action Network technology is helping power their response.

Could you give some background on your role and your organization?

My name is Jen Hassum, and I’m the Executive Director of the Broadbent Institute. We’re Canada’s leading progressive think tank. We do public policy research polling, but we also do organizing trainings and mentoring, and we house a media outlet called PressProgress — for any American readers, it’s kind of akin to The Daily Beast.

You’re in the midst of a legal battle. What can you tell us about that?

Yes, we’re facing what might be Canada’s longest defamation suit in history, and it’s because of some really good work that our investigative reporters at PressProgress did in the Alberta election in 2019, so it’s been seven years in the making.

PressProgress published an article that was a series of Facebook conversation excerpts between two conservative candidates in Alberta. One of them expressed sadness at “the demographic replacement of white peoples in their homelands” and also was anxious about “whether Western culture will survive without Western peoples.” And she also thought that white supremacist terrorists experience “a bit of a double standard” or aren’t treated fairly.

“We’re facing what might be Canada’s longest defamation suit in history.”

So these are her own words that were written in this Facebook chat, and PressProgress simply published them, and it was re-reported by large outlets, and [the candidate] chose to resign.

But right now, ourselves and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC, and the Toronto Star, which is kind of akin to the New York Times in Canada, are all co-defendants for reporting her Facebook chats.

We’re a small nonprofit, and to be facing these kinds of legal bills and a trial that is going to be the longest in Canadian history is onerous. We should be using our time, our energy, the money from our amazing individual donors, to be doing really good work to be combating the right. But right now, this is what we are doing unfortunately.

What strategies are you using to fight back? How does Action Network fit in?

One of the things that has really helped is that we have moved our email, our fundraising, and our entire toolset over to Action Network, and it’s working. We had one of the best individual fundraising appeals that we’ve ever done in our organization’s history in November. In one week we were able to fundraise $100,000 from our individual donors. That was incredible, and in Canada that’s really unheard of. To put things in perspective we have a smaller list, 30,000 people, so this is really an incredible level of support from our users.

I’m guessing that $100,000 isn’t quite enough to cover all of your legal costs. How can people support you?

Well, anyone who’s reading this, feel free to look at our website and consider donating yourselves. We could really use the assistance.

We’ve been quietly funding [the legal work] for the past 7 years, but the trial bills are about $250,000, and we expect to have at least three of those come in. So we’re going to replicate that fall campaign this spring, and we really do welcome people to donate. 

As for our next steps, watch for an Anti-SLAPP Legislation petition that’s going to be launching in Canada with the support of people who work on free speech rights for journalists. 

Note: Anti-SLAPP laws are designed to dismiss “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (SLAPPs) early in litigation. This saves significant time and money for the targets of these suits.

What are the stakes for people, progressive organizations, and unions in Canada? Can you talk more about the Anti-SLAPP Legislation?

Sure. So as it stands now, if you say something that, for example, a conservative candidate doesn’t like, they could take you to court, and there is nothing you can do whether they have merit or not. It can proceed through the legal system.

So for us, we reprinted a candidate’s words. We didn’t provide an analysis of what those words mean — those are her own words, and readers of the news outlet can form their own judgment.

So [SLAPP lawsuits] could be devastating to anyone who’s justice seeking. Anti-SLAPP Legislation would mean that prior to something going through a full legal trial and a full deposition and years of legal work right at the outset, a judge decides whether there’s merit to the accusation. If that would have happened in this case, it probably wouldn’t have gone to trial.

Watch this space for an Anti-SLAPP campaign, which will also run through Action Network. It’s really a great tool, and we can’t be more excited to be using it in Canada.

Thank you Jen for taking the time to speak with me at the CLC Convention!

Learn more about the Broadbent Institute here, PressProgress here, and donate to support their legal battle here.