That’s Not Slander! You’re Kidding.
Posted on June 1st, 2011 by Centennial Law in Libel & Slander
Can you imagine a radio talk show where the host says “Taxi drivers in Montréal are really arrogant, especially the Arabs. They’re often rude … and their cars don’t look well maintained.” It happened in Montréal in 1998 and, a few years later, André Arthur, the man who made those remarks, became a Member of Parliament. And that was only part of what he said!
So, what happened next? Bou Malhab, a taxi driver whose mother tongue is Arabic, started a lawsuit. [Bou Malhab v. Diffusion Métromédia CMR Inc., 2011 SCC 9] He claimed that there was defamation - the generic term for libel and slander. In his class action, he claimed that every taxi driver “in the region of the Island of Montréal . . . whose mother tongue is Arabic” had been libelled.
The Supreme Court of Canada disagreed. The majority of the judges on Canada’s highest court said that this group of Arabic speaking taxi drivers had not been libelled. How could the Court reach that conclusion?
Quoting once again from the decision, the Court said that “defamation is damage to reputation … where … the remarks made … brought discredit on the reputation of the victim.” Did these remarks damage the reputation of every single Arabic speaking taxi driver? In the opinion of the Court, they did not – because the average listener would have given little credibility to Mr. Arthur’s comments.
The Malhab case provides an interesting example of what defamation is all about. Just because someone makes comments which are rude, nasty or even racist about you doesn’t mean that you have been slandered – if listeners would not have taken the comments seriously. If the unpleasant comments caused no damage to your reputation, then, in the eyes of the law, they weren’t slanderous. There may be a human rights issue – but there is no slander.
Article provided by Centennial Law Corp.