punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

@Tim Disher

Actually I wasn’t looking for that at all; since you used the term slander, I immediately assumed that you were referring to things people were saying, not writing, so I was curious what they were.

I agree another word would be a better choice – perhaps instead of “the slander he was subjected to”, maybe “presentation of information in a negative light”? Or “the interpretations he did not agree with”? Regrettably less dramatic than alleging defamation, but more accurate, and more comforting to the person whose name is still listed in the WHOIS for punditry.ca.

Also, there’s always a way to challenge the enforcement of rules, I look forward to trying to identify grounds for appeal once the full details are more public.

@Mike Smit

Ya I’d say this is pretty accurate. Tis easy to slip into the dramatic when you’re too close to something. That being said, implying someone failed a class because they are above handing in course work is difficult to prove to be factual. Those are the moments when in an effort to be funny, we forget we are talking about human beings.

My apologies for using the wrong word, and making things more dramatic then the facts as we know then support.

@Tim Disher

Agreed, perhaps the word “mean-spirited” could be inserted somewhere for further improved accuracy. “presentation of information in a negative and sometimes mean-spirited light”. Seems to be getting more wordy and less pithy as we strive for accuracy.

@Mike Smit

Tell me though: am I right at least that the crux of defamation is whether the claims are factual?

@Tim Disher

Though I’m not a lawyer, actually truth is not as important as you would expect. Even true comments can be held to be defamation in Canada. Our common-law system has its origins in protecting the nobility from the peasants saying mean things about them, and still has that flavour to it. Canada is not considered to have very good protections for free speech versus defamation, actually.

However, there are several relevant defences for defamation. WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson [2008] and Grant v. Torstar Corp [2010] are two relevant cases that I remember from recent years. My sense is that if the statement was based on facts, and was an opinion that a reasonable person could hold, and is clearly commentary, and is on a matter of public interest, and the dominant motive is not malice, then the statements are defensible. Whew.

Supreme Court rulings are available here: http://scc.lexum.org/en/. I use thecourt.ca for slightly more human interpretation of court cases, and recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_defamation_law as an introduction though it’s wording isn’t great.

@Mike Smit

What does based on facts mean in this context? Dominant motive not malice? This isnt the easiest concept to grasp. I’m interested from the standpoint of the assumptions that

Actions that are against campaign rules always create an unfair advantage.
Actions that are within the rules don’t create an unfair advantage.

I’m in over my head here and while this is probably one of the more embarrassing ways to learn a topic it is certainly one of the most helpful. I appreciate that you’ve been interpreting my questions in the most positive light given the ambiguities that come with the medium.

@Tim Disher

We’re rapidly drifting out of my understanding as I have no legal training, and we’re heading into an area based on subjective interpretation.

Basically I’m pointing at a defence called “fair comment”, which covers commentary driven by opinions, where the opinions could be held by a reasonable person based on facts. So using one of the memes as an example, if Jamie actually failed a class, that’s a fact [no idea if this is true or not, assume it is for the moment]. If the opinion formed from that is that Jamie doesn’t like to pass in assignments, that’s an opinion based on fact. Then the question is could a reasonable person hold that opinion, regardless of its truth. I think that’s a reasonable opinion to form. (The remaining question, if the commentary is in the public interest, is perhaps harder to answer when regarding personal academic achievement).

However, fair comment is not a defence if the dominant motive is malice. That means to me that it’s not enough to harm someone’s reputation with a fair comment, harming the reputation has to be the primary motivation behind the comment. So if you can prove another motive was dominant – like “humour” – the fair comment defence will hold.

I for one would not want to make or defend those two assumptions. While the *goal* of campaign rules is certainly to avoid unfair advantages, no system is perfect. I suspect it is entirely possible for unfair advantages to occur that are within the rules, and for actions that do not create an unfair advantage to occur outside of the rules. If you or I or anyone can find specific, practical examples of this, by all means the rules should be repaired.

There is one level of guaranteed fairness and unfairness in the rules, namely it is not fair to allow one candidate to violate clearly established rules while another candidate complies with them entirely, regardless of whether or not an unfair advantage in terms of actual votes is achieved by the rule violations.

@Mike Smit

By the way, for the “defamatory statement” in the 2008 case I cited, a radio host called someone an “ignorant bigot”. The court found that malice was not the dominant motive, the issue was in the public interest, it was an opinion a reasonable person could reach based on the facts, it was commentary, and in sum it was a permissible statement.

@Mike Smit

Interesting that it seems humor could be such a defensible position. I find it strange that proving intent is figured in there at all considering it would be almost impossible to do. I guess this is where bias comes into the picture: I would see that post as something that could reasonably be expected to harm Jamie’s credibility in the eyes of undecided voters; Someone on the other side would likely dismiss it as a harmless joke.

The fairness discussion is one I’m really interested in. For example we can assume that Jamie was done in by a charge of post campaigning. Im interested in how that makes me think of earlier fines. Lets assume for instance that a candidate is levied a fine in the first days of campaigning and he or she chooses not to fight it within the 72 hour window. If we also assume that the fine would have been overturned if he or she did appeal then is it fair to voters not to allow it to be challenged in a case where he or she is DQ’ed?

The brilliant minds of punditry.ca really predicted this election with great accuracy! Your exec election predictions on this site were laughably wrong and just shows how out of touch you all are with actual students.

@Travis

many of the people who posted elections predictions are current students at Dalhousie. punditry.ca is just an open forum

@Tim Disher

Agreed that intent is tough. Assessing intent would of course be done by a judge based on the content of the message and the context of the message. Very subjective necessarily; luckily people close to the situation would not be in a position to decide.

It’s entirely possible that I’m wrong, and that exceeding the maximum number of fines would de facto open previous fines for appeal to the E.C.; that’s not how it’s written but I don’t think anyone would object to that happening. (I think that comment was in reference to my other post, discussing the rules etc.).

Even if the E.C. is bound to not address the earlier fines, the JB is guided very much by procedural fairness; the appeal to them could certainly include previous fines. There is precedent for this, where the JB chose to re-consider decisions that the E.C. did not feel entitled to review given the wording of the constitution.

@Travis

FYI, most of the people who made predictions *are* actual students.

Regardless, I think that’s a crappy method to evaluate being in touch with students; predicting how 2,500 people will vote without any data has little or no bearing on “being in touch”.

Even if you accept the method, I cannot agree with your conclusion. If a commenter thought that 60% would support Sarah and 40% would support Jamie, and in fact it was the other way around, they were still right about 80% of the voters: the 40% who supported Jamie, and the 40% who supported Sarah. They were wrong about 20%, i.e. the ones they thought would support Sarah but didn’t. So by your evaluation criteria, the conclusion is that the commenters are “in touch” with 80% of “actual students”. That’s a pretty positive assessment, and to be honest I highly doubt it is accurate.

That is, while I’m happy to discuss the notion that the punditry.ca community doesn’t represent students with no interest in the DSU (as it could not by definition), the predictions have no bearing on the matter.

After hearing a lot of (possibly unfounded) rumors around campus today, it seems like both candidates who got Disqualified deserved it.

All candidates are given an equal chance to learn the rules at candidates cafe. I doubt that any candidate follows the rules 100%, but if you choose not to follow those rules, you need to take full responsibility for that decision. It really doesn’t matter what the vote could’ve, wouldn’ve or should’ve been, the candidates all had fair warning, and in my four years at Dal this has been the first DQ I have seen, so it can’t be too easy to get DQ.

In order for a candidate to get DQ (especially Arron who got to see his fines adding up throughout the week), one of the following needs to be true (IMHO):

a) you are unintelligent. You legitimately did not understand the rules. If that is the case for either of the candidates, then I do feel sorry for them as they obviously put a lot of effort into it, but being president also requires being able to read and follow rules/policies/constitutions so it is probably for the best.

b) you think you won’t get caught/enough to get DQ. If this is the case I hope this was a valuable learning experience. You are not above the rules. This is no ones fault but your own. Be less arrogant next time.

c) you are desperate because you think you’re losing. Again, I hope this one teaches you a lesson, find a better way to aire your frustrations and nervousness.

In summary, any candidate who gets fined out, needs to take full responsibility for their actions. It is no ones fault but their own, and they let down the students who voted for them.

@KD
Or d), you think that you’re close enough with the CRO to think she’ll overlook a fine or two so you won’t be DQ. Very happy this didn’t end up happening.