Action No

Action No. 010314569

IN THE COURT OF QUEEN’S BENCH OF ALBERTA

JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF EDMONTON

BETWEEN:

FERREL CHRISTENSEN

-Plaintiff

-and-

THE NATIONAL POST COMPANY, NP HOLDINGS COMPANY,

GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED and DONNA LAFRAMBOISE

-Defendants

REPLY TO STATEMENT OF DEFENCE

The Defence of Fair Comment

1. In reply to paragraph 15 of the Statement of Defence, the Plaintiff admits that what is alleged in subparagraphs (a) through (s) is true, but says that each, when taken in context, is either irrelevant to the words complained of, or incomplete and misleading, or both.

2. The Plaintiff denies what is alleged in subparagraph 15(t).

3. With respect to paragraphs 15 and 16 of the Statement of Defence, the Plaintiff denies that the words complained of were fair comment made in good faith and without malice, and does so for reasons including:

(a) All of the words complained of are and purport to be allegations of fact rather than comment;

(b) In the alternative, if any of the words complained of are comment, which is not admitted but denied, they are not fair comment because the statements of fact upon which they are based are either false or else incomplete and misleading;

(c) In the further alternative, to the extent that any of the words complained of are comment, they are not fair comment because they were not made in good faith and without malice.

4. With respect to paragraph 17 of the Statement of Defence, the Plaintiff says that the facts there adduced as evidence of good faith on the part of the Defendants are incomplete and misleading, and says that the “13 questions” (sic: in fact 14, with two questions numbered “5") referred to are evidence not of fairness and good faith but of unfairness and bad faith.

Alleged refusal to answer questions

5. With respect to the allegation in paragraph 17 that Christensen did not answer the “13 questions” therein referred to, the allegation in paragraph 22 that the Defendants requested Christensen to answer questions and provide comment but that Christensen declined some of these opportunities, and the allegation in paragraph 25 that Christensen refused to answer questions provided to him: those allegations are all false or misleading, in that:

a) Christensen in fact responded, in an e-mail sent to the Editor-in-Chief of The Post, to the questions relating to his book. That response is included in the attachment referred to in paragraph 30 of the Counterclaim;

b) The tendentious and accusatory framing of some of the questions, together with serious distorions of what Christensen had published in his book, in the context of other behaviour including that set out in paragraph 25 of the Defence to Counterclaim, showed Christensen the questioner’s lack of good faith and the imprudence of further communicating with her directly;

c) Christensen thus proposed to discuss the issues through counsel, or to communicate directly with The Post’s Editor-in-Chief, but the Plaintiffs did not respond to his proposal;

d) Particulars of the “13 questions” referred to are found in an e-mail sent by Laframboise to Christensen on March 23^rd, 2001, a true copy of which is attached as Appendix A to this Reply.

The Defence of Qualified Privilege

6. With respect to paragraphs 18 and 19 of the Statement of Defence, the Plaintiff denies that any duty of the Defendants to inform the public, or any interest the public had in being thus informed, was such as to establish qualified privilege, or such as to legally shield them from compensating the Plaintiff for the damage caused him by their false and defamatory publication.

7. With respect to paragraph 20 of the Statement of Defence, the Plaintiff denies that the Defendants acted in good faith in gathering information, or that in the circumstances they could reasonably rely upon the information so gathered, and says that the Defendants were reckless as to the truth or falsity of the defamatory words as alleged in the Statement of Claim.

Damages and mitigation

8. In response to paragraphs 23 through 26, the Plaintiff says that he attempted to mitigate potential damage to his reputation, and did in fact mitigate that damage, by sending e-mails telling his side of the story. Further, those e-mails were sent only to persons who, from the Defendants’ own actions, already were aware or inevitably would become aware of the then-threatened defamatory publication, save for a few individuals contacted initially in the hope of deterring said publication. The Plaintiff requested an opportunity to publish material on his side, but the Defendants ignored or refused his request and nevertheless published the defamatory words.

9. The Plaintiff says that the Defendants’ conduct, in not only failing to apologize but also making the Plaintiff’s efforts to mitigate his damages the subject of a Counterclaim, further aggravates the damage suffered by the Plaintiff, is further evidence of malice and bad faith, and further justifies punitive or exemplary damages. This is particularly so given the discrepancy in sociopolitical power between the Plaintiff and the Defendants.

AND BETWEEN:

THE NATIONAL POST COMPANY and DONNA LAFRAMBOISE

-Plaintiffs by Counterclaim

(Defendants)

-and-

FERREL CHRISTENSEN

-Defendant by Counterclaim

(Plaintiff)

STATEMENT OF DEFENCE TO COUNTERCLAIM

10. The Defendant by Counterclaim (“Dr. Christensen” or “The Plaintiff”) repeats what is alleged in his Statement of Claim and Reply. He denies all that is alleged in the Counterclaim except as expressly admitted herein.

11. With respect to paragraphs 27 through 32 in the Counterclaim, Dr. Christensen admits that the words complained of are substantially as he wrote them with the following exceptions. In paragraph 29, the word ‘may’ has been omitted immediately before the phrase ‘condone pedophilia’. In paragraph 31, the word ‘seemingly’ has been omitted between the word ‘based’ and the phrase ‘on gross misinterpretation’, and the word ‘conversation’ has been rendered plural.

12. Dr. Christensen says that the words complained of in the Counterclaim are incomplete and misleading. True and complete copies of the communications containing those words are attached hereto as Appendices C, D, E, F and G.

13. Dr. Christensen says that Paragraphs 27, 28 and 29 in the Counterclaim are misleading in that they give the false impression that the e-mail messages they describe were sent by Dr. Christensen to others at the same time as to the recipient named. The fact is that in each case the message was copied to the others later in an effort to mitigate damages. Initially the messages were copied only to persons who Christensen hoped might influence the Defendants to change their minds about the threatened defamation; later messages were sent to persons with an interest in receiving the information and probable prior knowledge of the then-threatened defamatory publication.

14. With respect to paragraph 30 in the Counterclaim, Dr. Christensen says that the attachment described therein was an anticipatory article submitted for publication in hypothetical reply to the threatened defamation. It was sent to The Post in an effort to dissuade the Defendants from defaming Christensen, or in the alternative to be published (concurrently with the Post article about him) after being altered by him as appropriate to answer the details of The Post’s own article.

15. With respect to paragraph 31, the press release described therein was faxed to newspapers already aware of the Defendants’ impending article about Dr. Christensen, in a further attempt to mitigate the damages from the threatened defamation. It was subsequently e-mailed to the Men’s Educational Support Association, whose members had already been exposed to media coverage about Dr. Christensen due to the Defendants’ preparations to publish the defamatory article about him.

16. With respect to paragraph 32, the message referred to therein was sent in reply to comments on an e-mail list, comments arising from an earlier article in The Post on March 30^th about ECMAS.

Justification

17. The Defendant by Counterclaim pleads justification regarding the words set out in paragraphs 27 through 31 of the Counterclaim, and regarding the entire documents, read in context and as a whole, from which said words have been quoted. In their natural and ordinary meaning, in the contexts of the entire documents in which they appear, those words are either true statements of fact or else inferences warranted by the facts, and were made in good faith and without malice.

18. With respect to the ordinary meanings alleged in paragraph 33 and the corresponding innuendoes alleged in paragraph 34 of the Counterclaim, the Defendant by Counterclaim says that they fall into different categories as follows:

a) The Plaintiff admits that the statements in subparagraphs (i), (k), (o), (q), (r), (s), (t), and (u) of paragraph 33 substantially represent the ordinary meanings of the corresponding words complained of in paragraphs 27 through 32 of the Counterclaim, save that (o) actually referred to Ms. Laframboise alone;

b) The statement in subparagraph 33(f) is ambiguous, so that only when read in one of the two possible ways is its meaning the same as that of the corresponding words complained of;

c) The statements in subparagraphs 33(d), 33(e) and 33(l) can each be seen as expressing the ordinary meanings of the corresponding words complained of, but only if those statements be corrected for partial untruth;

d) The statements in paragraph 33 labelled (a), (b), (c), (h), (j) and (p) are not and cannot be read as the ordinary meanings of the specific words for which they are alleged to be the ordinary meanings, and says also that they are not contained as innuendo in the corresponding specific words complained of. In the alternative, if any of the statements in paragraph 33 labelled (a), (b), (c), (h), (j) or (p) is the ordinary meaning of or is innuendo contained in any of the words complained of or all of them collectively, then that statement is true;

e) The statement in subparagraph 33(n) is not the ordinary meaning of and not innuendo contained in any or all of the words complained of.

19. With respect to the implied meanings or innuendoes alleged in paragraph 35 of the Counterclaim, Dr. Christensen says that those in subparagraphs (b), (e), (f), (h) and (i) are in fact the ordinary meanings of the corresponding words complained of, provided that each one be appropriately qualified by a phrase such as "in part" or "to a degree". Dr. Christensen says that each of the aforesaid statements thus qualified is a true

statement of fact or a comment warranted by the facts. Further, Dr. Christensen denies that any of the statements in subparagraphs (a), (c), (d) and (g) are innuendoes contained in any of the words complained of.

Qualified Privilege

20. Further, or in the alternative, the Defendant by Counterclaim says that the words complained of are all of them protected by qualified privilege, in that he had an interest in defending himself and a moral and public duty to defend ECMAS, against the damages from the article on March 30^th and the then-threatened nation-wide publication of the defamatory words that are the subject of his Statement of Claim. Further, the persons to whom his words were published had an interest in learning the truth about these matters.

Fair Comment

21. In the further alternative, the Defendant by Counterclaim says that to the extent that any of the words complained of are defamatory and not justified, they are fair comment about a matter of public interest. The words complained of were based on facts including:

a) Beginning no later than the morning of Wednesday, March 21st, 2001, Laframboise made a series of telephone contacts with individuals associated with ECMAS, telling them she planned to publish an article exposing facts about Dr. Christensen and [Tim] Adams in connection with ECMAS in The Post on March 24, which would be harmful to the reputation of ECMAS. The idea for such an article had been suggested to Laframboise by Louise Malenfant, a recently-joined and disaffected member of ECMAS.

b) At a meeting of the ECMAS Board attended by Dr. Christensen that night, Wednesday, March 21^st, 2001, Mr. Adams tendered his resignation from the Board. He advised the Board that he had telephoned Ms. Laframboise that afternoon,

that she had expressed the opinion that in the best interests of ECMAS he should resign so as to possibly avoid negative publicity for ECMAS in The Post, and that he had told her he would do so. What Adams said was true.

c) On the following morning, Thursday, March 22^nd, 2001, Dr. Christensen sent an e-mail to Ms. Laframboise requesting that she investigate the other side of the story.

Because the event upon which the article was to be based as news was the election of Mr. Adams to the Board of ECMAS, Dr. Christensen set out the unusual circumstances without which Mr. Adams would not have stood for election to the Board. Those circumstances crucially involved Ms. Malenfant, who, as Ms. Laframboise ought to have known, had malicious and oblique motivation for approaching Ms. Laframboise. That e-mail is found in Appendix C.

d) On the afternoon of March 23rd, Ms. Laframboise e-mailed Dr. Christensen questions as set out in Appendix A. It was her first attempt to contact him.

e) On March 23^rd, 2001 Ms. Laframboise sent an e-mail (a true copy of which is attached as Appendix B) to the president of ECMAS-Edmonton, Robert Bouvier.

f) On the morning of March 22nd, 2001 Ms. Laframboise had telephoned Mr. Bouvier. During the course of that conversation, Bouvier told Laframboise that never, so far as he knew, had Christensen referred to his book Pornography: The Other Side or the ideas in it in any of his dealings with ECMAS. Bouvier also told Laframboise that Malenfant had earlier tried to get ECMAS members to take her side in an unrelated personal dispute with Christensen by threatening to expose that dispute in the media, and that Laframboise rejected this information as irrelevant to the accusations of Malenfant (or words to that effect). In the above- mentioned e-mail which she sent to Dr. Christensen, Ms. Laframboise did not inquire about that personal dispute.

g) Bouvier told Laframboise that he could not give firsthand information about what went on in the ECMAS support group meetings because (owing to ongoing time conflicts) he had not been able to attend it, though he had received many good reports about it and about Mr. Adams’ work. In a subsequent e-mail, Bouvier gave Laframboise the name and telephone number of the chairperson of the ECMAS support group, James Haiden, so she could hear another side besides that of Malenfant and those Malenfant might refer to Ms. Laframboise. Laframboise did not contact Haiden. Two others who had often attended the support group meetings, Richard Fowler and Brenda Colmer, independently sent personal letters appealing to Laframboise to listen to the other side. She likewise failed to respond to them, and refused to accept any further calls from Mr. Adams.

h) In that telephone conversation, Laframboise advised Bouvier that in her opinion ECMAS should cut all ties with Mr. Adams and Dr. Christensen in order to reduce the public embarrassment and controversy which her forthcoming article would create for ECMAS.

i) In that telephone conversation, Laframboise told Bouvier that Dr. Christensen’s book, Pornography: The Other Side, condones adult-child sex. When told of this by Bouvier, Christensen immediately took steps to retain a solicitor who, by the middle of the following day, March 23^rd, warned The Post in writing that any such allegation was false and defamatory and should not be published.

j) On March 21st, Ms. Laframboise had a telephone conversation with the president of ECMAS-Calgary, Michael Laberge, during the course of which she advised him that on March 24^th, 2001, she would be publishing an article in The Post which would describe the conduct of Mr. Adams and the contents of Dr. Christensen’s book in a manner embarrassing to ECMAS. As a direct result of that telephone conversation, Laberge, who had not read Dr. Christensen’s book, wrote Bouvier on March 22^nd, 2001, threatening to dissolve the Calgary chapter of ECMAS unless the Edmonton chapter agreed to cut all ties with Dr. Christensen and Mr. Adams forthwith.

k) The ECMAS-Edmonton Board failed to make a decision about ejecting the two men by both Ms. Laframboise’s original deadline and a replacement deadline (the evening of March 25th), and the ECMAS-Calgary Board failed to act on its threat when that happened. The article still did not appear. During that period Ms. Laframboise sent at least one message to each group saying her article was about to be published and inquiring whether action had been taken. On the evening of March 27^th, the ECMAS-Edmonton Board voted not to sever the membership of either man, and late on the afternoon of March 28^th, the ECMAS-Calgary Board dissolved itself.

l) On the morning March 30^th, 2001, an article by Laframboise appeared in The Post with the resignation of the Calgary Board as its central news-item. It quoted Ms. Malenfant’s false claim that she had made “repeated attempts in recent months to convey my concerns about Mr. Adams to the leadership” before the election, but not ECMAS’s denial that she had done so. It omitted all hint of the last-minute exigency involving Ms. Malenfant that resulted in Mr. Adams’ election in the first place, merely quoting another person, one who had been referred to The Post by Ms. Malenfant, as having been shocked by the election. That article gave the false impression that the disruption was internal to the organization, and failed to honestly reveal the role of Laframboise in bringing it about.

m) The article on March 30th did not mention Dr. Christensen. Beginning that same day and over the ensuing weeks before the publication of the article defaming Dr. Christensen on April 17^th, 2001, repeated rumours that its publication was imminent came through Ms. Malenfant, causing serious distress to Dr. Christensen and the regular active members of ECMAS.

Malice

22. With respect to paragraphs 36 and 37 of the Counterclaim, Dr. Christensen denies that any of the words complained of were made with malice, express malice, in a reckless manner or with intent to mislead.

Damages

23. The Defendant by Counterclaim denies that the Plaintiffs have suffered damages as alleged or at all, except as caused by their own actions.

WHEREFORE THE DEFENDANT BY COUNTERCLAIM PRAYS THAT THE COUNTERCLAIM BE DISMISSED.

DATED at the City of Edmonton in the Province of Alberta and delivered by Bradley J. Willis, Barrister and Solicitor, solicitor for the Plaintiff, whose address for service is in care of Willis & Bokenfohr, Barristers and Solicitors, at #325 Capital Place, 9707- 110th Street, Edmonton, AB, T5K-2L9, or by fax at 780- 452-3247.

ISSUED THIS _______ DAY OF NOVEMBER, 2001

______________________________________

CLERK OF THE COURT OF

QUEEN’S BENCH OF ALBERTA