Seeing some people react to this as if Jesse Brown lost in court and experiencing some understandable schadenfreude
But his isn't a court verdict, it's an out-of-court settlement. What this actually shows is Jesse Brown was willing to pay $885,000 to avoid a public airing of these issues at trial
/CNW/ - Canadaland Inc. and its founder Jesse Brown will pay a total of $885,000 in damages and costs to Theresa Kielburger, an 82-year-old retired Toronto...
Jesse Brown did not cause the WE scandal
It was CBC News that first reported Trudeau's family had done paid speeches for WE, which led to a conflict of interest investigation (because the federal government had given WE a $912 million sole-sourced contract)
Jesse Brown had nothing to do with that
The federal ethics commissioner investigated Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau for violating the conflict of interest act over their ties to WE
Trudeau was cleared but it was found Morneau broke the law
Feel however you want about it, but Jesse Brown had literally nothing to do with any of this
Luke LeBrun
Luke LeBrun
If you read WE Charity's news release, it repeatedly jumps back-and-forth between an earlier anti-SLAPP decision and today's out-of-court settlement
It's confusing to read and seems to mix apples with oranges
Scoop: Media Matters has been forced to lay off some staffers and implement other cost-cutting measures as Elon Musk's legal war takes its toll.
Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/media-matt...
* Clarification: The sole-source contract was with WE's real estate holding foundation for up to $43.5 million to run a $912 million program administering and disbursing in grants, etc.
Anyway, the point is the reporting that led to this controversy and its fallout didn't come from Canadaland
If a high school student wanted to use the Internet to participate in democratic discourse (as many of my generation did at this same age), I believe it would be moral for them to break the law
*this isn't a court verdict
Both men had apologized for not recusing themselves from cabinet deliberations.
