A B.C. Supreme Court judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Taseko Mines against an environmental group which had published articles on its website criticizing the New Prosperity Mine proposals.
The ruling dismissed Taseko’s claims and awarded the Wilderness Committee court costs as well as extra costs incurred as a result of the lawsuit. “We are thrilled with this result,” said Gwen Barlee, national policy director with the Wilderness Committee. “We stood our ground and now we’re vindicated.”

The judge found that all of the criticisms of the project, contained in five articles, were “fair comment.” One of the articles stated that the proposal “threatens to poison tens of thousands of fish, pollute the eco-system of Fish Lake and the headwaters of a river network that supports the world’s largest run of wild salmon and imperil an endangered population of grizzly bears.”

On this point, Mr. Justice Funt wrote: “The New Prosperity Project would cover an area of approximately 25 square kilometres in the Fish Creek (Teztan Yeqox) watershed. As noted, this is a wilderness area. Taseko’s proposal for New Prosperity contemplated the loss of approximately 20,000 square metres of fish habitat. The TSF would cover a large area and would also seep. The proposal also recognized that the Fish Creek watershed was grizzly bear habitat. With these facts, the Court finds that a person could honestly express the opinion set forth in the stated impression.”

He also called the punitive damages sought by Taseko Mines in the case “an economic threat.” “In the context of a defamation action, seeking punitive damages may serve to silence critics.”

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