Michaud loses defamation lawsuit (Canadian Antisemite Loses In Court)

Montreal Gazette ^ | May 14/02 | Sean Gordon

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SEAN GORDON
Montreal Gazette

Tuesday, May 14, 2002
Former MNA Yves Michaud, who provoked an uproar 15 months ago with comments he made about Jews, has lost a defamation lawsuit against a McGill professor who qualified Michaud's remarks as "anti-Semitic."

Michaud had sought $15,000 in damages from Marc Angenot, a French professor who said during a Radio-Canada interview: "Yves Michaud has the right to make anti-Semitic statements and I have the right to find them contemptible."

Michaud sued, claiming his reputation had been sullied by Angenot.

In a written decision dated May 2, Quebec Court Judge Antonio De Michele found Michaud "at the very least made remarks critical of the Jewish community . . . even if it wasn't (his) intention to make anti-Semitic comments, a portion of Quebec society perceived and qualified them as such."

In dismissing Michaud's claim, De Michele wrote that what Angenot said was "fair comment in terms of the previous remarks made by the plaintiff." And while Angenot's comments "were severe toward the plaintiff," they weren't defamatory.

Civil-rights lawyer Julius Grey, who defended Angenot, said the verdict as good for democracy. "It found that a person could 'fairly' use these words to emit their opinion. This is a good thing for free expression. I believe there are no things that shouldn't be thought, and few things that shouldn't be said."

Michaud, an author, shareholder- rights activist and former Quebec delegate-general to France, became the subject of controversy when he said in December 2000 that Jews "aren't the only people in the world to have suffered in the history of humanity" and that B'nai Brith should apologize for being "so anti-Québécois."

- Sean Gordon's E-mail address is sgordon@thegazette.southam.ca.

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Justice!