Globe and Mail Excerpt June 28
"Of course, the law must accommodate commentators such as the satirist or the cartoonist who seizes on a point of view, which may be quite peripheral to the public debate, and blows it into an outlandish caricature for public edification or merriment," he said. "Their function is not so much to advance public debate, as it is to exercise a democratic right to poke fun at those who huff and puff in the public arena. This is well understood by the public to be their function."
Judge Binnie expressed a concern that issues of public interest could go unreported "because publishers fear the ballooning cost and disruption of defending a defamation action. ... Public controversy can be a rough trade, and the law needs to accommodate its requirements."
The legal tests the court set out to determine "honest belief" include:
The comment must be on a matter of public interest.
It must be based on fact.
Although it can include inferences of fact, the comment must be recognizable as comment.
It must be capable of satisfying the question: Could any person honestly express that opinion on the proved facts?
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