TORONTO – Ontario’s Opposition leader says he plans to ignore a libel notice from Premier Kathleen Wynne.
Wynne took another step toward a defamation lawsuit against Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown last week after he refused to retract comments suggesting she is personally on trial.
Wynne’s lawyer first demanded in a letter last month that Brown withdraw comments he made a day before the premier testified as a witness at a trial in Sudbury, Ont., involving two provincial Liberals facing Election Act bribery charges.
READ MORE: Premier Wynne serves PC Leader Patrick Brown with libel notice for comments on Sudbury bribery trial
Brown had told reporters he hoped Wynne would give answers about the scandal “maybe when she stands trial” and went on to describe her as a “sitting premier, sitting in trial.”
After receiving the original letter from Wynne’s lawyer, Brown said he would “ignore her baseless legal threat,” and now after receiving the follow-up notice of libel, he says his position is unchanged.
A letter today from Brown’s lawyer to Wynne’s says his statements weren’t defamatory and he will not be “distracted” from his duty as Opposition leader.