Toronto Star reporter suing Rob Ford over interview comments

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford attends a news conference at City Hall in Toronto on Tuesday, Dec. 10 2013. (Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale is taking legal action against Mayor Rob Ford over comments made during a television interview.

In an editorial published Thursday on the Star’s website, Dale said he is serving Ford “with a libel notice,” the first step necessary to pursue a defamation lawsuit.

“I am also serving Vision TV, which twice broadcast Ford’s vile and defamatory remarks to Conrad Black even though their interview was filmed days before it aired.”

In a statement issued early Friday, Zoomer Media, which owns Vision TV, says it won't be commenting on the interview "as there is now the threat of legal action."

During the interview with Black that aired Monday, Ford was asked about his privacy and media scrutiny. Ford spoke about a May 2012 incident in which he confronted Dale on public land behind the mayor’s Etobicoke home.

“I guess the worst one was Daniel Dale in my backyard taking pictures,” Ford said. “I have little kids. When a guy’s taking pictures of little kids, I don’t want to say that word but you start thinking, ‘What’s this guy all about?’”

When asked about the interview the next day during a budget-related news conference, Ford said: “I stand by every word I said with Mr. Black in my interview.” He then left the press conference.

Dale has said he never set foot on Ford’s property and never took any pictures. He was in the area to work on a story about Ford trying to buy the piece of public land near his home.

In an interview with CP24 on Tuesday, Dale called Ford’s comments “defamatory,” and said he had consulted with the Star’s lawyers and was considering his options.

In explaining why he has decided to take legal action, Dale wrote: “It had become clear to me that, if I had done nothing, the mayor would make his smears some sort of political talking point. His comments to Black were no one-time slip; they seemed to be the first shots in a bewildering campaign against my good name. At a Tuesday news conference, he pointedly said he stands by ‘every word.’ Today, he repeated many of his false claims on American radio.”

In his second Thursday-morning appearance on a Washington, D.C. sports talk radio program to offer his NFL picks, Ford again addressed the May incident with Dale. Star reporter Graham Slaughter tweeted that Ford said: “When you have kids…that freaked me out.”

Ford also said that “the whole street came out, they couldn’t believe it,” according to Slaughter. The mayor had previously said that one neighbour had alerted him to Dale’s presence near his home. Slaughter also reported that Ford told the radio station that he caught Dale standing on blocks to see over his fence and take pictures of his backyard.

Dale refuted these new claims by the mayor in his Thursday piece.

In his libel notice, Dale is asking that the mayor “immediately retract the false insinuation that I am a pedophile and all of his false statements about my conduct on May 2, 2012. I’m also asking Ford and Vision owner ZoomerMedia to apologize immediately ‘publicly, abjectly, unreservedly and completely.’

If Ford does not do so, we’ll see if he is willing to repeat his lies under penalty of perjury.”

Dale’s lawyer, Iris Fischer, said her client “has taken the first step to libel action.”

“The letter asks for a full retraction and apology.”

Dale said that although he believed that the mayor “very much deserved to be sued,” he had originally planned not to file suit against Ford over his comments to Black, and had prepared a statement saying that he was “going to take the high road and give Ford a pass for his defamation against me.”

Dale said he did not want to “complicate my happy life,” and wanted to continue covering city hall.

Dale will remain a city hall reporter while his lawsuit runs its course.

“If a municipal politician had, hypothetically, clubbed me with a two-by-four, I told the police about it, and they charged him, I don’t think anyone could fairly argue that I needed to give up my job -- I would simply be responding calmly and reasonably to unprompted aggression,” Dale wrote.

“Similarly, I don’t need to give up my job because I am responding calmly and reasonably to the mayor’s attempt to take a two-by-four to my reputation.”

He went on: “I will not let this affect my job. I will not be bullied off of my beat.”

Coun. Gloria Lindsay Luby said Thursday evening that she is not surprised by Dale’s decision.

“I would have done the same thing in these circumstances,” she said. “I think it’s disgusting what was implied.”

Dale noted that the Star will cover his legal costs, although “dozens of people, including people personally harmed by pedophilia, have offered me a total of thousands of dollars in donations for my legal fees.”

He suggested that money be donated to help victims of child abuse.