Sask. Court of Appeal rules SaskTel must produce information of former ‘victimsvoicesregina’ account

WATCH: The Sask. Court of Appeal has ruled that SaskTel must produce information of the former ‘victimsvoicesregina’ account. Donovan Maess explains.

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ruled SaskTel must provide documentation regarding the administrators of the former ‘vicitimsvoicesregina’ Instagram account.

‘Victims Voices Regina’ was first created five years ago as a place where survivors of sexual assault could share their stories anonymously. Many posted the names of their alleged abusers.

The page has since been taken down.

On June 1, 2021, Ryan Boldt – who was named by an anonymous user – caused a claim to be issued against Jane Doe, Betty Doe, Sally Doe, as well as Facebook, Inc. and Facebook Canada, Ltd. A later amendment was made to re-name the two Facebook defendants as Meta Platforms, Inc.

In his claim, Boldt alleges the defendant, Betty Doe, created a false and defamatory story that she was sexually harassed by Boldt in the course of her employment. He further asserts that Betty Doe delivered the false and defamatory story.

“Boldt does not know the identity of Betty Doe, or the account administrators. He needed to ascertain their identities to serve his claim,” court documents read.

“Boldt sought an order directing Telus, Access and SaskTel to produce identifying documents relating to account holder name(s); account holder address(es); and any other identifying information.”

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Telus and Access took no position regarding the application.

“SaskTel opposed the motion on the basis that the documents sought were subject to solicitor-client privilege,” court documents said.

Court of Appeal Justice’s Georgina Jackson, Meghan McCreary and Keith Kilback ruled on May 8 the lower court erred in its decision to dismiss Boldt’s application.

“The burden of proof rests with the party asserting privilege to demonstrate that the documents sought are, in fact, privileged,” the justices said. “From our review, the chambers judge did not perform an analysis of whether the identifying documents sought by Boldt were protected by solicitor-client privilege.”

“He simply accepted SaskTel’s assertion that they had such status and quoted from SaskTel’s brief for that proposition. This led him into error,” the ruling added.

On those grounds, the higher court has accepted the appeal and is forcing SaskTel to produce documents containing information such as the account holder name; account holder address; physical address related to the IP address; account holder billing information; and account holder email address(es).

No timeline has been given to when the documents must be provided to Boldt.

SaskTel admitted in court to possessing at least some of the sought information.

In response to CTV News Wednesday, the crown corporation said, “[It] is committed to acting in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations, including full compliance with court orders.”