BC Law Society Defamation Claim and Boat Storage After Death
A hyperlink and headline can change the stakes of a professional disagreement. We talk through a Victoria-based defamation lawsuit against the Law Society of British Columbia after a lawyer proposes changing mandatory Indigenous cultural competency training language about the Kamloops residential school from an asserted discovery of 215 bodies to wording focused on potential unmarked burial sites. When the Law Society links to a statement titled “Racist Resolution,” the dispute moves from policy and training content into reputational harm, defamation law, and what it means for a regulator to speak publicly during controversy.
From there, we dig into the mechanics that actually drive cases forward: pleadings, applications to strike “scandalous” material, and why a judge would order certain loaded words removed before a jury trial. We also connect the litigation to bigger governance questions in BC, including the Legal Professions Act and the push to embed reconciliation and UNDRIP implementation into the Law Society’s core duties, alongside concerns about preserving the independence of the legal profession from government control.
Then we switch gears to a surprisingly human problem with very real dollars attached: a liveaboard boat owner dies, the vessel sits in a Victoria marina for months, and the marina uses lien legislation under the Commercial Liens Act to secure payment and move toward sale. We unpack what counts as “storage,” why shore power can be essential, and how a redacted legal bill can backfire when a judge needs evidence to assess fairness and avoid double recovery.
If you care about Canadian defamation law, lawyer regulation in British Columbia, Indigenous reconciliation policy, UNDRIP, or practical disputes like marina liens and moorage fees, you’ll want to hear how these decisions get made. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, leave a review, and tell us: when institutions speak, how careful do they have to be with their words?
Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan is live on CFAX 1070 every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. It’s also available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.