After almost 15 years of legal struggle, Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Vancouver-based Adbusters magazine, finally has something to celebrate. On Friday, the B.C. Court of Appeal issued a ruling that allows Adbusters Media Foundation to pursue legal action against the CBC and CanWest Global for refusing to screen its anti-consumerist television ads.
"This is the first victory we've had in 15 years, and it feels incredibly sweet," Mr. Lasn said in a telephone interview. "The court has basically given us permission to go after media corporations and hold them up for scrutiny. The case is wide open again. It feels like a vindication."
Adbusters' legal counsel, Mark Underhill, said that the significance of the case lies in whether private broadcasters given a license to operate by Parliament have the right to determine who gets to speak on the public airwaves.
"We are arguing that Section 3 of the Broadcasting Act says that the broadcasting system is public," he said. "It's not just about Adbusters' rights, it's about the rights of the people to hear Adbusters and others who might have alternative viewpoints in a public space."
The case is still months, if not years, away from being heard in court, Mr. Underhill said. "We are essentially at the very beginning. It has taken all this time to be able to start from scratch."
Adbusters launched a legal challenge after the CBC pulled its anti-car television ad, Autosaurus, from its automotive show Driver's Seat . The ad ran once in February, 1993, but was withdrawn after complaints from other sponsors - mostly car companies.
In November, 1995, the B.C. Supreme Court rejected Adbusters' argument that this infringed on the foundation's right to freedom of expression, ruling that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not apply to the Crown corporation.
In 2004, Mr. Lasn hired prominent civil rights lawyer Clayton Ruby and launched another suit in Ontario, arguing that CBC, CanWest Global, Bell Globemedia and CHUM had each refused to run ads created by Adbusters. Telephone transcripts included in the legal filing showed television executives anticipated a negative response from major advertisers over the ads. During the same period, several of the same ads were screened without issue on CNN.
The action hit a wall when Adbusters was ordered to dismiss Mr. Ruby because of a conflict of interest (he was working on a different CanWest case). Strapped for cash (Mr. Lasn estimates the case has cost $200,000 so far), and needing to find another lawyer, Adbusters transferred the case to B.C. and continued - this time citing CBC, CanWest Global and the Attorney-General of Canada as defendants.
In February, 2008, the B.C. Supreme Court under Mr. Justice William Ehrcke rejected Adbusters' claim that refusing to air the ads was a violation of the right to freedom of expression. The charter, he said, citing the previous ruling on CBC, did not apply to private corporations.
That decision was overturned on Friday, when the B.C. Court of Appeal unanimously rejected the original ruling that the charter did not apply to the CBC, and in consequence, overturned the decision to throw out the case against CanWest Global.
A spokesperson for the CBC, Jeff Keay, said that the corporation will review the ruling before determining its next course of action.
CanWest Global declined to comment.