Category: Freedom of the Press

Canadian news media swarms Julian Fantino over marijuana business – ignores Fantino’s sworn evidence of corrupt police, lawyers, judge.

Canadian News Media Censorship is now the Story

Last week former Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police Julian Fantino opened the Vaughan office of Aleafia – a company dedicated to treating patients with medical marijuana. The media tsunami struck the next day with many articles in both the mainstream and alternative news discussing how a former Chief of Police and anti-drug crusader could now be an advocate for medical marijuana.

Journalist Michael Coren

On Wednesday morning I listened to Toronto AM1010 Talk Radio with Michael Coren and a number of other high-profile people. Mr. Coren said that although he likes Julian Fantino and always has, he found this latest career change to be hypocritical.

In response, two other panel members said that as Minister of Veteran Affairs, Fantino saw the benefits of pot in assisting soldiers to deal with anxiety, sleep disorders and PTSD. There is no better advocate for change, they argued, than someone who has themselves come to new realizations.

Fantino’s marijuana business dominated the news for about two days and then dropped off as is natural. It was news in the first place because of Fantino’s high public profile as a long serving and senior law enforcement officer and former cabinet minister in the Harper government.

Justice Shaughnessy (r) & his lawyer, Peter Wardle

A much bigger Julian Fantino story not covered by Canadian media

Donald Best, The Attorney General of Canada and Mr. Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy

What was not in the news though, is that just a few weeks ago on October 25, 2017 former OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino swore and filed an explosive affidavit in the judicial review of a Canadian Judicial Council decision currently before the courts.

In the case of Donald Best, The Attorney General of Canada and Mr. Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy, Mr. Fantino’s affidavit names names and details evidence of corruption, law breaking and even criminal offences by police, lawyers and a judge.

The sworn evidence of a former OPP Commissioner alleging police and legal system corruption, naming names and calling for criminal investigations, is totally unprecedented in Canadian history – but not one Canadian news media outlet covered the story although they all know about it.

Over the last three years I have personally spoken with a few dozen professional journalists from just about any major Canadian news organization that you can name: CBC, Toronto Star, CTV, Globe and Mail, PostMedia, iHeart Radio.

All were excited about my story until they found that it couldn’t make it past their editors. Several told me that there is an ‘editor’s kill’ on my story because several of the involved lawyers are high profile Bay Street law firm partners – who provably fabricated evidence and lied to the courts to convict and imprison me, Donald Best, during a private prosecution for Contempt of Court during a civil case costs hearing.

Now that former OPP Commissioner Fantino has examined all the evidence and totally vindicated me, the mainstream Canadian news media are still concealing the corrupt actions of several lawyers, police and a judge. And yes, the Canadian news media outlets know about and have downloaded copies of Mr. Fantino’s sworn affidavit.

The story is now about the Canadian mainstream news media concealing proven criminal misconduct by corrupt and powerful people and entities – in total opposition to the news media’s duty to the public trust.

And that my friends is a much more disturbing and important story than the misconduct of a crooked cop and a handful of rogue lawyers and a judge.

Read a summary of Julian Fantino’s affidavit, and download the full affidavit if you desire:

Court denies former Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino intervention in judicial review of CJC

Notice to readers, including Persons and Entities mentoned in this article

As always, if anyone disagrees with anything published at DonaldBest.CA or wishes to provide a public response or comment, please contact me at [email protected] and I will publish your writing with equal prominence. Comments left on articles are moderated at least once a day. Or, of course, you can sue me and serve my lawyer Paul Slansky. You can find Mr. Slansky’s information here.

Photos have been included to put context to the article. Their use is the same as with other Canadian news outlets.

Readers are also encouraged to thoroughly study all the evidence available here at DonaldBest.CA, to perform independent research on the Internet and elsewhere, to consider all sides and to make up their own minds as to the events reported on DonaldBest.CA.

Donald Best
Barrie, Ontario, Canada

Net Neutrality and why it matters to you

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.

Suppose governments or corporations could slow or restrict your access to various websites – or restrict visits to your own website – based upon the published political, social or religious opinions and facts? It is a form of censorship that strikes at the very heart of free speech, personal freedoms and democracy.

Net neutrality forces all internet suppliers to treat each piece of traffic in the same manner.

And wouldn’t you know it… powerful forces want to allow internet suppliers to control and restrict what you are allowed to access on the internet.

If you value your freedom to create or visit any internet venue – you need to become knowledgeable about Net Neutrality, and you need to start aggressively asserting your rights.

Use ’em or lose ’em.

Things to do about Net Neutrality

1/ Have a listen to Tay Zonday above. You remember Tay… as a teenager he broadcast his original song ‘Chocolate Rain‘ on YouTube. Ten years later the original post has almost 114 million viewers.

2/ Go to the website battleforthenet.com and familiarize yourself with the Net Neutrality and the political side of why your freedom is at risk.

3/ Write, broadcast and agitate about Net Neutrality.

How the establishment media kills my story

Hired Gun Journalist Colin Perkel

In my own case, the Bay Street Cabal lawyers have done everything they can to restrict my telling the public about their misconduct and criminal activities like perjury, obstructing justice and fraud upon the courts.

The National Post shadow banned me. The Toronto Star erased all my comments, and the Toronto Sun published Colin Perkel’s two commissioned fake news pieces about my lawyer, Paul Slansky.

But, thanks to net neutrality, I still get my message out to tens of thousands of people every month through my blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts.

If we lose net neutrality, the first to profit will be those who wish to push a false narrative – and the biggest losers will be ordinary people.

Net Neutrality matters to you, your freedom and democracy. Don’t lose it!

Chris Budgell: Newspapers want tax dollars but won’t cover important Canadian Judicial Council story.

Why won’t the establishment news media cover the important story that the Canadian Judicial Council is operating ultra vires to the Judges Act?

To: Bob Cox

Chair, News Media Canada
Publisher, Winnipeg Free Press

Dear Mr. Cox,

If there has ever been a time when society existed without facing serious challenges it isn’t now.

I sympathize with the position you are advancing in your National Post op-ed ‘It’s time to save news‘, but I’ve lived through enough major transitions to see the traditional media’s difficulties in context.

I don’t want to attempt a comprehensive answer or rebuttal to your arguments, but I must note that it seems to me that what you are proposing would simply tighten the bonds between some powerful entities that I think an informed public perceives as already not sufficiently independent from each other.

The Internet is forcing us to redefine many notions, many of them radically. I think the definition of “journalism” is one of them. Such processes are disruptive – to individual lives and institutions.

I’m in favour of finding ways to reduce the disruption to individual lives, but I’m not in favour of preserving institutions that may no longer be viable simply because of claims that they are “pillars of democracy”.

Most media, certainly most newspapers, are first and foremost for-profit business enterprises.

The Internet has facilitated a radical disruption of the economic model. I regret to say I can’t offer any suggestions for preserving that model or creating one that relies on increasing public subsidization.  Read more

National Post credits watchdog Chris Budgell with breaking new story about Canadian Judicial Council’s own conflict of interest over Justice Newbould

One of Canada’s best known journalists credits independent CJC watchdog Chris Budgell with breaking a story about the personal conflicts of interest of a member of the Canadian Judicial Council committee investigating Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Newbould.

Christie Blatchford wrote in the National Post “The first to notice these (conflict of interest) connections was Chris Budgell, a self-appointed citizen watchdog of the judicial council.”

Blatchford’s article Spotlight falls on panel probing conduct of judge who spoke against land claim details a CJC panel member’s conflicts:

A lawyer hand-picked by federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to serve on the committee probing the conduct of Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Newbould hails from a Vancouver law firm with long-standing connections to the organization that complained about the judge.

On March 31, Wilson-Raybould announced that Clarine (Clo) Ostrove, a partner at Mandell Pinder, a Vancouver firm that focuses exclusively on First Nation work, is her designate on the three-person inquiry. (snip)

One of Ostrove’s associates at Mandell Pinder, Stephen Mussel, is a member of the Indigenous Bar Association.

A former Mandell Pinder associate, and former Chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation in Nanaimo, B.C., Douglas S. White, was also an Indigenous Bar Association director.

Another of the firm’s former lawyers, Angela Cousins, was a board member of the association.

Most, including Ostrove herself, have spoken on Aboriginal law issues at various conferences, including two where either Wilson-Raybould, a lawyer, former prosecutor and former regional Chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations before her election as MP for Vancouver Grenville, or her husband, Tim Raybould, were also speakers.

Budgell did the digging and sent Blatchford a well researched article that provided the foundation for her National Post story. Budgell also sent the article to DonaldBest.CA as we were prepared to publish if the National Post ignored Budgell’s work.

Christie Blatchford’s excellent article contains much more about the conflicts of interest – including that both federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and the president of the Association of Superior Court Judges, Justice Susan G. Himel, are weighing in on the situation in what some are saying appear to be attempts to influence the Canadian Judicial Council and the Inquiry Panel convened into Justice Newbould’s conduct.

National Post still censors news about CJC and Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy

Lawyer Peter Wardle – Justice Shaughnessy

Blatchford’s employer though, the National Post, still refuses to cover stories about the ongoing Judicial Review of the Canadian Judicial Council’s handling of a misconduct complaint against Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy, including:

  • A Federal Court refused to dismiss Shaughnessy’s application to remove his name as a party to the judicial review.
  • The unprecedented January 17, 2017 Federal Court decision also ordered Justice Shaughnessy to personally pay the legal costs of Donald Best, a self-represented litigant that the Ontario Superior Court Justice sent to prison for contempt of court.
  • No other judge in Canadian history has been ordered to pay legal costs.
  • Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General had been acting as the judge’s personal lawyer for almost a year but parted ways with Justice Shaughnessy a week after DonaldBest.CA published an article describing how, with the AGO acting as the judge’s personal attorney, nobody was acting for the public interest at the Judicial Review.
  • Justice Shaughnessy’s new lawyer Peter C. Wardle has multiple conflicts of interest. In a closely related matter, Wardle represented two lawyers who are almost certain to be called as witnesses in a CJC investigation or public inquiry into misconduct allegations against Justice Shaughnessy.
  • Questions are also being asked about the propriety of Wardle, a Law Society of Upper Canada senior bencher, representing a Federally appointed judge accused of serious, premeditated misconduct.
  • Justice Shaughnessy’s latest choice of lawyer only ramps up questions about conflicts of interest and the optics of the apparent relationships between big law firms, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, and the Attorney General of Canada – when nobody is representing the public interest during the judicial review.

For more details and supporting court documents, read: Justice Bryan Shaughnessy chooses Conflicted Lawyer as personal counsel in Judicial Review.

 

 

National Post bans Donald Best comment on article about Donald Best and lawyer Paul Slansky

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

Canada’s National Post newspaper ‘stealth banned’* comments by yours truly, Donald Best, on a newspaper article about my lawyer Paul Slansky, my legal case and me.

When I’m logged in as a registered reader I can read my own comments – but I’m not told that my comments are not visible to other readers, only to me.

The National Post published the same flawed Colin Perkel article as did the Toronto Star, which contains such deliberately limited information that it can only be called fake news. After Perkel’s first such article about my case in June 2016, he refused to interview me despite my offers. My recent post explains it all.

My comment at the National Post was polite and informative – but the editors apparently have marching orders from their masters. The news article names me, is about my case and my lawyer, and the reporter refuses to interview me – but the National Post doesn’t want the public to read my comments about the story.

Here are my words, apparently too dangerous to the National Post’s agenda for the public to read:

This is Donald Best, the former Toronto Police Sergeant (Detective) who is mentioned in this article. Paul Slansky is my lawyer. He is a man of integrity and courage to take my case when it was apparent from the start that the legal establishment was simply not going to allow my evidence to reach a civil jury of my fellow Canadians.

No judge in any court listened to the audio recordings that I secretly made (and that prove my case) – and that includes the two judges that the National Post article mentions. Nor was I allowed to cross-examine the lawyer-witnesses upon whose testimony I was convicted and imprisoned in solitary confinement for 63 days.

Think about that: I was not allowed to cross-examine the witnesses about their testimony that the court relied upon to send me to prison.

Canadians are universally appalled when they visit my website, listen to the audio recordings, view all the evidence that was never allowed to come to trial – and understand what really happened.

Unfortunately, journalist Colin Perkel did not include in his story that a Judicial Review is in progress, and that the Federal Court just released a decision in my favour. Nor did Mr. Perkel include various background that would allow readers to decide for themselves what happened, and to follow the story as it continues to unfold.

After his original article last June, Mr. Perkel did not take advantage of my offers to be interviewed. I remain available should any Mr. Perkel or any journalist be interested.

Donald Best
Barrie, Ontario
website: DonaldBest.CA

*Stealth Banning is the practice of rendering an individual comment invisible to everyone except the poster. (Wikipedia)

 

 

Colin Perkel – Toronto Star fake news hit piece targets lawyer Paul Slansky

Hired Gun Hit-Piece Journalist Colin Perkel

Colin Perkel’s new Toronto Star hit-piece targeting lawyer Paul Slansky contains such deliberately limited information that it can only be called fake news.

It is a real shame to see a career journalist like Colin Perkel writing agenda-driven propaganda at the behest of his corporate masters – when he must know that he is being used to deliver half-truths in furtherance of a cover-up of criminal behaviour by senior Ontario lawyers.

After his first hit-piece against my lawyer Paul Slansky, published June 21, 2016, Perkel did not reply to my offers to be interviewed.

At the same time, persons using the Toronto Star computer network downloaded from my website; court documents, audio files and exhibits that conclusively prove that Toronto lawyers Lorne Silver, Gerald Ranking and Sebastien Kwidzinski lied to the courts to convict me in absentia (while I was out of the country and unaware of the proceeding) of contempt of civil court.

Junior lawyer Sebastien Kwidzinski and senior Ontario lawyers Gerald Ranking, Lorne Silver deliberately lied to the courts.

The DonaldBest.CA articles that the Toronto Star reporters read also documented (supported by sworn affidavits and court transcripts) that no judge and no court has ever listened to the voice recordings that prove that I was convicted and jailed upon the deliberate lies, perjury and deception of corrupt Toronto lawyers Lorne Silver, Gerald Ranking and Sebastien Kwidzinski.

The judges who never listened to my audio recordings include Justice Susan Healey – whose comments Perkel loves to selectively quote in his articles. Perkel knows that truth, but the truth is not included in his commissioned hit-piece:

Justice Susan Healey made her decision and comments based upon the court record that excluded the voice recordings and other irrefutable evidence of illegal acts by the named lawyers.

Read more

So Sue Me… Please

Donald Best YouTube-private

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

The ongoing attempt to take down DonaldBest.CA through thousands of brute-force login attacks continues today. (As previously reported here.)

Apparently some persons are upset by what is published on this website – so upset that they hired professional hackers to destroy it. I can’t imagine why the truth as revealed in voice recordings, court documents and other evidence would upset anybody. Well, maybe a few people.

If some people and organizations aren’t terribly pleased with my writing, they probably won’t like my new videos either.

Those stills at the top are taken from my first ‘green screen’ video, still in production. The editorial commentary is easy – it’s learning the editing software that is taking the time. It will probably be the end of the week before I hit publish on YouTube. After that, I hope to make at least one video a week.

So Sue Me… dot CA

The people are who are paying professional hackers to try to take down my website should have more faith in our justice system and courts. If they believe that I’ve broken the law or done something for which I could be held responsible for in a civil action, they should serve me with legal papers.

It is much better to solve things in the courts rather than to commit criminal offences in efforts to take down my website. Of course, some people think nothing of lying to the courts, fabricating evidence or filing court motions under the name of a phony non-existent business entity – but those people are lawyers, not ordinary citizens like me.

To make the legal process easier for the hackers or anyone who wishes to sue me, I’ve purchased two domain names:

SoSueMe.CA

and, of course…

PleaseSueMe.CA

To those who would use libel chill or litigation intimidation in efforts to stop DonaldBest.CA from publishing articles, evidence and fair commentary – please, Oh Please… Sue Me.

Another massive brute-force login attack against DonaldBest.CA website

WordPress Attacks-private

August 29, 2016 attack included over 2,500 attempts in a few hours.

Somebody is paying professional hackers to destroy DonaldBest.CA.

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

Every day there are always a few attempts to guess the administrator password to log into DonaldBest.CA and take over the website. But about once a month the same professional hacker(s) launches an all-out brute-force attack using hundreds of compromised ‘zombie’ computers.

It is obvious that the ‘blackhat’ hacker(s) are professionals because each attack consists of thousands of pre-programmed attempts made over the course of a few hours using hundreds of different IP numbers and computers from every part of the globe. This shows the attacker(s) maintains an asset base of compromised machines worldwide to effect strategic vulnerability scans and brute-force login attempts.

Further, the attacks are not random because the selection of user names includes words specifically related to me, that I might personally choose if I wanted something easy to remember. This shows that the attacker probably has access to investigative reports about me, including my Identity Information and similar information upon which to create a list of likely words, rather than basing the attack on a standard common passwords dictionary.

Cassels, Brock & Blackwell LLP involved?

There is sworn evidence* before the Ontario courts indicating that during a previous brute-force attack on March 28, 2015, a website visitor from Barbados and a website visitor from the Toronto law office of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP (IP Number 72.0.220.68) knew of the attack beforehand, and checked on the results during the attack.

Before you start to say that it would be impossible that anyone from a large and respected law firm like Cassels would be involved in initiating an illegal attack to take this website down, you might want to consider sworn evidence indicating that lawyers from large Canadian law firms are proven to have:

That’s not even mentioning the Toronto Star newspaper’s Broken Trust series that documented how the Law Society of Upper Canada covered up hundreds of incidents where lawyers committed criminal offences against their clients.

For over two years I’ve been publishing solid evidence on this website that certain Ontario lawyers committed criminal and other offences, and that the Law Society of Upper Canada and some courts knew of this and covered-up to protect privileged senior members of the Bay Street Boys Club.

No one has sued me, or taken advantage of my offers to publish responses or refutations of the evidence.

As a police detective investigating crimes, I always asked myself “To whom the benefit?”

And so my readers should ask themselves about the continuing professional attacks on DonaldBest.CA… To whom the benefit if the attacks succeed?

Donald Best
Barrie, Ontario, Canada

* See paragraphs 198-207 of my 20150331 Injunction Motion with Exhibits (PDF 17mb – large file!)

4,000+ visitors in the past 3 days. Thank you Toronto Star, The Canadian Press, Colin Perkel

What’s that old saying about there being no bad publicity?

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

Now I truly understand why (according to a friendly TorStar reporter) the Toronto Star has had an editor’s ‘kill’ on my story for the past three years – to the point of removing my reader comments from their website even when my comments had nothing to do with my legal case or personal situation.

The Toronto Star made ‘Donald Best’ and ‘DonaldBest.CA’ disappear from their website.

Could it be libel chill that caused the newspaper to censor my story, name and website? Could it have something to do with the fact that two of the senior lawyers I sued regularly act for the Toronto Star and other mainstream news media, even representing them all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada on occasion?

Big Media won’t allow their journalists to cover my story

In the last few years I’ve been interviewed by many Canadian journalists from such outlets as the Toronto Star, National Post, Sun Media, Globe and Mail and CTV.

It usually starts in the same manner. The reporter stumbles across my website, listens to the voice recordings, downloads the transcripts and other evidence and then contacts me almost breathless for an interview. Their instinct tells them there are several good stories here, and their healthy professional skepticism is soon satisfied by the quality of my evidence.

(It’s tough to dispute forensically-certified voice recordings of me telling lawyers that I did NOT receive a certain court order – and then read the same lawyers’ sworn testimony and transcripts falsely telling the judge that during the same telephone call I ‘confessed’ that I HAD received the court order. What the lawyers did is called ‘perjury’ and ‘obstruct justice’.)

Each time I politely answer the journalist’s questions, provide them with the backup evidence they request, and each time nothing appears in the news media. A very few journalists contacted me afterwards and in a forthright manner explained in frustration and perhaps some shame what I already knew was happening.

The mainstream news media has censored my story since 2013, yet four days ago on June 21, 2016, only hours after the Appeal Court of Ontario released a decision that was critical of my lawyer Paul Slansky, the Toronto Star, National Post and Toronto Sun all ran the same one-sided, incomplete and inaccurate story about my lawyer and my case.

Journalist Colin Perkel

Award-winning senior Canadian Press Journalist Colin Perkel

Did the powers that be decide that the award-winning Canadian Press reporter Colin Perkel should write a story and it would be published nationwide? Or, did Mr. Perkel somehow trip across an Appeal Court release within a few hours, decide to cover the story himself and then convince his editors to publish?

Mr. Perkel never contacted me. His story contains inaccuracies, no background and certainly no reference to DonaldBest.CA where Canadians can listen to voice recordings, examine the evidence and decide what happened for themselves.  Read more

Twitter censors top Jian Ghomeshi #Ghomeshi tweet by yours truly

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

My latest #Ghomeshi tweet lasted all of 37 minutes on the #Ghomeshi hashtag before Twitter made it disappear. (See @DonaldBestCA for my twitter feed)

During that short 37 minutes, my tweet was re-tweeted 32 times and then… nothing. My tweet disappeared from the ‘Top’ tweets, leaving as the current ‘top’ a tweet by Chatelane editor Sarah Boesveld that has only been retweeted 24 times in in 16 hours.

So let’s be clear…

My tweet = 32 re-tweets in 37 minutes, then removed by Twitter censors.

Sarah Boesveld’s tweet = 24 re-tweets in 16 hours, but mine is gone and hers is the ‘Top’ #Ghomeshi hashtag tweet.

Obviously, my Tweet did not meet the political and social opinion test by Twitter thought police – even if the public loved it.

What did Sarah Boesveld say that Twitter approves of? Here it is…

Jian Ghomeshi Tweet 1

What did I say that was re-tweeted 32 times in 37 minutes but was then taken down by the Twitter censors?

Here it is…

Jian Ghomeshi Tweet 2#Ghomeshi court saga ends with a whimper. A lesson for all lying victims who feel the truth is not enough under oath. 

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