Tag: News Media Censorship

Hamilton Councillor Sam Merulla embraces police investigation of Mafia connections – with custom Godfather logo

Hamilton Councillor jokes about leaked police investigation – but offers no explanation to citizens.

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

When DonaldBest.CA re-published leaked police documents showing Hamilton politician Sam Merulla under investigation for apparent association with notorious ‘Ndrangheta Mafia members Antonio Agresta and brothers Angelo and Pat Musitano – Merulla responded by blocking your writer Donald Best from reading his Twitter feed.

Now the newly re-elected council member’s Twitter profile @SamMerulla shows him wearing a custom Godfather-style logo ‘The Councillor’ in an apparent attempt to defuse the issue through humour and mocking.

Left unsaid by Merulla is any real reply or explanation to the concern that an elected official appears as a subject in a long term investigation into organized crime. ‘Project SCOPA’ also revealed corrupt Hamilton cops in the pay of the mob.

Nothing from Sam Merulla – and very surprising during the recent municipal election – not one word about the police investigation into Merulla from the Hamilton Spectator, the Toronto Star or any other local news media. 

Whether due to ‘libel chill’ or the corrupt influence of organized crime, the result is the same: the mainstream news media failed in its duty to the public and to the public trust.

Hamilton politician Sam Merulla blocked Donald Best on Twitter

Hamilton Citizens deserve the Truth from Merulla and the Police

In 2016, the Toronto Star reported on a lawsuit by undercover officer Paul Manning – who alleges he was betrayed by the Hamilton Police Service and by corrupt police officers working for the Mafia.

Then about a year ago Oakville-based private investigator Derrick Snowdy published confidential police reports into organized crime showing connections between Hamilton mobsters, corrupt cops and several politicians – including Councillor Sam Merulla and former Hamilton Police Board Chair Bernie Morelli. (Morelli passed at 70 years old in 2014 after a long illness.)

In late 2017 I published two articles:

Leaked police report: Hamilton City Councillor Sam Merulla & former Police Board Chair linked with organized crime, ‘Ndrangheta mafia

Domenic Violi arrest a reminder that Organized Crime has penetrated Canadian police for decades

On November 15, 2017 the Toronto Star published a teaser about the Derrick Snowdy material – but only mentioned mob figures and corrupt cops. Again, the mainstream news media lacked the courage and integrity to report the full story, including that Sam Merulla was a target / subject of a major police investigation into the Hamilton mob.

Is it any wonder that Canadians no longer trust the mainstream news media as they once did?

‘The Councillor’ Sam Merulla wouldn’t be wearing a mocking Godfather shirt if the Hamilton and Toronto mainstream news media was doing its job.

Hamilton Councillor Sam Merulla and Musitano brothers (montage from original document below)

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

 

Jimi Hendrix, the Dorsey Brothers and the Julian Fantino marijuana controversy

Career police officer and tough-on-crime politician Julian Fantino is the primary target of a Guardian U.K. article about retired senior police officers who now work with marijuana companies profiting from Canada’s legalization of the drug.

The article by The Guardian’s Toronto-based journalist Ashifa Kassam is a fair but short and therefore limited tale of the frustration of long-time marijuana legalization activists who see former police officers and large corporations capitalizing from their work while the activists are barred from the industry. Activists/dealers interviewed in that article and now facing criminal charges include Jodie and Marc Emery.

Left unsaid and uncovered in the article is why so many marijuana corporations hire former senior cops: because the corporations must convince both government and investors that organized crime and criminals are not part of their operations. Former senior police officers have the necessary skills and knowledge to keep organized crime from the industry.

I understand the injustice, real and perceived, and hope that Jodie and Marc Emery are spared a criminal record that would bar them from the industry – provided they now comply with the coming new legal standards.

Precedent for dropping Criminal Charges when law changes

There is, after all, precedent for dropping criminal charges against persons who committed ‘crimes’ when the law was about to change and decriminalize their activities. Abortionist Dr. Henry Morgantaler comes to mind as the Toronto Police actually protected Morgantaler’s operations during a period when abortion still criminally illegal but the government had announced that it was going to change the law.

Back to the marijuana issue; as Julian Fantino constantly tells the news media, he and his company have always engaged in lawful activities and as a police officer he didn’t make the laws; only enforced them without fear or favour according to the Rule of Law. We can’t have it any other way or we end up with despot police, prosecutors and judges who enforce or ignore laws according to class, tribe or payment of bribes.

Like it or not, Fantino and his fellow senior police officers obeyed the law in the past and have the skills that the industry needs now. But somehow, if seems just and fair that ordinary Canadians of otherwise good character and record should also have an opportunity in the new legalized marijuana industry.

Jimi Hendrix, the Dorsey Brothers and Marijuana

Times change and so do people. At fourteen years old I attended the May 3, 1969 Jimi Hendrix concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. My mother, who had played piano with the Dorsey Brothers way back when and recognized musical talent, surprised me with a ticket to see Hendrix. My father was speechless but allowed me to go. After all, he knew that mom as a musician had been arrested for being underage in a bar in Chicago. (Much to their horror, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey learned from the Chicago Police that ‘Maddy’ their piano player and my future mom, was only 15 years old and not 21 as she had claimed. That was go-to-jail-for-ten-years stuff back then.)

So I went to the Hendrix concert and while there, I may have heard rumours about some people inhaling second-hand marijuana smoke. In fact, I may have inhaled some second-hand marijuana smoke myself. Or maybe not so second-hand.

And I sure lied about it six years later during my employment interview with the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force.

Which is all to say that as the rules and laws change, we should take care to differentiate between evil criminals who harm people and ordinary Canadians who may have been a little naughty or even deliberately violated laws ahead of societal changes.

You can read more about Julian Fantino and the story that the Canadian news media won’t cover: Canadian News Media swarms Julian Fantino over marijuana business – Ignores Fantino’s sworn evidence of corrupt police, lawyers, judge.

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

 

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

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)

 

 

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.

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

Toronto Star closes reader commenting. No loss; they were already deleting any comments about Best vs. Ranking lawsuit or Donald Best

Toronto Star Commenting-private

by Donald Best

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

As the traditional news media struggles to survive in a world where everyone and anyone can publish a story or broadcast breaking news live from anywhere with just a mobile phone, newspaper publishers are being forced to make some tough choices.

Today the Toronto Star announced the immediate end of reader commenting. Visitor stats will surely suffer as I found myself returning five or ten times to various stories to watch the reader discussion unfold. Now I’ll read the story once and move on. It must be the same for many others.

Paul Schabas is probably Canada's foremost media lawyer

Paul Schabas is probably Canada’s foremost media lawyer (photo courtesy of the Toronto Star newspaper)

Killing the Donald Best story

It won’t really matter as far as my story goes, because the Toronto Star has been systematically deleting all mention of my name and court case in the comments for about a year.

Some of my friends have speculated as to why the Star has been censoring my story. Over the past year, several Star journalists expressed interest and even wild enthusiasm about my lawsuit and the solid evidence showing wrongdoing by lawyers and police, but (so I am told) there seems to be a roadblock at the editor level.

One of my friends speculates that this might have something to do with the fact that Paul Schabas of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, one of the lawyers I am suing, acts for the Toronto Star in many legal cases right up to the Supreme Court of Canada level. If it was true that Mr. Schabas was advising The Star not to cover my story, that would be interesting as in the many news stories I’ve read Mr. Schabas is always demanding the right to publish and fighting for freedom of the press.

Perhaps Mr. Schabas feels differently about freedom of the press when he and his fellow lawyers are the subject of the story?

Or, perhaps not.

In any event, The Star closed reader commenting at the newspaper’s website. Will the Globe and Mail or National Post follow the Star’s lead? And, will it really matter if they do?

 * Photo of Paul Schabas courtesy of the Toronto Star

Police and media response to Lynelle Cantwell and ‘Ugliest Girls’ online poll shows double standard

Cyberbullying victim Lynelle Cantwell (photo courtesy of Toronto Star)

Lynelle Cantwell (photo courtesy Toronto Star)

ST. JOHN’S, N.L.—A school board in Newfoundland and police are now investigating a case of cyberbullying involving an anonymous poll ranking girls at a high school based on their looks.

Lynelle Cantwell, a student at Holy Trinity High School in Torbay, is getting national attention for her response to the creators of the online poll, called “Ugliest Girls in Grade 12.”

Toronto Star: ‘Ugliest Girls’ online poll under police investigation in Newfoundland

by Donald Best

by Donald Best

Opposing internet bullying is a popular cause these days. Investigating online bullying is also a popular police activity that nets law enforcement easily-gained positive recognition in the community; but only as long as the perpetrators are low hanging fruit like high school students and not members of a protected class like lawyers from big Bay Street law firms.

The contrast is stark.

On one hand, a story about high school student Lynelle Cantwell and anonymous online poll for the ‘ugliest girls’ receives national news media attention about online bullying.

On the other hand, when sworn forensic evidence filed in Ontario Superior Court shows that personnel from the Toronto office of Miller Thomson LLP, one of Canada’s largest law firms, sent anonymous threatening internet messages to several witnesses in the Best v. Ranking civil lawsuit, the news media coverage is… Zero.

“The anonymous online messages and emails even include threats to murder and rape female witnesses.”

The anonymous threats and harassment originating from the Miller Thomson LLP law firm and elsewhere are part of a campaign of anonymous threats, harassment and criminal acts that has been ongoing for years, even to the present day.

Here are some samples taken from the court record:  Read more