Mark and Connie Fournier of Free Dominion Declare Bankruptcy

It has been a while since ARC last wrote about Mark and Connie Fournier of the (not so) dearly departed Free Dominion. While ARC certainly had a rather contentious relationship with the denizens of Free Dominion (they even inspired ARC's "History of Violence" article), their defamation of Mr. Richard Warman is what ultimately led to their precipitous downfall as the Fourniers and co-defendants lost a defamation suit to Mr. Warman.

The Fourniers decided to appeal the decision and attempted to crowdfund their effort which resulted in some rather interesting support:

• Winnicki Donates to Free Dominion's Warman Appeal
• Winnicki Donates to Free Dominion's Warman Appeal: Part II
• Winnicki Donates to Free Dominion's Warman Appeal: Part III

Though the writing was on the wall as others who had defamed Mr. Warman settled and apologized, the Fourniers stubbornly soldiered on. 

They chose.... poorly

Since then it seems that Mr. Warman has spent at least some time trying to get Mark and Connie to pay the damage and costs, but they seem to be rather recalcitrant. 

And as of yesterday....

Mr. Warman posted the following regarding the declaration of bankruptcy:

26 January 2018 

Connie Fournier is bankrupt. Mark Fournier is bankrupt. 

I suppose that as between honouring the payment plan they agreed to or bankruptcy, it had to come to this. 

As readers may recall, Connie Fournier and Mark Fournier published defamatory attacks against me through their website forum Freedominion (RIP). I asked them to remove the material and while they initially did so, they then refused to remove further defamatory material that was posted by their users or themselves. 

I sued them for libel. The Fourniers demanded a jury trial and their day in court. After a three-week trial, the jury found the Fourniers and their fellow defendants had defamed me and awarded me $42,000 in general, aggravated, and punitive damages. The judge also ordered the defendants to pay me $85,000 in legal costs. 

The Fourniers appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and lost spectacularly there too. The Court of Appeal ordered them to pay me a further $23,000 in costs. 

The Fourniers agreed to pay me the jury’s award of damages and costs at a rate of $500/month. They made 2 payments but then there were always reasons why they couldn’t pay the next month and then they just went silent. It wasn’t like they weren’t earning income – at the first judgment debtor exam, they estimated that Mark’s income from truck driving earned them $30,000-$50,000 per year. For her part, Connie had been voluntarily or otherwise unemployed or underemployed for years despite advertising herself as a computer programmer. 

Tired of waiting for the Fourniers or Godot to show up with the money they said they’d pay me, I recently arranged for them to attend a new judgment debtor examination where my lawyer would ask them why they hadn’t honoured the payment plan they agreed to and they would produce all of their financial records showing their ability to pay the judgment.

Now if Mark and Connie thought that this would means to avoid any legal obligations, there is some very bad news for them:

Instead of attending the examination they agreed to they decided to go bankrupt instead. They have the legal ability to do that, but the Courts have said repeatedly that people who try to take advantage of bankruptcy protection to avoid paying civil judgments against them shouldn’t emerge from bankruptcy until they’ve paid at least 1/2 of their outstanding debts. Given they owe in excess of $100,000, Connie Fournier and Mark Fournier have likely condemned themselves to a lifetime status as bankrupts. 

Sad but true…

However, Mr. Warman does include a postscript that may, if the Fourniers take up the offer, might help them to get out of the hole they have dug for themselves:

NB – The Fourniers were always successful at crowdfunding money to support their defence. I’d be happy to endorse or run a similar campaign now in their hour of need to pay off their debt and would donate all the money raised to charities or non-profits. I would also deduct an equivalent amount from the 50% of their outstanding debt to me before I would no longer object to them emerging from bankruptcy. The Fourniers and charities/non-profits would benefit – sounds like a win-win. Ball is in their court.

So we'll see what happens.

What I do know is that I have better taste in music than Mr. Warman:

March 2016 Bits and Bites: PEGIDA/JDL Protest Bust, Your Ward News in Warman's Cross-hairs, and Free Dominion News

We'll be posting an article detailing Canadians United 4 Canada's links to racist boneheads and an article to be published soon, but in the meantime we thought we would provide our readers a little bit of irony today:

But we do digress.

When we reported that the JDL was holding an event featuring PEGIDA UK speaker Paul Weston, we noted that there were plans to protest outside the location where the presentation was taking place.

Ron Banerjee, noticing that we had provided details about the counterprotest, claimed that his one man organization Canadian Hindu Advocacy and his mostly one man organization Rise Canada would discuss providing security for the event.

The JDL's Meir Weinstein, a man who has helped to promote Banerjee in the past and who has also both justified and refused to condemn Banerjee's racist, misogynistic, anti-Sikh, Islamophobic, and now Christophobic rhetoric.... well.... he seemed rather unamused:

The event did take place though and Banerjee did attend, as did it seems at least a few members of PEGIDA Canada:

Free Dominion Lost Appeal

Hey, remember when Richard Warman sued Free Dominion and a number of "John Does" (some of who's identities were learned, thus losing "John Doe" status)? And remember how excited the Free Dominion Folks were that they would be able to argue their case in front of a jury of their peers, confident that they would be able to use the opportunity to "expose" Mr. Warman?

Yeah, that didn't go well.

Instead of quitting while they were well behind, Free Dominion and the Fourniers decided to appeal, using crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe to raise the necessary cash.

Last week the Ontario Court of Appeal hear their case. Today a decision was rendered.

If it is at all possible, it went even more poorly for the respondents who are now, in addition to the general, aggravated, punitive damages as well as court costs amounting to a total of $104,900, they are now also on the hook for an additional $23,000 in court costs for the appeal.

In short, the court said that in addition to the legal merits of Mr. Warman's defamation suit being perfectly sound, that Free Dominion and the Fournier's own legal strategy did them in and as such they can't complain that it didn't work out as they had anticipated.

To further shorten, it would appear that they may not have received the best legal advice.

Shorter? Their lawyer was crappy.

As of now Free Dominion's forum is down. Perhaps for the count? Time will tell.

The Aftermath of a Tragedy

One would have to be living under a rock to not have heard about the horrific attacks in Paris that occurred on November 13. A total (as of this date) of 130 dead and 368 injured in what must be described as an act of cowardice by people subscribing to a twisted and evil ideology. A day before a car bombing in Beirut, Lebanon killed 43 people and prior to that 18 people attending a wedding were killed in Baghdad, Iraq. On November 17, 37 people were killed in Nigeria in a bombing that experts suspect was the handiwork of Boko Haram (who have pledged intelligence to Daesh). Just yesterday we learned that at least 21 people were killed in Mali. And today in Cameroon at least 5 people have been killed in a suicide bombing.

Those killed and injured run the gambit of ethnic, national, and religious origins and include Muslims among their numbers. Looking at the names and countries of origins for those victims of the Paris attack indicates a number of Muslims were killed and injured by extremists. In fact, the religious group most adversely affected by Daesh and their affiliates are Muslims, which is why so many refugees are fleeing Daesh in Syria.

The Canadian government is still admirably committed to taking in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the calendar year. This writer hopes that is just the beginning of Canada's commitment to help refugees. But, despite the good will of the Canadian government (thus far) and most Canadians, there have been a backlash against both the idea of helping refugees as well as Muslim-Canadians.

Much of the backlash comes from places that are not at all unexpected. For example when a mosque was set on fire in Peterborough, Ontario, Kyle McKee and the folks at Stormfront were pleased as punch:

Ezra Is Getting Good At Begging For Forgiveness: Part II

We're working on a few projects that are currently occupying our collective attention, but we thought we would provide an update on our previous post.

To recap, Levant's "Rebel Media" ran a book review of Connie Fournier's book excoriating the Harper Conservatives. However, the review was pulled after Richard Warman complained of defamatory material that appeared in the review. 

In the end, no one is defamed, no one is sued, and all are happy.

Right?

Well.... not so much.

Ezra Is Getting Good At Begging For Forgiveness

So Connie Fournier wrote a book about how much she, her husband, and many of the denizens of Free Dominion feel betrayed by Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. While we haven't bothered to read it, a friend did let us know we were mentioned in it, though not by name because we have cooties:

The biggest offenders in this attempted character assassination were anonymous bloggers with ties to violent anti-racist groups. Their obsession with writing about us and posting personal information about Free Dominion members spooked us to the point where we moved our household to a different location and kept our new address a secret.

The book is getting rave reviews though. But in the rather incestuous world of the fringe conservative echo chamber, the people giving the five star reviews appear to be mostly members of Free Dominion, fringe conservative bloggers, or both.

Like Jay Currie who seems to have a writing gig with Ezra Levant's "The Rebel."

In Currie's most recent (and evidently only thus far) of four articles (all of which have been removed at some time), it appears that he discusses  Ms. Fournier's book. And he makes some pointed, and potentially defamatory, comments about one Richard Warman.

Or at least we're guessing this is the case, since Levant pulled the article from the website:

Just so our readers can get a clear view of the reason for the article being removed:

Checking Mr. Warman's website confirmed our suspicions:

Rebel News Network/Ezra Levant – I have received an apology and retraction from Rebel News Network for defamatory material on their website. The question is if this constitutes some kind of world record for the shortest time ever for a media outlet (or youtube channel if you prefer) to go from inception to receiving a libel notice resulting in apology and retraction?

A further look at Mr. Warman's website included this little nugget too:

Richard Warman v Connie Fournier and Mark Fournier – December 2nd, 2015 is the date that has been set by the Ontario Court of Appeal for the meritless appeal by the Fourniers in my successful libel action against them. Of interest is the fact that they’re not appealing the $31,000 in damages awarded against them by the jury of their peers they demanded. The Fourniers are only appealing the permanent injunction to stop defaming me and the $62,000+ in costs against them personally.

The Fourniers, wisely, seemed not to have repeated the defamatory statements that are suggested in the extirpated Currie article, which is probably for the best considering they are already in pretty deep on the above successful libel action and a second upcoming concerning the Anne Cools smear. Interestingly Levant and other fringe conservative bloggers have apologized for that too.

Yeah. Don't @#$% with Richard Warman.

Bits and Bites: August 2015 Not Belated Edition

It's sometimes a tough call on whether or not we should discuss certain individuals on the blog. There are those like "the Goudreau" who seem to court any sort of attention, positive (rarely) or negative (much more frequent) as if the attention validates their importance. Usually the significance that individual places upon himself is in inverse proportion to the actual significance the individual actually has.

Such is the case of Ron Banerjee who, as the head (and likely only member) of Canadian Hindu Advocacy, has been able to fool a number of conservative media types into treating him with a degree of deference that would not necessarily be afforded to him if they realized how insignificant he really is.... to say nothing of the really disgusting things he writes and says about Muslims, Sikhs, LGBTQ, women, and a host of other groups an individuals.

Case in point, last week Banerjee and other members of Rise Canada, the newest hate group that Banerjee has created, protested outside the building where Olivia Chow accepted the NDP nomination to run in Spadina—Fort York.

But to refer to "members" of Rise Canada is perhaps a bit generous of us:

Yep. Two. That's all he was able to muster.

Banerjee later posted a video of himself (or at least the dulcet sounds of his slightly slurred voice) and the other dude harassing the folks entering the building. We won't play the entire video, but this part is somewhat interesting:

August 2015 Bits and Bites: Horribly Belated Edition

I know, I know.

This writer just got out of the bush a few days ago after several weeks of camping. Unfortunately, I forgot to let our friend who fills in when I'm (a) on vacation, (b) sick, (c) burnt out, or (d) hung over. But as he was gone as well as it turns out, it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

Soooo, what's happened since our last update?

First, we are working on gathering details for an upcoming article. Won't tip our hand too much yet, but I will mention that it involves a person based in Toronto we've discussed with some frequency in the past and some rather interesting associations that individual turns out to have. Stay tuned.

Second, we have two good news stories and one not-so-good story we would like to share, though even the latter doesn't put it's subject in a particularly positive light.

We start with the good news.

At the beginning of July, the New Brunswick Court of Appeals reserved judgement in the case of Robert McCorkill, who's will leaving his estate to the American-based hate group the National Alliance was challenged by his estranged sister, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the government of New Brunswick. Paulie suggested that, "experienced court observers predicted a six month wait for the decision."

In the end, it didn't even take a single month:

Winnicki Donates to Free Dominion's Warman Appeal: Part III

Well, talk about trying to have your cake and eat it too.

The past two articles posted too the blog have looked at the efforts of the owners of Free Dominion to crowd source their efforts in appealing the Warman judgement. More specifically, our focus was on one particular benefactor:

In our first article we wondered if the fine folks at Free Dominion were aware of who Tomasz Winnicki was and, if made aware, if they would keep the money of a virulent and unapologetic racist and anti-Semite. The second article which dealt with Winnicki's response appeared to have answered these questions, at least in part:

Now there was a possibility that, despite our helpful hint sent through twitter, that the Fourniers were still not aware of who Winnicki was after thanking him for his generous donation (if one were to believe it was Connie who had sent him thanks). It seems though now that they are aware of who Winnicki is and have made a change on the GoFundMe page.

Oh, they haven't returned the money if that, dear reader, is what you're thinking. They've just decided to hide this rather embarrassing fact. Here again is how Tommie's donation appeared on the page before....

.... and here is how it appeared earlier today:

March 2015 Bits and Bites: Warman, Dr. Dawg, Zundel, and Daniel Gallant

We've learned that Richard Warman has won another one. David Icke has paid Warman $90,000 to settle a rather long running libel action:

DAVID ICKE SETTLES LIBEL ACTION
5 March 2015

British conspiracy writer David Icke and co-defendants have paid Canadian human rights lawyer Richard Warman $210,000 CDN (117,000 GBP) in damages and legal costs to settle a libel action against them.

In 1999-2000, Warman had worked with various Jewish and anti-racism groups to notify public venues in Canada of discriminatory elements within Icke’s mishmash of conspiracy theories. After being provided with material from Icke’s own writings, a number of these venues withdrew permission for Icke to use their facilities in his tours.

In retaliation, Icke included false allegations in his 2001 book Children of the Matrix that Warman was seeking to suppress Icke’s purported exposure of Satanic child abuse and murder.

David Icke made an out-of-court settlement on January 8th paying $90,000 CDN (50,000 GBP) on the eve of a long-delayed trial that was scheduled to begin in Toronto on February 2nd, 2015. The Court order formally discontinuing the claim was issued on 4 March 2015 thus paving the way for this announcement. Insurers for three Canadian bookstores that had refused to stop selling the book after being served with libel notices had previously settled out for $120,000 CDN (67,000 GBP). Information obtained from litigation by Icke against his former US business partner demonstrated that at least 55,000 copies of Children of the Matrix had been sold worldwide.

The settlement includes the requirement that Icke immediately cease any further distribution of Children of the Matrix and remove the defamatory material from any future editions. Warman thanked his lawyers Christine Lonsdale and Elder Marques of law firm McCarthy Tétrault – “They were absolute professionals and I couldn’t have done it without them.”...

Sec. 13 Dead.... For Now

NOTE: This is a little screen shot heavy. Be forewarned.

On June 26, Sec. 13 of the Human Rights Act cease to exist. As our friend BCL noted however there is no reason why Sec. 13, which was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, can not be brought back by a more enlightened government in the future. In the meantime the good folks at the now moribund Free Dominion have decided to post (a now rare) comment to celebrate the demise of Sec. 13:

It it isn't surprising that Connie would give props to Marc Lemire as Free Dominion had been on the forefront of the effort to rehabilitate Lemire's reputation, characterizing him as a free speech martyr. In fact, they went beyond this and engaged in a little bit of historical revisionism. Not only did they deny his role in the leadership of the Heritage Front from 2001 to 2005, they have all but denied that he had any significant history with the hate group. We have attempted to show them the error of their ways, but it seems they have decided to believe him rather than us. But then they aren't the only ones who have tried to help Lemire cover up a very shady past. Ezra Levant, in two interviews with Lemire, asked about the Heritage Front and did not challenge this response:

Uh, the Heritage Front uh, was active back in, uh, the the 90s and I was a young kid at the time. I had some, uh, interest in some of the things that they were doing in particularly thing like uh opposition to employment equity, things like reducing immigration. So I uh, listened to some of what they were about, and uh, I went away from it. I mean I was involved with them peripherally in my teenage years.

Well, that is partially true, as these articles indicate he was active with the Heritage Front in his teen years (he would have been 18 at the time of the 1993 photo and 19 when they were published):

Free Dominion and the Sound of Silence

On October 2, Richard Warman won his libel suit against Free Dominion, Mark and Connie Fournier, and two of the John Does known in the meat world as Roger Smith and Jason Bertucci, all of whom can be found in this photo taken with star witness Paul Fromm during the trial.

Today the judge awarded costs to Mr. Warman.

In total, including punitive and aggravated damages, the total bill now stands at $85,000.

That's a lot of scratch and might have something to do with what was found today at the Free Dominion website:

We suspect they didn't take the news all that well.

UPDATE: Well, this sort of confirms that the current state of Free Dominion is as a result of most recent court ruling.

Hmmm, didn't know about the injunction. And we thought the $85,000 included the punitive and aggravated costs.

Well, you learn something new every day!

"It's Not Us. It's You."

Back in March 2013 we noted that after attacking yet another fellow Free Dominion posted and precipitating yet another flame war, Edward Kennedy had been banned from Free Dominion. We had speculated that the ban may very well be temporary; our speculation was soon confirmed by Ms. Fournier:

 

Kennedy didn't return immediately and initially when he did he posted sporadically, however for the last few months he has been posting on Free Dominion at the same pace he had been before he was banned for a single day.

Edward Kennedy continues to be a member in good standing at Free Dominion.

So, Connie, how's that working out for you now?

• JB Stone - RIP
• Creatures of the Right
• Is 'Civil War' civil?...

But we digress.

There's no joy in Mudville today

Casey has struck out.

Congratulations Mr. Warman. From what we've observed over the years this was well deserved.

Of course we are referring to the defamation suit filed by Mr. Warman against Free Dominion and those remaining "John Does" who had not settled. The Fourniers had stated that they would use this case to expose Mr. Warman to the full scrutiny of the public. They were very happy that instead of a judge hearing the case it would be a jury of their peers. On another blog concerning the case our friend Harry Abrams made the following observation:

Lemire Appeal Dismissed

Marc Lemire.... well.... why don't we just let you, our dear readers, take a look for yourselves:

Here's an unsolicited tip. You request a stay? Might be helpful to include some evidence.

Sort of like we did regarding Lemire's affiliation with (and later leadership of) the Heritage Front.

"Marc Lemire: Summary of Information"

Just say'n....

UPDATE 1: Lemire seems upset:

Paulie Clears Up Tremaine Story

You know, this might come as a huge shock to our readers, but the fine folks at Free Dominion don't seem to like us very much.

We know! We can't believe it either!

Not long ago they took issue with a recent article posted on this blog, particularly the part where we gently suggested that it doesn't look very good for a website that promotes itself as a friend of Israel to be openly cheering for a man who has advocated for the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews. Let's be honest here, if the person making these statements against Israel and Jews were not named Terry and was instead named Ibrahim or Khalil, we all could surmise that Free Dominion's support for, "free speech" would be pretty much non-existent.

Free Dominion Cheer For the Nazi. Again

Last night we noticed that there was a new update concerning Terry Tremaine on CBC:

Terry Tremaine no longer facing charges over alleged online activity

CBC News

Posted: Oct 16, 2012 6:05 PM CST 

A Regina judge has stayed a charge against Terry Tremaine, who was accused of continuing to post hate speech online in defiance of an order from the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In 2007, the commission ordered Tremaine to stop posting anti-Jewish material on the internet.

Hate Speech Charges Stayed Against Tremaine

One of the justifications given by the Conservative government for the repeal of Se. 13 of the Human Rights Act was that it was, in effect, redundant. Hate speech law were already found in the criminal code, thus the criminal code should be used to fight hate speech.

We here and many elsewhere have discussed the flaws with this argument, most of which we need not repeat, but one of the reasons that we and others support Sec. 13 is because it is a much more efficient, and quite honestly fair, process (it's also a hell of a lot cheaper for all parties). The Crown is often hesitant to bring file charges for even the most egregious hate propaganda and when charges are filed, it seems to take forever as the defence engage in delaying tactics.

So guess what happened?

Hate charge stayed against Regina math instructor

The justification for staying the charges is based primarily on the length of time it has taken for the case to go to trial. The judge assigned the blame for this delay to the Crown, however if one looks at the motions filed by the defence, the Crown can hardly be assigned sole blame for the snail's pace this case has proceeded.

So far most of the usual suspects have yet to comment on this turn of events, however our friends at Free Dominion have noticed. Connie suggest that this is a loss for Richard Warman and seems to take some pleasure in this belief.

We have to say though that it is an odd reaction from someone who claims to be a, "friend of Israel" to be cheering for a man who has openly advocated for the extermination of Jews and who associated with people who are violent and willing to do their part in that effort (two of whom are currently in prison on murder charges). Then again, we've really never expected consistency from the good folks at Free Dominion.

But Connie's claim that this is a loss for Richard Warman also doesn't seem to pass the smell test for another reason. Warman did file a Sec. 13 complaint against Tremaine, which Warman won. Later, for violating the terms of the CHRT decision, Tremaine was found guilty of contempt of court for which he will face sentencing on October 9. The criminal case against Tremaine was filed by the Crown in Saskatchewan. The failure of the case has been (in our opinion unjustifiably) assigned to the Crown for delays that prevent a timely trial taking place. That ain't Warman's fault, Connie.

However, the success of the CHRT and the failure of the criminal process does highlight how useful a tool Sec. 13 was in the fight against hate speech.

July 2012 Bits and Bites

Last week we witnessed what might be termed a feeding frenzy as the msm wrote a few stories about a simple little picture posted first on Warren Kinsella's website (and thank you Warren for crediting us with tracking it down).

Mayor Ford did offer a credible explanation which we accept without reservation, though our criticism of Ford's people for not asking a few questions when Latvis showed up to have his photo taken still apply.

Latvis himself seems to have had a mixed reaction to his recent (as opposed to the early 1990s) notoriety moving from bemusement....

.... to anger....

.... to a form of acceptance....

Meanwhile, Connie on Free Dominion thinks she's cracked the case. You see, dear readers, this is ALL just part of the vast, left-wing conspiracy to discredit conservatives:

Answering Free Dominion: Part II

The way you deal with Nazis is to, “break their heads.”

The JDL fundraiser for Free Dominion took place about a week ago and was attended a who's who of the Canadian right-wing blogosphere as well as some of the more active members of Free Dominion. Prior to this, Connie responded to our last article:

Well, we really don't have to paint the JDL as violent, Connie, since your own membership seem to agree:

Now, our Free Dominion friend here couches the violence of the JDL in more respectable terms; they represent the "warrior race" that is befitting of the Jewish people. Our Free Dominion friend also goes on to claim that the reason why we or anyone else would be concerned about the JDL is because we are closet anti-Semites who want Jews to be powerless in the face of those who would harm them.

It's a ridiculous accusation (especially directed at us) but this is sort of Free Dominion's schtick.

It  might be instructive, however, to learn how the JDL earned the honor of being referred to as warriors since the Canadian branch of the JDL has engaged in the very activities that Free Dominion has accused (and condemned) us at ARC of engaging in.

But we begin at the beginning.