Whistleblower Norman Bourdeau has filed an appeal of his conviction on a contempt of court charge filed by egg-business company L.H. Gray and Son Ltd. of Strathroy and Listowel.
The appeal motion is scathing in its criticisms of Justice Peter Lauwers who released his decision July 28 in Oshawa. The appeal has been filed in Toronto.
Bourdeau notes that Lauwers was a senior partner of the law firm that represented Gray before he was appointed judge, claims he demonstrated bias in favour of Gray’s lawyers and against Bourdeau during the open-court hearing June 10 and cites a long list of evidence Lauwers ignored, although he said in court on June 10 that he had read the files.
Bourdeau was found in contempt for retaining copies of the electronic files he took from Gray and sharing the information with others, but Bourdeau says that was well known for many months before Gray’s lawyers said in court that they did not become aware of it until this January.
Bourdeau says that the court files show that Gray’s lawyers knew that Svante Lind of Best Choice Eggs had obtained hard copies and two computer discs of the information Bourdeau took when they were served with legal documents in April 2010.
Also, the court file that Lauwers said he read contains documents for an examination of Bourdeau in May during which Gray's lawyers confronted Bourdeau with the documents.
When Gray filed an injunction in London to prevent Bourdeau from sharing information from the files, the court decision allowed him to share information with the Strathroy detachment of the Ontario provincial police and with federal authorities, and Lauwers should have read that in the files.
The appeal claims Lauwers was wrong in finding Bourdeau “deceitful” because he has, in fact, provided full disclosure that he had retained copies.
Lauwers failed to notice that Bourdeau’s rights, under Canada’s Charter of Rights were violated when Gray’s lawyers did not warn him, as criminal law requires, that he has the right not to testify.
The appeal also says Lauwers completely ignored Gray’s reputation, including pictures to back allegations that he sold cracks and dirty eggs as Grade A.
The appeal says Lauwers also failed to consider Gray’s conflict of interest in filing four contempt-of-court charges against Bourdeau. Gray is fighting a lawsuit filed by Lind which involves the information Bourdeau took from Gray and a lawsuit Bourdeau has filed for wrongful dismissal.
