Remember the story of Sebastien Togneri, an aide to former Public Works minister Christian Paradis, who had demanded a bureaucrat "unrelease" information requested through an Access to Information request by a Canadian Press journalist?

Well, long story short, after the RCMP decided to drop the investigation into whether Mr. Togneri should be charged, three groups, ours, the BC FOIP Association and Newspapers Canada wrote a joint letter to the chair of the Commons committee asking them to review the Act.  The reason being, if an aide can so clearly interfere with an access request and it not be a violation of the Access to Information Act, the Act is thereby toothless.

Apparently Mr. Togneri didn't take to kindly to our three groups opting not just to drop this issue.

Unable to use his position to demand we "unrelease" the letter, he's opted to have his lawyers try to send us a message.

So, our three groups were served with notice under the Libel and Slander Act of Ontario.  This is the first step before a lawsuit is filed against us for defamation.  They now have three months to file suit.  It's unclear as to who is paying the lawyer bills.

To be completely honest, this issue is one of more than a dozen the CTF is currently working on in Ottawa and I was ok with putting it on the backburner to work on something else -- but not anymore.

Their claim is total B.S. and they likely know it.  Mr. Togneri should have done his homework first.  It wouldn't have taken much digging to realize the CTF isn't easily intimidated.  We will not back off just because you pay a lawyer to send us a strongly-worded letter.  In fact, sending us such a letter with such weak arguments, makes it clear to us you have no intention of actually filing suit and that you are just trying to intimidate us into silence.  Either that or you are trying to bog us down and make us incur lawyer costs that you are guessing we cannot afford.  

Either way, you guessed wrong.