Canada professor sued over defamation

A defamation lawsuit against a professor in the Canadian city of Ottawa has caused controversy, Press TV reports.

The lawsuit was filed against Denis Rancourt, a former physics professor who was fired by the University of Ottawa, after he defended a student report that accused the university of racial discrimination.
Professor Rancourt told Press TV that he is being targeted simply for being critical of the institution.
“Universities in Canada are not benign service providers of education, they are political instruments,” Rancourt said on Friday, adding, “I’ve always been very critical of it and as a result I was fired in 2005, and later because of this issue which first arouse in 2008, the university found a pretext to sue me and fund a large defamation delegation against me.”
Canada’s Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA) has demanded the University of Ottawa stop financing the lawsuit against Rancourt.
Rancourt said that according to the OCLA, the university had spent over a million dollars to sue him before the trial started.
“Now in the middle of trial, what I find is that the legal establishment is also as far as I can tell very political and politicized and at least I don’t feel that I am getting a fair shake,” he said.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Michel Charbonneau disallowed one of Rancourt’s three legal defenses as he was presenting them to the jury during his trial that started last week. Rancourt walked out on the second day, saying he did not want to legitimize the process after Charbonneau’s disallowance of his “abuse-of-process” defense.