An Alberta court has refused to issue a GAG ORDER sought by the condo Board of Pepperwood Village in Edmonton Alberta.

The plaintiff Board sought to throttle the defendant owner's criticism ! !

It claimed the criticism was "improper" and constituted non-compliance in violation of both Alberta's Condominium Property Act RSA 2000 c C-11 and Pepperwood by-laws against illegality, injuriousness, nuisance or hazard. etc

It is widely believed that Alberta still has civil remedies against defamation, if any of the criticism actually rose to such level. . .

Owners: Condominium Plan No 7921815 (Pepperwood Village) v MacMillan, 2019 ABQB 642 issued Aug 14/19 http://canlii.ca/t/j1zjf

1 - In a disturbing aftermath to what had been arguably a shocking abuse of power, Alberta condo critic Shelly MacMillan recovered only $ 10 K of her $ 65 K legal costs to defend against a GAG ORDER sought by her condo corporation ! A cautionary tale about rocking the boat. Or about freedom of speech in Alberta ?

Owners: Condominium Plan No 7921815 (Pepperwood Village) v MacMillan, 2019 ABQB 791 issued Oct 10/19 http://canlii.ca/t/j2sj0 both sides with counsel

xcrpt : " . . .[6] In my view, it was obvious that the proceeding which the Owner’s ( sic ) commenced could not succeed in achieving the end the Owners sought to achieve by it.

In my view, the application was extremely ill advised.

Also, in my view, it should have been obvious to Ms. MacMillan’s counsel, very early on, that this was the case.

It seems to me that it should have been recognized that a simple summary dismissal application would end the proceeding.

That somehow the parties incurred legal fees of more than $100,000 to deal with this litigation is unconscionable.

. . . 8] In these circumstances, in my view, it is not appropriate to conclude that the legal costs Ms. MacMillan incurred were properly incurred in the defence of the Owner’s application against her.

[9] She is entitled to costs because she was successful. I exercise my discretion to fix the amount of those costs at $10,000. In my view, this is an appropriate level of cost recovery for her." - unquote .


2 - Feb 3 2020 CBC reports on Albertan Shelly MacMillan’s condo owners rights group. Calls for C.R.T. like B.C.’s Tribunal launched in 2016 : “Condo owners group swamped with requests for help to resolve disputes “ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/condo-disputes-1.5448430

One online response to this article :

”Having been a condo owner as well as a board member I would caution anyone looking to buy a condo to be very careful.

There are so many challenges but the 2 biggest are incompetent people serving on the board and management companies that are nothing more than thieves.

I never understood why some people that volunteer to be a board member actually think they are super important like they are dictators . . . Literally drunk on power” - unquote