Conestoga College and its president John Tibbits are being sued for $200,000 after he allegedly referred to another college president as a “whore” in a public forum.
The lawsuit, launched by Sault College and its president David Orazietti, was filed two weeks ago in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
It asks for the financial damages as well as “an order requiring the defendants to publicly retract and apologize for having defamed the plaintiffs,” says the statement of claim.
“Unfortunately, we have had to take this necessary step as a last resort, given the seriousness of the public comments made by Mr. Tibbits, to further protect the integrity of Sault College,” the school said in a statement.
“We have been more than reasonable in our request for a direct apology for his personal attacks and misinformation about our college and our operations.”
A spokesperson for Conestoga said the college is aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment because the matter is before the courts.
None of the allegations contained in the statement of claim has been tested in court.
“Our focus remains on providing high-quality education and fostering a positive learning environment for our students, staff and faculty,” the Conestoga spokesperson said in an email.
Sault College’s statement of claim says Orazietti — a former Ontario cabinet minister — was interviewed for a podcast, during which he outlined the federal government’s concerns regarding international students and spoke about its clampdown on those same students. It says he used the example of Conestoga taking in 20,000 students in one year “and the resulting community concerns and increased demand for housing and other services in the community caused by such an increase in student population.”
A few days later, the statement of claim says Tibbits was responding to questions at a college forum when he said Orazietti was only recently hired and “needed to learn to ‘shut his mouth.’” It says Tibbits also questioned Sault College’s partnership with a private college, and quotes him as saying, “Like Orazietti, why are his goddamn students in Toronto? Why not up there? Talk about a whore, I mean he’s taking a percentage of the profits of an operation.”
Those comments “were meant to convey a message that Sault College and Mr. Orazietti are deceptive, fraudulent and unreliable in their professional activities,” the statement of claim says, adding that a news release from Conestoga that “expressed regret … and apologized for the offensive remarks” was insufficient.
In addition to a retraction and an apology, Sault College and Orazietti are seeking a possible “permanent injunction restraining the defendants from publishing, in any form or any media whatsoever, any further statements about the plaintiffs, directly or indirectly, which are false, misleading or defamatory.”
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