Hunter not guilty of violating judge’s order files defamation lawsuit

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A hunter found not guilty of violating a judge’s order has named provincial ministries and officials in a defamation lawsuit.

Richard Dawson Smith has filed the civil claim against the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, the BC Conservation Officer Service (BCCOS) and four officers on December 2nd in Prince George Supreme Court.

Smith alleges Facebook posts by BCCOS were intended to unlawfully mislead the public and damage his reputation and that of his company, BND Productions, in the eyes of fellow hunters.

None of the allegations have been tested in court and the defendants have not filed a reply.

The saga started when Smith pleaded guilty on December 13th, 2022 in provincial court to hunting on cultivated land in November 2020 in the Peace region. 

Judge Oliver Fleck fined him $1,200 and ordered him to retake the provincially required Conservation Outdoor Recreation Education (CORE) safety and ethics course.

According to the order Smith and the Crown negotiated, the requirement to retake the course was tied to Smith’s ability to hunt only after March 31st, 2023.

Smith retook CORE in April of that year, due to course availability.

However, in May 2024, Smith was charged with violating the court order when he hunted and shot a lynx on December 28th, 2022.

In her oral judgment on January 10th, Judge Cassandra Malfair found Smith not guilty.

She said although Fleck signed the order allowing Smith to keep hunting, when issuing the sentence orally, he “left out the qualification that the requirement to take the CORE hunting course before March 31st was tied to his ability to hunt after March 31st.”

Malfair said: “In fact, it is my belief that Judge Fleck simply misspoke when he orally articulated the CORE course order and did not intend to change the sentence proposed by the Crown.”

If Fleck had intended for Smith to cease hunting until retaking CORE, he would not have included the specific date, she said.

Malfair said when conservation officers learned about Fleck’s written order, they sought to have it amended.

A new form of the order was drafted and submitted to Fleck in September 2023 without notice to Smith.

“I find it reasonable that a person in Mr. Smith’s position would believe the order he was bound by was the one reflected in the written document signed by the judge, which was the subject of the joint submission in which he’d been provided,” Malfair said. “Mr. Smith had never been put on notice that there was a discrepancy between what the judge had said and what was recorded in the written form of order.”

Smith’s new defamation lawsuit accuses BCCOS of posting “erroneous sentencing information” on Facebook on December 22nd, 2022, that said Smith and another hunter “are required to retake the CORE course before they are able to hunt again.”

He claims he was harassed by members of the public, called a poacher by fellow hunters, asked to leave private hunting-focused Facebook groups and asked to remove his book from a retailer’s shelves.

Smith filed a formal complaint with BCCOS in February 2023, asking BCCOS to correct or delete the post. But Smith alleges deputy chief Chris Doyle dismissed his complaint the next month.

“BCCOS illegally changed wording on a court order to match a narrative and then took that to trial,” Smith’s December 2nd lawsuit alleged. 

“The conduct by the defendant(s) falls outside the statutory provisions authorizing, falls outside the code of conduct or alternatively was in excess of activities and was intended to harm and victimize Smith.”

Smith wants a judge to order BCCOS to remove or correct the Facebook post and pay damages of more than $800,000.