Here’s a copy of my complaint to the National NewsMedia Council about Canadaland and Jesse Brown. Some of it doesn’t make sense without the transcript of the April 13 show, but the podcast doesn’t make a lot of sense, either.

I’ll be in Toronto for the Kielburger vs. Jesse Brown, Jaren Kerr, Canadaland et al libel trial scheduled to start Monday. I’ll be writing substack posts through the trial. Brown has made a career of torching the reputations of people who don’t deserve it. He is finally being held to account.

Mr. John Hinds,

Chair,

National NewsMedia Council

37 Front St East, Suite 200 Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M5E 1B3

April 20, 2026

Dear Mr. Hinds,

Re: Canadaland podcast of April 13, 2026

I am writing to file a complaint on behalf of myself about the Canadaland podcast of April 13, 2026. I am attaching a transcript of this podcast. The original podcast is, at the time of writing, still on the canadaland.com web site. It may also be available on Spotify and other streaming services.

This podcast has caused my considerable distress. First, Jesse Brown, the editor/publisher/reporter of this podcast, sent me an email March 19, 2026, giving me a short deadline to comment about the content of a link that was included in the email. The link led to a Canadaland web page with nothing but a high school yearbook picture of me. It was later determined that the page had Internet Protocol tracking software.

I am a lawyer. My client files are on my computer. I have yet to determine what this software does and whether it compromises files that are protected by solicitor-client privilege. I am having the system analysed by an expert and, at my own cost, having any spyware removed.

When I replied to the email, asking what was going on (but unaware of the spyware), Mr. Brown asked me if I posted under pseudonyms on Reddit. I clearly informed Mr. Brown that I have never had a Reddit account, didn’t read Reddit, and had nothing to do with criticism of him or his podcast on Reddit. I offered to swear an affidavit to that affect. I told him there are serious professional consequences for lawyers who swear false affidavits. Mr. Brown said my “denials” would be noted in the article he was producing. He clearly planned to do the piece whether it was true or not.

After the podcast was posted, I swore an affidavit regarding my non-use of Reddit, which is attached. The affidavit contains an article published by Press Progress which shows how Mr. Brown “phished” me and at least four other people with tracking software.

My criticisms of the podcast are listed below. Each numbered complaint corresponds to a numbered section in the podcast transcript, highlighted in bold.

Specifically:

1.    While someone at WE Charity supposedly told a journalist to contact me for a comment in 2019 or 2020, this was in error, and I never spoke on their behalf, nor was I authorized to. I never offered to speak on their behalf. I informed Mr. Brown of this before the podcast ran. This claim is false and Mr. Brown knew, or should have known, it was false.

2.    Mike Duffy is a friend of mine. I met him some thirty years ago when our desks in the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s “Hot Room” were side-by-side. Mr. Duffy was always helpful, sharing contacts and advice. For a long time, he had to deal with libelous material on Wikipedia and YouTube. I tried to help him with this. Although I did not ask for compensation, he did pay me a token amount of money. There was no conflict of interest. I covered legal issues, not the Senate. I never wrote about him except to mention his charges in my book Kill the Messengers. He continued to be my friend for years and is still a friend. Akin did not report from the trial, he focused on a piece of evidence released before the trial by the Crown Attorney. My complaint with Akin and Canadaland is that Akin did not seek my side of the story before filing to Canadaland. Mr. Brown editorialized on Akin’s story without doing any research of his own.

3.    This claim is false. I never posted anything false to Wikipedia and I certainly did not have 55 Wikipedia “sock puppet” accounts. It appears Mr. Brown is relying on Wikipedia’s flawed “checkuser” system, run by anonymous users. Wikipedia refuses to say what is involved in its checkuser system, but I am not the only person who has been wrongly accused. Wikipedia also, supposedly, has a policy against “doxxing” its users. If Wikipedia believes it has investigated me, by name, several or many times, this is news to me and Wikipedia is in error about the identity of whoever they were investigating.

4.    I told Brown I never put anything false on Wikipedia. I did not deny posting on Wikipedia. This is a misquote.

5.      The claims in this section are simply absurd, unscientific, false and unethical. Brown illegally “phished” me out of my IP number, posted my yearbook picture, and failed to find a connection with Reddit accounts that criticize Brown. He then used my writing and an artificial intelligence software to claim I wrote the Reddit posts or that I am somehow to blame because someone used my writing to train AI to write Reddit posts. This is not only unethical, it is a grotesque violation of my privacy. It warrants serious censure,

Mr. Brown has tried to spin several gossamer threads together to go after me for my criticism of Canadaland’s coverage of WE Charity, which has resulted in a lawsuit that is scheduled for trial next week. The defendants have already lost an anti-SLAPP motion. The judge who heard that motion delivered a scathing critique of Mr. Brown’s treatment of Theresa Kielburger, the plaintiff in that case.

Mr. Brown has shown no regard for my privacy and my reputation. There is no public interest in the material reported in the podcast.

I respectfully ask the News Media Council to hear this complaint and make an appropriate finding.

I am attaching the podcast transcript below and sending the affidavit and supporting materials in a separate file.

Yours truly,

Mark Bourrie PhD JD

Barrister and Solicitor

Ottawa