"I didn't know that was a thing": Calgary Herald pulls Guy Felicella's op-ed after defamation notice
On October 1, Guy Felicella published an op-ed in the Calgary Herald responding to a piece written by Marshall Smith that favoured expansion of police power to address public drug use. On October 6, a defamation notice from Smith to Felicella prompted the Herald to quietly remove the story.
The Calgary Herald quietly unpublished an opinion piece written by Vancouver-based harm reduction and recovery advocate Guy Felicella after Felicella received a cease-and-desist defamation letter from a lawyer representing Marshall Smith, the former chief of staff to the premier of Alberta and architect of Alberta's abstinence-focused drug policy framework.
Felicella's piece was responding to an op-ed written by Smith and published by the Calgary Herald on September 23. Smith's article made calls to action to "enforce the law against open drug use in public, ensure police and peace officers have the tools to intervene, and massively expand treatment and recovery options, which the province is doing" and asked city mayors to "put policies in place to ban open-air drug use, set strong boundaries and restore our cities to civility."
The letter indicates Smith's belief that Felicella's op-ed was motivated by "animus and malice" toward Smith and was based on "inaccurate and incomplete facts." According to Smith's lawyer, this precludes the basis of Fair Comment under the Libel and Slander Act.
Smith's defamation notice alleges that Felicella employed framing in his op-ed that "asserts or implies" that Smith "seeks to politicize" substance use by offering "simplistic solutions" that "punch down on the most vulnerable" through criminalization and punitive measures. It demands that Felicella remove the article and associated social media posts, as well as syndication from all digital platforms (the article remains at msn.com). Additional demands include a public letter of apology issued within seven days and published by the Herald, as well as written confirmation that no further 'defamatory' statements will be made by Felicella concerning Smith.
There is currently no indication that these letters are forthcoming.
Felicella expressed disappointment about the situation to Drug Data Decoded on October 23, saying "maybe I'm naive, but I thought newspaper opinion pages were the original 'free marketplace of ideas' in a democracy.
"I don't write many opinion pieces, but I've never had one pulled. I didn't know that was a thing."
Felicella also indicated that the Herald's Opinion Page Editor had advanced his piece for publication, and he told Alberta-based commentary outlet The Breakdown that the Herald gave no indication that it was planning to remove his piece after he received the defamation notice. The Breakdown reported that an anonymous source at the newspaper said "the decision to remove the article was a surprise to local staff and counter to the direction and decision of the local editorial control."
It is not known who gave the order at the Herald to pull Felicella's op-ed, or whether the Herald was served with a similar defamation notice.
On October 22, The Breakdown published an explainer video, linked below, providing the timeline of events and the circumstances surrounding the letter and the Herald's unusual move to silence Felicella's opinion. The Breakdown reported that "multiple journalists and lawyers have unanimously stated that the column by Mr Felicella wrote did not come anywhere close to reaching the standard for defamation or removal from publication."
The Breakdown is currently managing a $6 million defamation lawsuit filed by Sam Mraiche, the owner of a company that has done over $600 million of business with Alberta Health Services, for its reporting on the so-called CorruptCare scandal. Mount Royal University political science professor Lori Williams suggested this resembled a SLAPP suit, which stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation.
In March, The Breakdown successfully fought an injunction that had previously forced it to shut down its website.
Marshall Smith was named in court filings related to the 'CorruptCare' allegations that launched formal investigations by the Auditor General and RCMP. In response, Smith launched a defamation suit against the former Alberta Health Services (AHS) CEO, Athena Mentzelopolous, who made the allegations in her wrongful dismissal suit against AHS, launched in December 2024. The Globe and Mail, one of its reporters, and a fourth unnamed person suspected to be a former board member at AHS were additional subjects of the suit, which seeks $12 million in damages.
However, details continue to surface that may support some of Mentzelopoulous' allegations. The Globe and Mail reported last May that Smith rented a $1.6-million house from Mraiche's sister between August 2023 and mid-2024. Two government staffers, Eric Engler and Ethan Lecavalier-Kidney, revealed they lived at the house as well, with Lecavalier-Kidney detailing that he paid a sublease of $1,118/month plus utilities to live there from August, 2023 to April, 2024.
In September, the Globe revealed that two people were registered as directors of a company linked to Mraiche while also working as senior procurement officials at Alberta Health Services, raising questions of conflicts of interest.
No allegations from these reports or court filings have been tested in court.
Felicella's article is reprinted in full at The Breakdown. The Breakdown's analysis of the situation is also provided below for additional context.
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Drug Data Decoded provides analysis using news sources, publicly available data sets and freedom of information submissions, from which the author draws reasonable opinions. The author is not a journalist.
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