Doug Christie (lawyer) - Career

Career

Christie was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and graduated from the law school of the University of British Columbia in 1970. He is the founder and general counsel of the Canadian Free Speech League and is best known for defending individuals accused of Nazi war crimes or racist, anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi activity. He is also the founder and leader of the Western Canada Concept, a separatist party which ran in British Columbia and federally, and The Western Block Party, a right-wing federal political party advocating the separation of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba from Canadian Confederation.

He first came to national attention as a lawyer in 1983 when he became James Keegstra's attorney after the schoolteacher was fired from his job and criminally charged with willfully promoting hatred by teaching his students that there was a Jewish conspiracy, along with spreading other antisemitic ideas. His defence of Keegstra brought him to the attention of Ernst Zündel who retained Christie in September 1984 to defend him against criminal charges related to Holocaust denial with co-counsel Barbara Kulaszka. Christie would act as Zündel's attorney in several cases over the subsequent two decades up to his deportation from Canada in 2005. Christie's advocacy on behalf of Keegstra and Zündel has led to him acting as legal counsel in a number of notable cases involving far-right figures including:

• Ernst Zündel
• Terry Long, former leader of the Aryan Nations in Canada;
• Malcolm Ross of New Brunswick who, like Keegstra, was a teacher fired for anti-Semitic activity;
• three alleged leaders of the Ku Klux Klan in Manitoba;
• Rudy Stanko of the World Church of the Creator;
• Tony McAleer after he was charged with broadcasting hate speech over the phone and online;
• John Ross Taylor of the Western Guard Party and Aryan Nations;
• Imre Finta who was alleged to be a Nazi war criminal and collaborator (see R. v. Finta);
• Doug Collins, a late newspaper columnist brought before the British Columbia Human Rights Commission for antisemitic and racist comments;
• Paul Fromm, head of the far-right "Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform" and "Canadians for Freedom of Expression", and participant in neo-Nazi and racist gatherings, who was fired from his job as a teacher for his political activity;
• Lady Jane Birdwood, a British follower of Oswald Mosley and distributor of hate propaganda;
• Wolfgang Droege of the Heritage Front;
• David Ahenakew, who acknowledged making antisemitic comments in a 2002 interview with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix
• Jack Klundert, a Windsor optometrist who does not believe the Constitution of Canada grants the Federal Government the power to collect income tax

Christie posted material on the former website operated by Bernard Klatt, on what had been called "Canada's most notorious source of hate propaganda."

In addition to his extensive work on freedom of expression cases, Christie has participated in wide range of causes touching on issues of individual liberties more generally. He has represented numerous individuals in civil actions against the police, in an effort to ensure police accountability.

"There is a growing gulf between the police and public trust, which can only be fixed and crossed with any hope of restoration of faith when the police are judged for their conduct by the public themselves and not by their constant co-workers in the system itself," Christie wrote in a letter to the Times Colonist. "The essential ingredient of a society where citizens and police are in agreement on the enforcement of the law is simply that the law applies to police and citizens in equal measure. The police cannot be above the law. With the present system of accountability, that impression is well-founded."

Christie has also acted in child apprehension cases most notably that of Paul and Zabeth Bayne, a Hope, BC couple whose children were seized by the Ministry of Children and Family Development for four years, then eventually returned.

From 2007 to 2010, Christie represented Bruce and Donna Montague in a constitutional challenge of Canada's gun registry and other firearms laws. The constitutional challenge was ultimately dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, but Christie continues to represent the Montagues in their efforts to resist civil and criminal forfeiture applications by the Crown.

In January 2012, Christie became the first lawyer to successfully challenge an application under British Columbia's Civil Forfeiture Act, when the BC Supreme Court found that the retroactive forfeiture of a truck subsequent to a criminal prosecution was "clearly not in the interests of justice."