Quebec : Former MNA Fatima Houda-Pepin loses defamation lawsuit

The court of Quebec ordered on Wednesday 31st of May, the former member of the National Assembly of Quebec to pay $ 24 000 to Paul Leduc the mayor of Brossard, a municipality in the Montérégie region of Quebec, La Presse Comedienne reports.

Most precisely, Judge Chantale Sirois pronounced his ruling, indicating that Fatima Houda-Pepin is guilty that she should pay a fine of $20 000 in moral damages and $4 000 in punitive damages.«Attacking honesty is the most serious thing for a politician because it destroys the reputation and trust», said the judge.

Houda-Pepin who represented the La Pinière electoral district (the city of Brossard) between 1994 and 2014, and was a member from the Quebec Liberal Party until 2014, wrote last year a letter on April the 7th which was published by the Rive-Sud Express newspaper in which she said Leduc was delivering a «turnkey election» for Barrette.

The same source points out that during the judgment, Sirois said that Houda-Pepin had committed a «significant defamatory error» in accusing Leduc of manipulating the election.