Honey Badger Brigade is focused on pursuing those avenues of legal redress that will bring about both the swiftest and greatest likelihood of success. We believe that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should include protections against Canadians being discriminated for expressing their beliefs, however at this time we are not pursing challenging this exclusion in the charter. We support the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in its fight to protect freedom of expression of Canadians everywhere and will inquire with our contributors if they would like any non-compensatory damages we’re awarded to go to the CCLA.

Why are we taking legal action?

The Calgary Comics Expo expelled Alison Tieman and the Honey Badger Brigade from its April 16th Expo, defaming her and the Brigade with false accusations of disruptive conduct to rationalize its decision to censor the group’s views. We want to use this case to establish a legal precedent that would benefit others with dissident views who want to participate in similar activities.

The central focus of our litigation will be to defend freedom of expression of views that do not necessarily accord with majority opinion in the gaming and comics world. This case will be pursued publicly. Our goal is not only to break the ban and set the record straight as to what happened on April 17th but also to prevent Expo and other similar organizations from suppressing public access to views that they don’t necessarily agree with.

The lawsuit will be pursued in the name of Honey Badger Brigade and its founder, Alison Tieman. The claim will include judicial relief for breach of contract, injurious falsehood and a court decision that will denounce the exclusion and expulsion of the Plaintiffs on grounds of discrimination. In addition the claim will be pursued against writers and media outlets that reprinted the unfounded accusations against the Honey Badger Brigade. The Plaintiffs will pursue compensatory and punitive damages but the emphasis will be to obtain a judicial pronouncement that will clear Alison Tieman and the Honey Badger Brigade’s name completely and restore their right to participate in future Expos.

The Honey Badger Brigade commits itself to use any non-compensatory court award to promote and defend the rights of other dissidents in the gaming and comics world that may be victimized for expressing and promoting unpopular views.

I’ve attached documentation of the funds we’ve received, their transfer to a separate banking account and the current balance.

This balance is in CND. It reflects the amount we received minus 5% transaction fees, multiplied by the exchange rate from USD to CND at the time we received the funds.

It’s also minus a 3500$ retainer paid to our legal council.

Fundraised amount: $30,589.21 USD (250$ refunded after deadline.)

5% transaction fees: -$1529.46 USD

Conversion to CND(~x1.17): 34032.00

5/20/15 $2,000.00

5/21/15 $1,500.00

8/20/15 $1,500.00

8/22/15 $1,250.00

01/08/16 $2,750.00

05/11/16 $715.63

08/02/16 $3,000.00

08/05/16 $1,214.75

12/02/16 $2,320.33

12/26/16 $3000.00

12/27/16 $3000.00

12/28/16 $3000.00

Total: 25250.71

Total Remaining : 8781.29 CND

As we get additional invoices and statements, we’ll append them to this post.

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