It’s been a trying two weeks for former justice minister Jonathan Denis, who had to fight a legal battle against his former wife, Breanna Palmer, over an emergency protection order while trying to win his re-election.

While Denis lost his Calgary-Acadia seat Tuesday to a wave of New Democratic support in the province, a day earlier he successfully had a Court of Queen’s Bench judge revoke Palmer’s protection order, ruling she was not in any danger.

On Thursday Denis discussed his ordeal in an exclusive interview with theSun’s Kevin Martin.

Q: While you were testifying, one of the things you mentioned was this (court action) was an intentional attempt to sabotage you personally?

Denis: It was an attempt to malign me, I’m not sure for what purpose, but it was an attempt to malign me. I often felt that the timing was suspect ... this was done while I was campaigning.

Obviously the results weren’t what you were hoping for on Tuesday, do you think this whole thing had anything to do with it?

First of all, we had one of the closer ridings, I only lost by 6% ... initially I didn’t think it would have had an impact, but as I’ve had time to examine this, we were doing internal polls and we were leading up to the second week.

Can you say that you think you would’ve won if not for this legal action?

I can’t make that particular conclusion but when you have a riding where you lose by 6% it’s so close it may have been a factor and our polling seemed to indicate that (after news reports) we were leading by a small margin and the polls started to drop off at that point.

I assume you read the Reddit article, an opinion-based account of the court proceedings, which clearly broke the publication ban?

Yes, I did, it was a patently untrue article.

That article alone (which was removed from the Internet within hours), do you think that people who read that might have changed their opinion of Jonathan Denis?

There may have been some, but the largest thing was from the major media, of course the new media like Facebook and Twitter, which I’m on quite regularly, it does reach a certain audience, but the mainstream media such as print and TV I’m still of the opinion has a wider audience.

The rumour mill that spreads from an article like that, are you not concerned that caused extreme damage to you?

I think the largest damage was the violation of the publication ban, that I did not request, the reality is that people are always going to talk.

The EPO was granted on the 24th, the 25th (Jim) Prentice asked for your resignation as justice minister ... did you get a different reception at the door during that week?

There were some people at the door bringing it up, of course

What were you telling people when they raised it at the door?

I would say that unfortunately this is a private matter, I’m not able to talk about it because of the publication ban, but my wife has left me during the election with no notice and I would ask for your sympathy during that time.



Was it frustrating that you couldn’t really talk about it?

I would have liked to say exactly what was going on, but I wanted to respect the order of the court ... Last Tuesday (April 28) she came with her lawyers into my office demanding a million dollars for this matter to go away.

Was that during 'without prejudice' talks?

'Without prejudice' means you cannot bring it up to the court, but I can bring it up to you, you’re the first person I’m telling this to, they demanded one million dollars from me.

And what was your response?

I was shocked. To this day I maintain that I have done nothing wrong and at that point I knew I had to go to court to clear my name. And the minute before we went to court (last) Friday their offer was zero, they offered to settle it for zero and I came back and I said to them ‘I’ll take that, but I want a public apology’ I wanted to clear my name ... I did not accept it and I wanted either an apology, or for the judge to clear my name.

You talk about domestic violence and how you’ve done work for the YWCA ... are you concerned that this has tainted your image that maybe some people think that Jonathan Denis is a bit of a hot head and maybe he did bully his wife.

Every couple has arguments and we did have arguments just like any other couple, at the same time, what I would say to that is the judge revoked the emergency protection order, he found no evidence of violence and frankly I feel vindicated by his decision.



Do you think there are people out there who don’t get that?

I would just ask them to read the judgment, because the judgment clearly vindicates me and indicates there was no basis for an emergency protection order ... there was no evidence of any domestic violence ... That is not my demeanour, I do not want the false allegations that have been levied against me to in any way deter or dissuade someone who has suffered domestic violence from coming to get help, it’s unacceptable in any circumstance.





Do you see yourself down the road returning to politics?

I would never rule that out, I have always aspired to public service.

There’s a party that you’re a member of that is leaderless right now ... would you consider running for leader of the PCs?

I wouldn’t rule it out, but at the same time it’s really not something that’s on my radar right now.

Palmer declined to answer questions on the allegation of a settlement offer when contacted by phone, instead requesting any inquiries be sent by email.

She did not reply to an email asking to comment on Denis’ claim.

kevin.martin@sunmedia.ca

On Twitter: @SUNKevinMartin​

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