Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Plaintiff claimed Charter and copyright infringement over interference with his website and domain names.

• Court held that the Statement of Claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

• Plaintiff’s reliance on subsection 3(1) of the Copyright Act was found to be legally misconceived.

• Defendants' motions to strike under Rule 221(1)(a) of the Federal Courts Rules were granted.

• Federal Court determined it had no jurisdiction over Charter damages in the absence of a valid statutory claim.

• Plaintiff was ordered to pay $500 in costs to each defendant, totaling $1,000.

Facts and outcome of the case

Background and employment history
Donn MacDougall, the plaintiff, was formerly employed by the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) in its Department of Justice from 2006 until his resignation in 2014. Following his departure, his government email remained active and was monitored without redirecting emails to him. This led to a privacy concern when a colleague discovered that emails she had sent were not received by MacDougall and were instead being intercepted.

Privacy concerns and publication of ‘infobreach.ca’
In response, MacDougall initiated privacy review and access to information (ATI) requests, learning that hundreds of emails were retained by the GNWT. Dissatisfied with the handling of his information, he created a website called infobreach.ca in 2018 to publicly share his narrative and critique the GNWT’s handling of privacy rights. He claimed copyright over his posted literary content and used domain names similar to official government URLs.

Government action and domain name conflict
The GNWT issued a cease-and-desist notice and subsequently filed a lawsuit in Alberta in 2019 to prevent MacDougall from publishing content they claimed included personal and confidential records. Though that lawsuit was later discontinued, GNWT and NTLA made multiple complaints to hosting providers (GoDaddy and later Dynadot) to disable MacDougall’s domains on grounds including phishing allegations and domain confusion. These led to account suspensions and domain name losses, which MacDougall tried to counter by re-registering the domains with other hosts.

Claims and legal relief sought
In October 2024, MacDougall sued GNWT and NTLA in Federal Court, seeking a declaration of copyright ownership in infobreach.ca, an injunction to prevent interference, Charter damages for breach of freedom of expression, and punitive damages. NTLA also filed a counterclaim under the Trademarks Act regarding his use of the contested domains.

Court’s ruling and analysis
The Court, presided over by Justice Whyte Nowak, struck the Statement of Claim in its entirety under Rule 221(1)(a) of the Federal Courts Rules. It concluded the pleadings failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action, offering no coherent legal or factual basis for the relief sought. The court emphasized that copyright infringement requires unauthorized copying or dealing with the work, which was not alleged here. Furthermore, the Charter claim was unsupported by a viable statutory cause of action, depriving the Court of jurisdiction.

The Court rejected MacDougall’s interpretation of his rights under the Copyright Act, clarifying that such rights do not guarantee a platform to publish nor do they prevent third parties from lodging domain complaints. It also ruled that the claim could not be salvaged by amendment and declined to grant leave to amend.

Costs and final outcome
Though the Defendants sought solicitor-client costs, the Court awarded a fixed sum of $500 to each defendant given the simplicity of the motion and lack of supporting submissions for elevated costs. No damages were awarded, and the Plaintiff’s action was dismissed in full, ending the case.