Bourrie: “I said get a lawyer.” I said several time to get a lawyer … because big companies won’t listen to you until then.
Bourrie: I called up Wikipedia admin and said you can’t post that stuff about him… YouTube was particularly bad because you can’t communicate with these people (who post the details).
Wikipedia, YouTube – mostly “they’re accusing him of being drunk.” And blogs, but they seemed to have died off in recent years.
Bourrie said he told Duffy on getting questionable content off: “If you want a takedown notice, you don’t get a journalism professor in Montreal to do it, you get a lawyer to do it.”
Neubauer: When you were looking at this for him, did you ask him to pay you?
Bourrie: “No. … I’m positive I didn’t ask him to pay me.”
Neubauer: And did you expect to be paid?
Bourrie: “No, I never really thought about it. Maybe buy you a bottle of scotch or something one day.” JN: “Is that what you said to him?” Bourrie: “No.”
Bourrie said he asked his wife if she could help out because she wasn't insured. Says his wife didn't talk about defamation law.
“Senator Duffy was at the time talking about legal action.”
Bourrie recall wife saying: “I can’t talk to him about it. I can’t talk to you about it.”
Bourrie: “I think Senator Duffy had an idea that Miriam my wife was helping, and she wasn't. And it’s something I made clear on.”
Bourrie: “I felt that Senator Duffy felt that my wife was helping on the internet trolling problem. I wanted to set him straight on that” – that his wife wasn’t.
Bourrie: We received a cheque in May or early June of 2010. I don’t know how it was made out – I think I was made out to Miriam. “I told him no. do not send a wife to my cheque, she’s not doing this work. it was all me.” Shortly after I got a cheque addressed to me.
Bourrie agreed with Neubauer that he told Duffy repeatedly that his wife wasn’t involved, but Duffy still thought she was. Bourrie: “It came up over and over again”… “He might not be the best listener in the world.”
Donohue’s company Maple Ridge Media sent a $500 cheque.
“I was surprised. I don’t know why. I keep my finances pretty quiet. I don’t go around bragging or wining about money. … I was working on month and months on my book, and my mom wasn’t working at the time. It was a surprise.”
How did you make connection between Duffy and Maple Ridge Media?
Bourrie: Because Duffy said did you get the cheque?
Bourrie said he never heard of Donohue, or spoke with anyone from Maple Ridge Media prior to receiving that cheque.
Neubauer: What did you say to Duffy (about the first cheque made out to Bourrie’s wife)?
Bourrie: Something to the effect of this is not my wife’s work
Bourrie says he either sent that cheque back to Duffy or destroyed it.
Neubauer: Why didn’t you cash it? Bourrie: Miriam didn’t do the work. Second, it appeared she was accepting money for legal work, which isn’t acceptable for the legal society.
