A truck operators union local is suing Langley-Abbotsford Conservative MLA Harman Bhangu for defamation after a speech in the B.C. Legislature that accused the union of nepotism and corruption.
Teamsters Union Local 213 filed the lawsuit on May 26, accusing Bhangu of defamation on social media for both re-posting his speech and for the comments that introduced it on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
Bhangu has not filed a response to the Teamsters' claims with the courts, but he called the lawsuit an attempt to silence and intimidate him.
None of the allegations in the Teamsters' claim have been proven in court.
The case centres on the way owner-operator truckers are dispatched for jobs on road construction sites through the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).
According to the Teamsters' statement of claim, contractors working on major provincial infrastructure projects use their own employees first, and then if they need more trucks, they send a dispatch request to the union. The union has a list of member owner-operators who are signed up to work on CBA projects, and one of them will be selected. If the list of union-affiliated truckers is exhausted, the Teamsters will call a broker to fill the job.
Bhangu's May 8 speech in the Legislature noted that he himself is a trucker in that industry.
"I am a part of the Teamsters 213, and I can never, ever recall them ever giving me a whiff of even going to a job like this," Bhangu said.
He claimed that there was nepotism in the industry, naming a specific union official and alleging that his family members received positions as brokers in the CBA system.
He dubbed the system "blatant corruption and systemic nepotism."
The lawsuit notes that Bhangu can't be sued directly for his comments on the floor of the Legislature, because B.C. politicians are protected from defamation suits by parliamentary privilege.
But the suit then notes that Bhangu posted short sections of his question to his social media accounts, including introductions to the videos that substantially repeated his claims and named the Teamsters local again.
The lawsuit says the accusations are "false, malicious, and defamatory" and called for damages, including punitive damages. It called Bhangu a "chronic user of social media" and said he should have known that his comments would be widely shared.
It also requests an injunction against Bhangu posting or publishing the same allegations or "any similar libel."
"This is just an attempt to silence me and intimidate me, and I've sought legal counsel, and on that, that will be all I'm saying today, and I'm very confident nothing will come of this," Bhangu told Black Press Media Thursday.
The posts identified by the Teamsters local do not appear to be visible any longer on Bhangu's social media feeds, and Bhangu said he could not comment on that.
The lawyer for the Teamsters local is Andrew Mercier, a longtime labour lawyer who also served as NDP MLA for Langley-Willowbrook from 2020 to 2024. Bhangu said he would not comment on that at this time, but might do so later.
