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Sasquatch believer’s lawsuit thrown out by B.C. judge

Todd Standing alleged the B.C. government discriminated against his Charter rights
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Todd Standing wearing his “custom gillie suit.” (Todd Standing/Facebook)

A man who sued the B.C. government in an attempt to prove the sasquatch is real has had his claim dismissed.

Todd Standing had claimed his Charter rights were being infringed on because he was “unable to fully impart information and ideas as to specific locations where sasquatch sightings occur on the basis that there are no safeguards in place to protect the species from being killed.”

However, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Ball said in a ruling posted online Tuesday that belief in the sasquatch was not an immutable right in the way that freedom of religion is or freedom from political persecution.

“Where religion can be an element core to a person’s state of being in all aspects of life, the same cannot be said of a belief in the existence of the sasquatch,” Ball wrote.

“It is clear that the plaintiff is not being subjected by the state to any form of ‘punishment.’”

Standing, Ball said, has not been stopped from disseminating his view that the sasquatch is real.

Standing’s claim “discloses no reasonable cause of action,” the judge added, as the court cannot order the province to set aside resources for a scientific investigation into the existence of the sasquatch.

The court ordered Standing to pay the province’s legal costs.


@katslepian

katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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