PPC employee guilty of defamation for 2019 social media post

A Winnipeg activist has won his legal battle against a People’s Party of Canada employee, after a judge found she had defamed him in posts on social media that labelled him a “terrorist.”

Omar Kinnarath sued the party and several others in October 2020, seeking more than $1 million in damages. Court of King’s Bench Judge Sheldon W. Lanchbery awarded Kinnarath $10,000 in a judgment issued March 11.

The lawsuit stemmed from posts published by Monique Choiselat, the former CEO of the PPC’s Winnipeg Centre riding association, in 2019.

At the time, the party was in the midst of a federal election campaign and had scheduled a meet-and-greet event at a Winnipeg art gallery.

The judgment says Kinnarath admitted to being the “catalyst” for the event being cancelled after he and his associates contacted the gallery owner to voice concerns about the party’s platform.

“The evidence discloses Mr. Kinnarath disagreed with the political platform of the PPC, including its stand on LGBTQ2S+ rights and opposition to what he described as its anti-immigrant stance,” Lanchbery said.

Choiselat later made online posts that included a photograph of Kinnarath, a definition of “terrorist” and his personal contact information. The posts implied Kinnarath caused a fire that destroyed a building near the art gallery and called him “an arsonist as well as a vile person,” the ruling said.

Facebook removed one of the posts at the request of Kinnarath, but Choiselat uploaded it a second time.

“The uncontroverted evidence is Ms. Choiselat immediately reposted the same defamatory information on Facebook. At this stage, the only reasonable conclusion is she published maliciously,” he said, noting when Facebook removed the post again, Choiselat took to X (then known as Twitter), to post it a third time.

Choiselat asked Lanchbery to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming the comments were within the realm of fair comment, and were “of public importance and factually correct,” the ruling said.

The judge disagreed.

“Using words such as terrorist and making accusations about being responsible for arson would tend to lower his reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person,” Lanchbery said.

“The aggravating factor present before me is Ms. Choiselat never issued an apology for her choice of words. Five years after her initial post, she maintains calling Mr. Kinnarath a terrorist.”

He said accusing Kinnarath of terrorism without evidence defeated Choiselat’s “fair comment” defence.

Lanchbery awarded general and aggravated damages totalling $5,000 each.

The judge said evidence presented by Kinnarath demonstrated minimal damage from the defamatory posts, which is why he did not award punitive damages closer to the plaintiff’s claim.

Kinnarth’s lawsuit named the PPC party and six others, including party candidates Yogi Henderson and Steven Fletcher, who were both Winnipeg-area candidates.

The claim against Fletcher was discontinued, and Lanchbery dismissed the case against Henderson. Claims against two unidentified defendants and an unidentified business were dropped.

The judge ruled the PPC was not responsible for Choiselat’s posts on its X account because they violated the party’s social media policy.

A default judgment against Todd McDougall and Derek Storie was rendered after neither party showed up to court. Damages in each case will be determined at a future date, Lanchbery said.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca