In Neufeld v. Bondar, 2025 BCCA 51, the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a decision finding the defendant, Mr. Neufeld, liable in defamation to the plaintiff, Dr. Bondar and ordering him to pay CA$45,000 in damages. The claim arose after Mr. Neufeld referred to Dr. Bondar, a school trustee of the Chilliwack School Board, as “that strip-tease artist”, while running opposite her in a school board election. While Mr. Neufeld argued the impugned statement was not defamatory because it was made in the context of the “thrust and parry” of political discourse, the Court found it was in fact a defamatory “demeaning denigration” of Dr. Bondar’s reputation.
Case overview
Dr. Bondar is a biologist, science educator and instructor at the University of the Fraser Valley. She has a YouTube channel where she posts videos related to those subjects. One of the videos is a science-themed parody music video in which she briefly appears wearing only boots, seen from behind while swinging on a wrecking ball. Dr. Bondar also appears in the video wearing, what she described as “very skimpy” clothing. In February 2021, Dr. Bondar was elected as a school trustee in the Chilliwack School Board. The parody video was the subject of controversy in the run-up to the election.
Dr. Bondar and Mr. Neufeld both ran for re-election in the October 2022 Chilliwack School Board trustee election. Dr. Bondar was re-elected; Mr. Neufeld was not. Prior to the election, Mr. Neufeld participated in an interview in which he referred to Dr. Bondar “that strip-tease artist.” In response, Dr. Bondar sued Mr. Neufeld in defamation, arguing that likening a candidate for school trustee to a strip-tease artist threatens that person’s reputation.
Lower court decision
The BC Supreme Court found Mr. Neufeld liable in defamation, ordering him to pay CA$35,000 in general damages and CA$10,000 in punitive damages.[1] The judge held that words can convey a defamatory meaning either literally, by “legal” innuendo, or by “popular” innuendo, where the inferential meaning or impression left by the words is defamatory. Where defamation is claimed based on “popular” innuendo, the judge held that the court must ask what the ordinary person would infer from the words in the context in which they were used. The judge concluded that the words in this case were prima facie defamatory because they would tend to lower Dr. Bondar’s reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person, they referred to her and they were communicated to at least one other person. Mr. Neufeld raised the defences of justification, fair comment and qualified privilege. All three defences were rejected by the judge.
Regarding damages, the judge concluded that an award on the lower end of the spectrum in the amount of CA$35,000 was appropriate given the fact that Dr. Bondar had been re-elected despite the statement, she had already been the subject of controversy due to the parody video and it was difficult to separate the reputational damage caused by Mr. Neufeld’s statement and the controversy surrounding the parody video. The judge found that aggravated damages were not appropriate, since Mr. Neufeld subjectively honestly believed the truth of his defamatory statement. However, the judge ordered CA$10,000 in punitive damages because, despite Mr. Neufeld’s subjective honest belief that the statement was true, he had been reckless as to its truth. Mr. Neufeld’s statement was objectively insulting and demeaning and he had subsequently repeated it.
Appeal decision
Mr. Neufeld appealed from the lower court decision, arguing that the judge was wrong to find that his statement was defamatory without regard to the whole context in which they were spoken. Specifically, Mr. Neufeld argued that the statement was made in the context of on an ongoing “ideological battle” in Chilliwack about sexual orientation and gender identity curricula (SOGI) in schools, and was part of the “thrust and parry” of political discourse. Mr. Neufeld further submitted the judge erred in failing to consider his own reputation, since, in his own words, he is “well known as politically incorrect, inflammatory, [and] offensive to many people.”[2] The Court of Appeal rejected this argument, finding that Mr. Neufeld failed to demonstrate the judge erred in law by finding the words to be prima facie defamatory. According to the Court, the fact that Dr. Bondar’s reputation was damaged by other attacks and controversy related to the parody video did not extinguish the defamatory nature of Mr. Neufeld’s statement. Further, the fact that Mr. Neufeld has a reputation for “politically incorrect, inflammatory, offensive” comments or defamatory comments, did not alter the defamatory character of his statement.
Mr. Neufeld also argued the judge erred in rejecting the defence of justification on the grounds that the words were substantially true based on Dr. Bondar’s appearance in the parody video. The defence of justification can succeed where the defendant proves that the substance of the statement is true. The Court noted that a statement is considered “substantially true” in the context of the justification defence where the “gist” or “sting” of the statement conveys no worse meaning than an accurate account. The Court found that the judge’s conclusion that Dr. Bondar’s performance in the parody video was not a strip tease and therefore Mr. Neufeld’s statement was not substantially true, was entitled to deference and rejected this ground of appeal.
Mr. Neufeld also raised the defence of fair comment. The defence requires, among other factors, that there be a factual basis for the allegedly defamatory statement within the publication itself or the facts must be “so notorious as to be already understood by the audience.” The defence is unavailable if “the factual foundation is unstated or unknown, or turns out to be false.”[3] On appeal, Mr. Neufeld argued that the judge erred in rejecting the defence of fair comment because the controversy between Mr. Neufeld and Dr. Bondar regarding SOGI was widely known. Dr. Bondar responded that the SOGI controversy was not the relevant factual context, since Mr. Neufeld’s statement was not about Dr. Bondar’s political views. Instead, the relevant factual context was the content of the parody video, which the judge found was not so notorious as to be already or readily understood by Mr. Neufeld’s audience. The Court of Appeal found the judge made no error in this conclusion, and rejected this ground of appeal.
The defence of qualified privilege applies if the person making the comment has “an interest or duty, legal, social, moral or personal, to publish the information in issue to the person to whom it is published” and the recipient has “a corresponding interest or duty to receive it.”[4] Qualified privilege attaches specifically to the occasion on which a statement was made, not to the statement itself. The judge rejected this defence based on prior case law rejecting the defence of qualified privilege in the context of statements about the fitness for office of a candidate for election. The Court of Appeal also rejected the defence of qualified privilege, but for difference reasons. The Court found that qualified privilege did not attach to the occasion—the Action4Canada interview—because Mr. Neufeld’s comments were made not only to persons interested in the Chilliwack school board elections, but to the world at large. Further, the focus of the interview was not Mr. Neufeld’s opinions about his fellow candidates, but was focused instead on his view about SOGI generally. This ground of appeal was also dismissed.
Finally, regarding damages, the Court of Appeal noted that a judge’s assessment of damages is entitled to significant deference on appeal. An appeal court will not alter a damage award merely because it would have come to a difference conclusion in the circumstances. In this case, the Court of Appeal found no error in the judge’s damages award. The appeal was dismissed.
Key takeaways
Throughout the proceedings, Mr. Neufeld attempted to characterize this case as being about the underlying political disagreements between himself and Dr. Bondar or about punishing him for a sincerely-held belief about Dr. Bondar’s performance in the parody video. The Court rejected both characterizations, instead stating that the substance of the case is about Mr. Neufeld’s comment about Dr. Bondar being a “demeaning denigration of her reputation.”[5] With offensive punditry increasingly in vogue, this case offers an important reminder of where the law of defamation draws the line between sharp political discourse and defamatory name-calling.
The case also raises interesting considerations regarding establishing a defamatory meaning based on popular innuendo. Dr. Bondar took the position that the literal meaning of “strip-tease artist” was not defamatory; however, by inference the term engaged the “widely held societal view that strip-tease artistry is dishonourable or shameful” and that women who “behave in a sexually liberated manner in public . . . do not have integrity and are not suitable for public office.” The Court agreed with this position. However, in an increasingly politically-stratified society, establishing defamatory meaning based on popular innuendo may be increasingly challenging. Terms such as “woke”, for instance, have significantly different interpretations based on which side of the political spectrum you fall. In some cases, words that may damage one person’s reputation by popular innuendo, would boost the reputation of another.
Dentons’ Litigation and Dispute Resolution group has expertise in the law of defamation. If you have questions about this case or the law of defamation in general, please contact the authors, Morgan Camley and Kathryn Gullason.
[1] Bondar v. Neufeld, 2024 BCSC 594.
[2] Neufeld v. Bondar, 2025 BCCA 51 at para. 44.
[3] Neufeld v. Bondar, 2025 BCCA 51 at para. 64, citing Hansman v. Neufeld, 2023 SCC 14 at para. 99.
[4] Bondar v. Neufeld, 2024 BCSC 594 at para. 108, citing Bent v. Platnick, 2020 SCC 23 at para. 121.
[5] Neufeld v. Bondar, 2025 BCCA 51 at para. 91.
