Case Summary
Rainbow Alliance Dryden et al v. Webster and Crichton et al v. Webster, 2025 ONSC 1161 and 2025 ONSC 1162
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has granted summary judgment in two defamation proceedings against a Facebook blogger whose posts accused the plaintiffs of “grooming” children at drag story time events in Northwestern Ontario.
In Rainbow Alliance Dryden et al v. Webster, 2025 ONSC 1161, and Crichton et al v. Webster, 2025 ONSC 1162, the plaintiffs alleged that Brian Webster, the administrator of a widely-read Facebook page known as “Real Thunder Bay Courthouse-Inside Edition” defamed them by describing them as "groomers" and their drag story time events at public libraries as “grooming” children.
The plaintiffs were a Dryden-based 2SLGBTQIA+ Pride organization and 3 individual drag performers based in Dryden and Thunder Bay. They claimed that by referring to them in his posts as "groomers" or engaged in “grooming” of children, Webster had smeared them as pedophiles or persons engaged in sexual abuse of young people. In one of the posts, Webster included links to webpages about unrelated persons charged in relation to child pornography. Both posts attracted comments from Webster's readers describing the plaintiffs as pedophiles, mentally ill persons, and comments suggesting that they should be "hunted" or subject to physical violence.
The court found that Webster’s attempts to defend the action on the basis of fair comment was self-serving and was contrived ex post facto. Webster had used emoji reactions to signal his support for the abusive comments on his post, with the court observing that “he created an echo chamber for hate speech”. Her Honour found that Mr. Webster’s assertion that he was not referring to pedophilia when he called the plaintiffs "groomers", was “not credible”.
While plaintiffs in libel actions are not required to show intent on the part of the defendant, Pierce J further concluded that “Webster intended to create revulsion directed at the drag queens hosting the story hour, counselling people to keep their children away from the event” (referring to the drag story time events).
In finding that the posts were defamatory, the court accepted expert evidence from Dr. Corinne Mason, a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Dr. Mason explained that “grooming is manipulative behaviour used by sexual abusers to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught. Allegations of 'groomer' and 'grooming' appear in hateful rhetoric to imply the LGBTQ+ people, or those perceived to be sexually or gender diverse, are pedophiles.” There was no evidence that any of the plaintiffs have ever engaged in such misconduct.
Writing on the gravity of these libels, Her Honour concluded that "[t]he defendant intended to smear the reputations of the individual plaintiffs and RAD with the message that they used their drag queen/king persona and activities to groom children for sexual abuse. There could hardly be a more damning message than that, spread across the Internet."
Pierce J awarded the plaintiffs each $95,000 in damages, consisting of $75,000 in general damages and $20,000 in aggravated damages. These were the amounts sought in the Statements of Claim. Webster is thus liable to pay a total of $380,000 in damages, plus the costs of the proceeding to the plaintiffs.
General damages are presumed when a defamation claim is proven, and there is no requirement to provide evidence of out-of-pocket loss. Aggravated damages are awarded where the defendant has engaged in “high-handed, oppressive, outrageous, or malicious conduct”. In awarding aggravated damages, Her Honour concluded that Webster “was motivated by actual malice towards the plaintiffs who were members of a vulnerable community”.
Other Highlights in the Decision
In the course of granting judgment in favour of the plaintiffs, Pierce J made several other findings of note.
First, in awarding aggravated damages, Pierce J described Webster’s conduct towards the plaintiffs, who were unknown to him, as that of a “common bully”. Her Honour referred to the specific circumstances of each of the plaintiffs, including their fears for their safety, the potential for the publications to impact their work or to cause them to lose opportunities, and the hatred that their community work, through drag story time, helps to address.
Second, Her Honour found the defendant liable to pay damages to the corporate plaintiff, Rainbow Alliance Dryden, on the same basis as the individual plaintiffs. The decision states that that “[a]s a grass-roots organization, trying to build bridges between the queer community and the larger community, RAD’s reputation is also deserving of protection from the slurs that may lead the community to distrust the persons and events identified with RAD.” This is notable because RAD became incorporated early on in the proceeding, having been an unincorporated association at the time of Webster's libel. Her Honour found that RAD had standing to sue in defamation because it was clearly identified with the members of an unincorporated collective at the time of publication, one of which was one of the individual plaintiffs.
Finally, while the decision reviews the availability of Webster's defence of fair comment, Her Honour emphasized the importance of pleadings in defamation actions. The Statements of Defence filed by the defendant were scant and lacked any material facts, as required by the Rules of Civil Procedure.
The plaintiffs were represented by Douglas W. Judson and Peter A. Howie of Judson Howie LLP. The intervenor, Egale Canada, was represented by Daniel Girlando and Katelyn McFadyen of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.
The Rainbow Alliance case was previously the subject of an unsuccessful anti-SLAPP motion brought by Webster. A summary of that motion decision is available here.
For more information, please contact:
Douglas W. Judson (he/him)
Judson Howie LLP
Email: doug@judsonhowie.ca