The Supreme Court of Canada will consider next month whether a defamation suit against the former head of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) can proceed, in a case that observers say could have extensive repercussions on elected officials’ willingness to speak out about their issues of concern.
Longtime Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld launched the lawsuit in 2018 following a series of events that began in October 2017, when he wrote in a Facebook post that read in part:
“At the risk of being labeled a bigoted homophobe, I have to say that I support traditional family values and I agree with the College of paediatricians that allowing little children [to] choose to change gender is nothing short of child abuse. But now the BC Ministry of Education [has] embraced the LGBTQ lobby and is forcing this biologically absurd theory on children in our schools.”…