Did You Hurt Someone’s Dignity? In Canada, It Can Cost You.

In Canada, if you go on Facebook and say that a man is not a woman, it can cost you CAD$750,000. That is exactly what happened to Barry Neufeld, a school board trustee in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

The decision ordering Neufeld to pay was not made in a traditional courtroom. It happened in a human rights tribunal, an administrative body that sounds like a court but operates under different, much looser rules that allow accusers to remain anonymous. Its rulings can be reviewed by real courts but are rarely overturned, since the original ruling needs only to have been reasonable in a judge’s opinion.