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Former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld has been ordered to pay current board member Carin Bondar $45,000 for referring to her as a “striptease artist.”

Bondar defeated Richard Procee in a contentious 2021 byelection, at a time when Neufeld was waging a campaign against the introduction of SOGI — sexual orientation and gender identity — inclusivity guidelines in B.C. schools.

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During a September 2022 online interview with Action4Canada, Neufeld said: “Richard Procee ran against that striptease artist in the byelection four years ago … ”

At the time of the remark, Neufeld was seeking re-election in that fall’s municipal election campaign. Neufeld lost as both Bondar and Procee won seats, with Bondar receiving the most votes among 15 candidates for seven board seats. 

In a B.C. Supreme Court judgment posted online late last week, Judge Michael Stephens agreed Bondar was defamed and that the words had potential for real harm to Bondar’s reputation. He rejected Neufeld’s arguments the words should be considered acceptable due to qualified privilege or fair comment.

Neufeld was ordered to pay Bondar $35,000 in general damages and $10,000 in punitive damages.

The ruling did not make any reference or give an opinion about SOGI, though it is central to the dispute between the two. Bondar, who has degrees in biology and forestry, has made a career of advocating for sexual health and inclusive science education.

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Neufeld — a retired corrections, probation and youth criminal justice worker and longtime school trustee — has referred to SOGI as part of a “war on children,” and worked while on the board to have it taken off the curriculum in Chilliwack.

The “striptease” remark refers to a video Bondar made in 2014 that parodied Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball, in which she discusses biology while at times wearing underwear and a sleeveless T-shirt and briefly appearing naked from behind while swinging on a ball.

The racy video became a byelection talking point as opponents sought to discredit Bondar as a serious politician, including Neufeld sharing it on a private Facebook group and a billboard being put up with a screenshot from it with the words: “Is this your child’s idea of a school trustee?”

In a February 2021 Chilliwack Progress article titled “School board byelection candidate defends naked parody video,” Bondar says she stands by her work and that it was aimed at a mature audience. She said during the campaign that month that “activists who opposed me used the video to attack my integrity.”

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Bondar testified that she sees “nothing wrong with striptease artistry,” but that the video and screenshots were shared by critics with “actual malice” and because of “a widely held societal view … that women should not behave in a sexually liberated manner in public, and that women who do so do not have integrity and are not suitable for public office.”

In assessing the level of damages, the judge noted Neufeld has refused to apologize for the remark, and in fact repeated them in a 2023 newsletter that sought financial support for his legal battles.

Stephens agreed that Bondar “has experienced anxiety, upset and reputational harm associated with the impugned words,” while acknowledging they came after a byelection where others had criticized Bondar’s appearance in the video.

He said winning the byelection despite the statement does not take away from the fact Bondar experienced “stress and anxiety” as a result of Neufeld’s words.

Earlier, Neufeld tried to sue former B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Glen Hansman, claiming Hansman’s comments about Neufeld’s anti-SOGI position were defamatory. That lawsuit was tossed out by the Supreme Court of Canada last year on the grounds that it was aimed at suppressing public debate on the subject.

jruttle@postmedia.com

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