Pride marks anniversary of human rights victory by suing online harassers

Media Release

For immediate release: December 1, 2025

A small Pride organization in Northwestern Ontario and one of its corporate directors have launched multiple legal proceedings in response to a wave of harassment, death threats, and other reprisals that followed their landmark human rights victory against a local municipality last year.

Background

On November 20, 2024, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario released Borderland Pride v. The Corporation of the Township of Emo, 2024 HRTO 1651 (file no. 2020-41858-I). The Tribunal found that the Township of Emo and Mayor Harold McQuaker discriminated against Borderland Pride in the provision of a service—namely, the issuance of a municipal proclamation recognizing Pride Month in June 2020—contrary to the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal awarded $15,000 in compensation, including $5,000 personally from Mayor Harold McQuaker. The Township and McQuaker have since sought judicial review of that decision, and that matter remains before the Divisional Court (file no. DC-24-16-JR).

Although the Tribunal’s decision simply reaffirmed long-standing case law on Pride proclamations dating back to 1995, it sparked significant public attention and unleashed a coordinated campaign of violent threats, harassment, and reprisals against Borderland Pride and one of its directors, Douglas Judson. Notably, the Township has declined to condemn the death threats made by its supporters.

To date, the municipality has refused to disclose to taxpayers how much they have spent on unrecoverable legal fees to defend the council’s refusal to recognize the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

Production orders expose online harassers to liability

Beginning in February 2025, Borderland Pride and Judson started obtaining court orders compelling the production of information from mobile phone companies, internet service providers, major email platforms (including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft), and a crowdfunding website to identify anonymous individuals responsible for the threats and harassment.

The resulting disclosures have enabled the commencement of several proceedings alleging libel and reprisal (i.e., retaliation against a person for exercising their human rights, which is prohibited by the Human Rights Code):

• On November 10, 2025, Judson commenced a civil action in libel and reprisal against Derek Johnson (file no. SC-25-60). Johnson was identified through subscriber information produced by Google, which connected him to a business in Winnipeg. Johnson had repeatedly emailed Judson—copying over 40 local civic and community leaders—with defamatory statements, including false allegations of child luring, predatory behaviour, and immoral and degenerate conduct that endangers children. The claim seeks $50,000 in damages plus costs.

• On November 27, 2025, Borderland Pride and Judson filed an application (file nos. 2025-64387-I and 2025-64388-I) at the Tribunal against nine individuals in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia who had sent them death threats, threats of violence, and other reprisals via email and through the contact forms on their websites. The messages were all connected to the original discrimination case. The nine respondents were identified through subscriber information from their ISPs, email hosts, and mobile phone providers. The applicants seek $450,000 in total compensation.

• On October 30, 2025, Judson filed an application (file no. 2025-63879-I) at the Tribunal against McQuaker, Micheal Keller, and Keller’s New Brunswick corporation, alleging reprisal for their efforts to crowdfund a campaign to have Judson disbarred in retribution for pursuing his human rights claim. Keller was identified via court-ordered productions from GiveSendGo, the fundraising platform hosting the campaign. The application seeks $100,000 in compensation and an order preventing McQuaker from accessing municipal or insurance funds to cover any award.

More proceedings against online harassers are likely

Despite Borderland Pride’s success tracing a number of persons with the assistance of court-ordered productions, a significant number of individuals who have libelled the organization and its directors remain shielded by X Corp., which operates the social media platform, X (formerly Twitter). The content at issue consists of death threats, violent insinuations, and libels targeting Borderland Pride and Judson.

Borderland Pride intends to seek a judicial declaration that X Corp.’s records are subject to the jurisdiction of Ontario’s courts. X has resisted production, claiming it is bound only by the courts of Texas. Notably, X is the only online service provider connected to these events that does business in Ontario and has refused to recognize the authority of the Ontario court.

The court-ordered productions from X, if obtained, could result in dozens of additional defendants in further legal proceedings. Borderland Pride is pursuing civil accountability against these persons, in part because the Ontario Provincial Police and Crown Attorney's office have persistently failed to criminally charge individuals who have threatened members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in the Northwest Region with acts of violence.

Borderland Pride continues to push for transparency from Township

Borderland Pride has also sought disclosure—under Ontario’s municipal freedom of information laws—of the total legal fees the Township has spent defending its discriminatory refusal to issue a Pride proclamation. The request, made in June 2024, has been unlawfully refused and is the subject of an ongoing appeal (file no. MA24-00526) before the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC).

Separately, Borderland Pride has filed a reprisal application at the Tribunal (file no. 2025-60390-I), citing the Township’s chief administrative officer’s unlawful refusal to release the records on the stated basis that the requesters had made discrimination complaints against the municipality under the Human Rights Code. The reprisal application seeks $30,000 in compensation.

Previous IPC decisions are clear that the legal spending amounts are public information and are producible. It is obvious that the municipality is hiding this information from the community to avoid political embarrassment.

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Legal Quick Facts:

• Ontario’s Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in the provision of a service, on the basis of a protected ground (like sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression). The issuance of municipal proclamations has been consistently recognized as a “service” for this purpose since legal challenges brought in London and Hamilton in the 1990s.

  
  

• The Human Rights Code gives every person a right to claim and enforce their rights under the Code without reprisal or threat of reprisal. The Code specifies that “no person shall infringe or do, directly or indirectly, anything that infringes a right”. To claim reprisal, the Code does not require that the person acting in a retaliatory manner be a party to the underlying human rights claim.

  
  

• Municipal records are presumptively public, with limited exceptions, such as lawyer-client privilege. However, Ontario’s access to information laws require municipalities to release the bottom-line totals of legal invoices in accordance with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The total amounts of legal spending are not privileged records. 

  
  

• A judicial review, by the Divisional Court, of any decision of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, generally considers whether the Tribunal’s decision was unreasonable or reached through legal error. Absent those issues, the court generally defers to the Tribunal.

About Borderland Pride:

Borderland Pride is the 2SLGBTQIA+ Pride organization serving the Rainy River District in Northwestern Ontario. Borderland Pride is represented in several of the above proceedings by Judson Howie LLP. Goldblatt Partners LLP represents Borderland Pride before the Divisional Court.

Contact:

Douglas W. Judson (he/him)

Email: doug@judsonhowie.ca

The contents of the court and tribunal files identified above can be requested from the respective institution.