The Manitoba Court of Appeal has held the People’s Party of Canada vicariously liable for Monique Choiselat’s defamatory Twitter post about Oumer Kinnarath. The dispute followed Kinnarath’s successful opposition to a party event in 2019. The posts falsely branded him a terrorist.
In Kinnarath v. Choiselat, 2026 MBCA 79, the court found that giving the unpaid Winnipeg Centre riding association executive control of its account increased the risk of harm. Party rules prohibited personal attacks; that did not resolve liability. Her personal Facebook posts lacked the necessary connection to party-conferred power. Direct liability also failed: she was not the party’s directing mind, and the publication was unauthorized.
Why unauthorized conduct can attract liability
The underlying doctrine comes from Bazley v. Curry. Vicarious liability can attach even without wrongdoing by the organization itself. Where existing precedents do not settle the issue, courts examine whether the wrong is sufficiently connected to a risk the organization introduced or increased.
The Supreme Court’s analysis links that inquiry to fair compensation and preventing future harm. An organization is not simply an insurer for everything a person associated with it does: an incidental connection is insufficient. The focus is the relationship between authorized activities and the particular wrong, rather than whether the organization wanted the wrongdoing to occur.
Kinnarath’s republication supported the modest damages assessment. The court upheld Choiselat’s $5,000 aggravated damages and refused punitive damages. It declined a new doxxing tort on these facts: identifying information accompanied defamation, existing remedies sufficed, and additional harm was marginal. Whether Manitoba’s Privacy Act adequately remedies doxxing was left open.
The existing privacy framework
Manitoba’s Privacy Act already creates a civil claim for a substantial, unreasonable privacy violation committed without a claim of right. An action can proceed without proof of damage. Section 6 preserves other available claims and remedies, while allowing damages awarded for the privacy violation to be considered when assessing damages in other proceedings arising from the same conduct.
The court registry records the September 28, 2026 disposition: the PPC and Choiselat share liability for $5,000 general damages and trial costs. The damages are not an additional award. Kinnarath receives appeal costs from the PPC but must pay Choiselat’s appeal costs. The prior trial-cost award favouring the PPC was vacated.
