Sued Over a Google Review: Defamation Liability in Canada

Yes — you can be sued over a Google review in Canada, and people lose. Awards for online defamation here commonly land in the five-to-six-figure range, defending a claim through trial can cost $50,000 to $150,000 in legal fees, and the policy most people assume would help — their home insurance — typically pays nothing at all.

That last part is the trap. Here's the scenario, the law, and the one kind of policy that actually answers a defamation claim.

The scenario#

A composite of disputes Canadian lawyers see constantly:

Your kitchen renovation goes sideways. The contractor is three months late, the tile is crooked, and he's holding your $15,000 deposit hostage over "extras." Furious, you post a one-star Google review: "This company are con artists. They steal deposits and should be criminally charged. Avoid at all costs."

Six weeks later, a courier hands you a statement of claim. The contractor says bookings dropped the month your review went up, and he's suing you for $250,000 in damages for defamation. His lawyer's first letter offers to settle if you delete the review, apologize publicly, and pay $25,000.

You were the wronged party. You're also the defendant.

Defamation in Canada is easier to prove than you think#

To get a defamation claim off the ground, the business only has to prove three things:

Here's what surprises people: once those three things are shown, falsity and damage are presumed. The plaintiff doesn't have to prove the review was false or that it cost them a single dollar — Canadian law presumes both. And Canada has no US-style "public figure" standard requiring businesses to prove you acted with malice. Compared to the United States, Canadian defamation law is plaintiff-friendly by design.

The burden now sits with you, the reviewer, to prove a defence.

The defences — and why you carry the burden#

Notice the trap in the composite review. "The tile work was crooked and I'd never hire them again" is opinion grounded in fact — classic fair comment territory. "They steal deposits and should be criminally charged" reads as an allegation of crime, presented as fact. Fair comment won't stretch to cover it, so you're left proving it's substantially true — an actual theft, not just a billing dispute that felt like one.

Ontario and British Columbia do have anti-SLAPP laws that can get lawsuits over public-interest expression thrown out early, and consumer reviews have sometimes benefited. But an anti-SLAPP motion is still a legal proceeding argued by lawyers you have to pay for, with no guarantee it succeeds. It's a shield, not a coverage strategy.

What it costs#

Figures below reflect the pattern in reported Canadian online-defamation decisions and typical litigation costs. Estimates, not quotes — every case turns on its facts.

Two multipliers make it worse. Canadian courts typically order the loser to pay a substantial portion of the winner's legal costs, so losing means funding both sides. And judges can add aggravated damages when a defendant doubles down — reposting, refusing to apologize, or repeating the allegation in the comments.

If a lawyer's letter does arrive, resist the two instinctive responses. Ignoring it lets the claim harden into a default judgment. Firing back publicly — "now they're threatening to sue me!" — hands the plaintiff a fresh publication and an aggravated-damages argument. The boring middle path wins: preserve your evidence, say nothing new online, and get legal advice before the response deadline in the letter.

The coverage gap nobody sees coming#

Now the insurance question, and it's ugly. The personal liability section of a standard Canadian homeowner, condo, or tenant policy responds to bodily injury and property damage. A defamation claim is neither — nobody was physically hurt and nothing was broken. Reputational and economic harm simply isn't the kind of loss the policy insures.

The practical consequence: for most Canadian households, a defamation lawsuit lands with no insurer-appointed lawyer, no funded defence, and no coverage for the judgment. Every dollar in the cost table above is yours. A handful of home policies offer limited endorsements, but they're the exception — assume yours doesn't until your broker shows you otherwise in writing.

How umbrella coverage changes the outcome#

This is the punchline of the whole page. Personal umbrella policies typically include "personal injury" coverage — an insurance term of art that, unlike "bodily injury," is defined to include libel, slander, and defamation. That single definition changes everything about the scenario above:

1. Defence. The umbrella insurer appoints and pays the lawyers — the $50,000–$150,000 line item comes off your ledger.
2. Indemnity. A settlement or judgment is covered up to the umbrella limit, typically $1 million or more.
3. Price. Roughly $200–$300 per year for the first $1 million of umbrella coverage, and about $50–$75 per additional $1 million (estimates based on typical Canadian broker pricing — not quotes).

One honest caveat: umbrella policies exclude statements made with knowledge of their falsity. Post something you know is a lie and no policy saves you. But the far more common case — an angry customer who overstated a genuine grievance — is exactly what personal injury coverage exists for.

The bottom line#

You don't need to stop writing honest reviews. You need to write them like a journalist: facts you can prove, opinions framed as opinions, and no criminal accusations you can't back with evidence. Then look at your insurance, because the gap here is total — a standard home policy typically contributes nothing to a defamation claim, while an umbrella policy with personal injury coverage typically funds the entire defence and the outcome, for a few hundred dollars a year. One angry paragraph shouldn't be able to reach your house. Right now, it can.