Former school trustee Barry Neufeld appeared at the Chilliwack Law Courts on Monday morning (Nov. 24) flanked by court sheriffs to address the defamation lawsuit costs he has failed to pay to Trustee Carin Bondar.
The arrest of Neufeld was ordered on Oct. 27, by Justice Chan of the Supreme Court of B.C. The order was for Neufeld’s failure to abide by the 2024 ruling of Justice K. Michael Stephens against him in the civil suit won by Bondar, and his subsequent failure to appear in court.
Neufeld was ordered to spend one day at Ford Mountain Correctional Centre by Justice Chan after failing to pay court costs of $45,000 in 2024 after losing the defamation lawsuit filed against him by Trustee Bondar, for calling her “that striptease artist” during an online talk show.
It was Neufeld’s characterization of Bondar as a “striptease artist” during the 2022 school board election campaign that led to the lawsuit. In his reasons Justice Stephens said the impugned words were “objectively insulting” beyond “mere words of abuse that injure a plaintiff’s feelings” and were demeaning to Dr. Bondar, a woman who was running for school trustee in her community,” and also noted that Neufeld had refused to apologize or retract the comment.
“This was an effort to discredit his opponent in a school board trustee election, which crossed the line and constituted defamation,” Stephens wrote in his 2024 conclusion.
Neufeld filed an appeal in February, which he also lost when Justice David Harris dismissed it, finding no “reviewable errors” in the decision by Justice Stephens.
The science video in which Bondar appears to be swinging on a wrecking ball was about evolution and natural selection was created by Bondar in 2014 as a parody of the pop song, Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus, titled ‘Organisms do Evolve.’
Since the order from Justice Stephens, dated Sept. 17, 2024, was not paid and Neufeld did not appear, court costs of $8,703.75 listed as “expenses of service” and $10.00 in “maintenance money” were added to the $45,000 for a total owing of $53,713.75. If and when that total amount is paid to the court registrar, or to a sheriff or peace officer or warden who has him in custody, then the order would be discharged.