A recent Ontario Small Claims Court ruling suggests the Sarnia Police Service could be held liable for unmoderated, toxic comments posted by the public on its official Facebook page.
A recent Ontario court decision has cast a harsh light on the Sarnia Police Service’s social media strategy. The ruling raises questions about whether the city’s most popular Facebook page is actually a significant legal liability for taxpayers.
The Sarnia Police Service (SPS) has used social media for years to post wanted notices, mugshots, and press releases. However, a new data analysis conducted by The Sarnia Journal suggests the page has evolved into something else entirely.
The data indicates the page has become an unmoderated forum for defamation, vigilantism, and abuse. It is a forum that the Police Services Board could be sued for hosting.
The alarm bells stem from a ruling released in October 2025 by the Ontario Small Claims Court in London. In Belliveau v. Quinlan, Deputy Judge David Miller ruled that the administrator of a Facebook group was personally liable for defamatory comments posted by other members.
The judge ruled that because the administrator had the power to delete the abusive comments but failed to do so, she was negligent. She was deemed responsible for the damage.
She was ordered to pay damages to the victim. This establishes a clear precedent that if you run the page, you are responsible for the comments.
This precedent poses a significant problem for the Sarnia Police. An audit of the Sarnia Police Facebook page analyzed over 18,000 public comments across 558 different posts from 2024 to early 2026.
The analysis found that 9.1% of all interactions—totalling 1,663 comments—contained toxic language, incitement to violence, or potential defamation.
While a 9% toxicity rate might sound low in isolation, it represents a massive volume of liability. The audit identified hundreds of instances where the official police page hosted comments describing unconvicted residents as "garbage" and "waste," or calling for "street justice."
Under the Belliveau ruling, the Police Services Board could be held liable for every single one of these 1,663 comments if they are not removed. By extension, the Sarnia taxpayer bears this risk.
Critics argue that the data points to a deeper issue. They suggest the police page is functioning less as a public safety tool and more as a digital pillory.
When the police post a mugshot for a minor administrative offence the comment section frequently devolves. It becomes a roast of the individual’s appearance, character, and history.
There is no 24/7 moderation team to scrub these comments. Consequently, the police are effectively subsidizing a venue for public shaming.
If a resident loses their job or housing due to unmoderated defamation on the police page, the City of Sarnia is the deep pocket a lawyer would target in a lawsuit.
The Belliveau decision makes one thing clear: ignorance is no longer a defence.
Judge Miller wrote in his decision that the administrator had the authority to remove the posts and elected not to do so.
There are 1,600 unmoderated toxic comments currently sitting on the Sarnia Police page. The question is not if a lawsuit will happen, but when.
