Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Characterization of Sheridan Retail Inc.’s (SRI) lawsuit as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) under s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act, based on its connection to Pierre Roy’s complaints and public opposition to a major redevelopment.
• Causal link between Roy’s “expression” (regulatory complaints and public submissions) and the proceeding, including whether the trespass pleadings could be treated as a purely private dispute distinct from his public interest advocacy.
• Sufficiency of SRI’s evidence of harm and loss, particularly its failure to particularize or substantiate alleged economic losses and security/management costs said to flow from Roy’s conduct.
• Application of the “Merits-Based Hurdle” and “Public Interest Hurdle” in s. 137.1(4), including whether the trespass and economic torts had substantial merit and whether any cognizable harm outweighed the strong public interest in protecting Roy’s expression on environmental, safety, and planning issues.
• Availability of damages under s. 137.1(9) based on a finding that SRI brought the proceeding in bad faith or for an improper purpose, including alleged intimidation and chilling of Roy’s participation.
• Appellate intervention on costs, focusing on procedural fairness in deciding full indemnity costs before submissions and calibration of a reasonable full indemnity amount on an anti-SLAPP motion.

Background and redevelopment dispute

Sheridan Retail Inc. (SRI) is a single-purpose corporation, part of the Dunpar Developments group, incorporated to redevelop the Sheridan Mall in the Sherwood Forest neighbourhood of Mississauga. The project combined renovation of existing indoor mall premises with a proposal to construct two 15-storey condominium towers. Pierre Roy, an engineering student living in the neighbourhood, was active in the Sherwood Forest Residents Association as a “Development Liaison.” He took a close interest in the project and became increasingly concerned about the sustainability of the proposal, the adequacy of affordable housing units in the planned condominiums, and, critically, the lawfulness and safety of ongoing renovation work inside the mall. Roy initially raised some concerns directly with SRI and its representatives. Over time, however, he concluded that the project was not being pursued in a safe or legally compliant way and escalated his engagement with municipal authorities.

Complaints to the City and public interest expression

Between May and December 2023, Roy made multiple complaints to the City of Mississauga (the City) alleging by-law infractions and breaches of the Building Code Act and Planning Act relating to SRI’s work at the mall. To support these complaints, he took and supplied photographs of what he believed were construction and safety deficiencies inside the premises. City inspectors attended repeatedly in response to his complaints and, in many instances, issued remedial orders against SRI, which SRI then complied with. Roy also participated in community and City planning meetings. At an April 2023 community meeting where SRI presented the redevelopment plans, he questioned SRI’s legal counsel about environmental and sustainability measures. Later that year, at a November 27, 2023 City planning and development meeting, he spoke in opposition to aspects of the project, criticizing the safety, environmental, and social impacts of the proposal. SRI’s representative responded publicly by ridiculing Roy and asserting that he had been trespassing and “rooting through garbage” at the mall. These interactions framed Roy’s activity squarely as public interest advocacy about safety, environmental concerns, and large-scale land use planning.

Alleged trespasses and the lead-up to the lawsuit

SRI’s core factual complaint centred on Roy’s presence inside parts of the mall. On March 29, 2022, he was seen inside a vacant former Target anchor space and approached by SRI personnel. After Roy outlined concerns about waste management and alleged unauthorized industrial use of former office space, Dunpar followed up by email the next day. In early May 2023, Roy noticed what appeared to him to be significant demolition activity in a former RSA Insurance office area and later in an unfinished restaurant space. Believing the work to be unpermitted and dangerous, he took photographs from within or near these areas and made fresh complaints to the City. On May 24, 2023, SRI staff again observed Roy in the mall, asked him to leave, and followed him off the property. The next day, SRI served a “Notice of Pending Legal Action and Trespass.” That notice accused him of “ongoing trespasses” and, more significantly, threatened a civil suit if he made further “erroneous and defamatory statements” to City officials or members of the public. Notably, while it referred to trespass, the threatened legal action was framed in terms of his speech and complaints, not the mere fact of his presence. After the notice, Roy continued to file complaints with the City, accompanied by photographs. SRI later alleged that he must have ignored the notice and trespassed to obtain some of these images. Roy denied entering “off-limits” interior areas after the notice, acknowledging only that he visited public areas of the mall periodically to do ordinary errands such as banking. He also gave evidence that some contested photographs were sourced from the internet or taken by his father, and that others were taken from outside the building or within exterior parking areas.

The underlying civil action and causes of action

In December 2023, after the City ultimately rejected SRI’s redevelopment proposal, SRI commenced an action against Roy for $300,000 in damages. The claim pleaded four main causes of action: defamation, intentional interference with economic relations, inducing breach of contract (the “economic torts”), and trespass to land. SRI alleged that Roy’s statements to the City and his public comments were defamatory and that his conduct had driven up its costs, delayed construction and leasing, caused it to miss a lease closing obligation, and contributed to the loss of a tenant. It also claimed that he had trespassed in non-public areas of the mall for the purpose of conducting unauthorized investigations and taking photographs. In support of its damages theory, SRI filed an affidavit from Dunpar’s Vice President of Property Management asserting that SRI had incurred additional security, staffing, consulting, management, insurance, and compliance costs, as well as lost rent and “lost opportunity” costs, as a result of Roy’s conduct. However, the affidavit contained no concrete particulars, figures, or documentation underpinning those broad assertions.

The anti-SLAPP motion and decision at first instance

Roy responded by bringing a motion in May 2024 under s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act, Ontario’s anti-SLAPP provision. He argued that the lawsuit was brought to silence and punish him for his participation in the City’s land-use process and his complaints about safety, environmental, and planning compliance. Before the motion was argued, SRI formally abandoned its defamation claim and, in its motion submissions, attempted to emphasize that the case was now “about trespass,” which it characterized as the “crux” of the proceeding. It did not seek leave to amend its pleadings under s. 137.1(6), so the pleadings still contained the defamation and economic torts as part of the action. The motion judge held that SRI’s proceeding arose from Roy’s “expression” relating to matters of public interest. She treated the action as a whole and found the trespass allegations “inextricably linked” to Roy’s complaints and public submissions, rather than a free-standing private property dispute. The notice SRI had sent, its pleadings, and its own submissions all showed that the heart of the case was Roy’s communications with the City and the public, not technical infringement of property rights. At the statutory “Merits-Based Hurdle,” the judge concluded the action did not have “substantial merit.” She found SRI had effectively conceded that its defamation and economic tort claims lacked merit by abandoning, downplaying, and failing to particularize them, including any actual, quantifiable economic loss. On the trespass claim, she held that SRI faced an “uphill battle” even on liability: the areas Roy entered were neither locked nor clearly marked as non-public, and SRI’s own record showed that his presence was tied to concerns he had been openly raising. More importantly, she found SRI had failed to demonstrate any real, evidenced harm from the alleged trespasses. The asserted security, management, insurance, and delay costs remained unsupported assertions rather than grounded, credible evidence. The judge then turned to the “Public Interest Hurdle,” which requires weighing any harm to SRI from Roy’s expression against the public interest in protecting that expression. She concluded that Roy’s speech about safety, environmental, and social impacts of a large urban redevelopment—tied to building and planning compliance—engaged issues at “the forefront of public discourse” and attracted a very high level of protection. Against that, SRI had not shown anything more than speculative or bare claims of harm. Looking at “what was really going on,” she found that the lawsuit’s substantial $300,000 damages claim, its breadth, and SRI’s litigation conduct pointed to an effort to intimidate Roy and drive him out of the land-use process. She granted the anti-SLAPP motion, dismissed SRI’s action in its entirety, and, after a further hearing, awarded Roy $25,000 in damages under s. 137.1(9) for bad faith/improper purpose, as well as full indemnity costs on the motion in the amount of $156,394.54.

The appeal: threshold expression and public interest

On appeal, SRI argued that the judge had erred at the threshold stage by treating the proceeding as one that “arose from” Roy’s public interest expression. It contended that, once defamation was abandoned, the “crux” of the case was trespass in non-public mall areas, which it framed as a private property dispute and non-expressive “conduct” outside the intended scope of s. 137.1. The Court of Appeal rejected this reframing. It held that the s. 137.1(3) threshold turns on whether the proceeding is causally related to expression, not on the formal cause of action or label attached to underlying conduct. The Court endorsed the motion judge’s approach of treating the proceeding as a whole. It pointed to the Trespass Notice, which threatened civil action not for mere presence on the property but for “erroneous and defamatory statements” to City officials and the public, as strong evidence that Roy’s communications were the real target. The pleadings likewise placed his complaints and public interventions at the centre of the claim. Even viewed in isolation, the trespass allegations were “inextricably linked” to his expression because SRI itself pleaded that Roy entered to collect information to support his complaints. On the second threshold element—whether the expression related to matters of public interest—the Court noted that SRI had consistently conceded that Roy’s complaints and public submissions concerning safety, environmental, social, and planning issues were public interest expression. Those subjects clearly fell within issues about which a segment of the community would have a genuine interest in receiving information, and SRI’s attempt to re-characterize the case as a purely private trespass dispute was inconsistent with the record. The Court therefore upheld the finding that the s. 137.1 threshold was met.

The appeal: merits-based analysis and harm

SRI further submitted that the motion judge had applied too strict a standard at the “Merits-Based Hurdle,” misapprehended the elements of trespass, and failed to give effect to its evidence of economic harm and increased costs. The Court of Appeal examined the reasons in light of the governing Supreme Court of Canada authorities on anti-SLAPP. It held that the judge had properly applied the “grounds to believe” standard, which is lower than balance of probabilities but still requires more than bald, unsupported assertions. Her references to SRI facing an “uphill battle” and the lawsuit lacking “serious merit” were interpreted as descriptive comments about the weakness of SRI’s record, not as an elevation of the legal standard. On the economic torts, the Court agreed that SRI had failed to particularize any concrete losses. The broad claims of lost rent, missed closing obligations, and tenant loss were unsupported by dates, amounts, documents, or causal analysis. On trespass, the Court accepted that, in principle, a person can trespass in a public mall if they enter for an unauthorized purpose, such as theft or covert investigation. However, it emphasized that SRI had still not shown grounds to believe that any actual, non-technical harm resulted from Roy’s presence. At best, the trespass claim would support nominal damages in vindication of property rights—insufficient “technical validity” to amount to substantial merit in the anti-SLAPP context when weighed against the robust public interest in safeguarding Roy’s expression. The appellate court also rejected SRI’s argument that the judge was obliged to make separate findings on whether Roy had “no valid defence” once she had already concluded there were no grounds to believe the proceeding had substantial merit. Since both elements of s. 137.1(4)(a) are cumulative, the failure to satisfy the first was dispositive. Having found no reviewable error in the merits analysis, the Court upheld the dismissal of SRI’s action.

The appeal: weighing public interest and harm

Although it was not strictly necessary given the failure on the merits-based prong, the Court of Appeal addressed the “Public Interest Hurdle” for completeness. It underscored the high deference owed to motion judges on this open-ended, highly discretionary weighing exercise. The Court held that the motion judge was entitled to ascribe very high value to Roy’s expression, which concerned municipal land-use decision-making, safety compliance, environmental impacts, and affordable housing—all core civic issues closely tied to the values underlying freedom of expression. By contrast, SRI’s evidence of harm remained at a high level of generality and lacked specifics sufficient to satisfy the requirement that harm “as a result of” the expression be demonstrated with evidence capable of belief. The Court rejected SRI’s contention that the judge had imposed a requirement of “proof” of harm or applied an incorrect causation standard. Her references to harm not being “directly linked” to Roy’s expression were aligned with the statutory language that focuses on harm “as a result of” the moving party’s expression. It also reconciled what SRI said were inconsistent findings: the motion judge could properly find both that alleged trespass-related costs were not credibly linked to Roy’s speech, and that any real costs that did arise (such as responding to City orders) were driven by the regulatory process triggered by his complaints, not by mere physical presence on site. The Court held there was no palpable and overriding error in her assessment that any cognizable harm to SRI was insufficiently serious to outweigh the strong public interest in protecting Roy’s public participation.

Damages for bad faith/improper purpose

The Court of Appeal then considered SRI’s challenge to the $25,000 damages award under s. 137.1(9). That provision authorizes damages where the proceeding is brought in bad faith or for an improper purpose, beyond the usual objective of limiting expression. The Court endorsed the motion judge’s conclusion that the combination of SRI’s conduct amounted to more than a simple attempt to vindicate rights. The $300,000 damages claim, the filing of an extensive and largely irrelevant 1600-page expert report, the aggressive litigation posture, and the timing and framing of threats to sue all supported an inference that the proceeding was used to intimidate Roy and chill his participation in the public planning process. Evidence that Roy actually refrained from taking part in SRI’s subsequent appeal of City Council’s decision reinforced the finding of a real chilling effect. The Court held that these findings met the statutory threshold of bad faith or improper purpose and that the damages were compensatory, not punitive. As the award was a discretionary remedy grounded in reasonable factual findings, the Court declined to interfere and affirmed the $25,000 damages in Roy’s favour.

Costs at first instance and on appeal

The most significant change on appeal concerned costs. At first instance, the motion judge had ordered SRI to pay Roy full indemnity costs of $156,394.54 for the anti-SLAPP motion. She had announced in her merits decision that costs would be on a full indemnity scale before receiving full costs submissions. On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that, even in an anti-SLAPP context where full indemnity is the presumptive scale under s. 137.1(7), it is procedurally unfair for a judge to decide the scale of costs before hearing from the parties. That procedural misstep justified appellate intervention. Granting leave to appeal the costs order, the Court set it aside and replaced it with a new full indemnity costs award of $75,000, inclusive of taxes and disbursements. In doing so, it relied on prior guidance that full indemnity costs on anti-SLAPP motions will “generally” not exceed $50,000, while recognizing that this case warranted a somewhat higher amount because of SRI’s conduct and the nature of the proceeding. The Court also emphasized that anti-SLAPP motions are meant to be a summary, relatively less expensive mechanism, and should not be run like full trials with trial-level cost exposure. As to the appeal itself, the Court awarded Roy $20,000 in costs, inclusive of taxes and disbursements, noting that the statutory full-indemnity presumption does not apply to appeals, and exercising its ordinary discretion based on the parties’ respective costs and the outcome.

Overall outcome and monetary consequences

In the result, the Court of Appeal dismissed SRI’s substantive appeal in its entirety, confirming that Roy’s anti-SLAPP motion was properly granted and that SRI’s action—encompassing defamation, economic torts, and trespass—was dismissed as a SLAPP. It affirmed the $25,000 damages award in Roy’s favour under s. 137.1(9) for bad faith/improper purpose, and it maintained a full-indemnity approach to costs below, but reduced the amount to $75,000 to reflect procedural fairness concerns and broader guidance on reasonable anti-SLAPP costs. The Court further ordered SRI to pay Roy $20,000 in costs of the appeal. Taken together, Roy emerges as the clearly successful party, with a total of $120,000 ordered in his favour—$25,000 in damages plus $75,000 in costs at first instance and $20,000 in costs of the appeal.