Ontario lawyer Rudi Taylor demanded Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) trustee Nili Kaplan-Myrth backtrack on comments she made or face a defamation lawsuit. .“The statement written by you and subsequently published by you on Twitter is libelous/defamatory lies, false, willfully misleading, and hateful towards people who have legitimate concerns about your conduct as an Ottawa District School Board trustee, and who signed the petition, which includes me,” said Taylor in a Monday letter to Kaplan-Myrth. .“Simply because people sign or signed a petition in relation to your position as a trustee does not mean that those same people ‘publicly endorse’ hate crimes.” .Kaplan-Myrth said in a since-deleted tweet Ottawa police and the OCDSB were aware of a petition demanding her resignation. .“The fact these are anonymous, encrypted emails (rather than people standing by the conviction of their words) indicates the perpetrators are aware it's a hate crime in Canada,” she said. .“People who sign the @Change petition publicly endorse that.” .A petition demanding Kaplan-Myrth’s resignation was removed by Change.org on Thursday. .It attracted more than 7,000 signatures after she cut off the microphone of a parent who objected to the use of washrooms by transgender students during an OCDSB meeting she was chairing on March 7..The petition called for her immediate resignation, saying parents and students were having their voices and right to free speech “taken away by this individual.”.Taylor called Kaplan-Myrth’s comments “reckless and highly defamatory, insulting, and has, or will cause, those who signed or do sign the Change.org petition to suffer substantial harm, including contempt or ridicule, and exposure to hate.” .The letter asks her to remove the defamatory tweet. It said she needs to publish a retraction and apology. .The trustee has to notify Taylor in writing and provide evidence of the retraction and apology when it has been published. .“In the event that you fail to comply with a), b), and c) above, I will commence legal proceedings against you,” she said. .Kaplan-Myrth, who works as a family physician, said on the Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVO in September wanting to go back to pre-pandemic normalcy is the language of far-right extremists. .READ MORE: WATCH: Ottawa doctor claims returning to pre-pandemic 'normal' is 'far-right language'.“They disregard the impact of COVID on seniors, on children, on educators, on essential workers, on healthcare workers,” she said. .“There's nothing normal about taking away their protections and the proactive measures that we had to reduce transmission of COVID.”
