Saskatoon based dog rescue operator ordered to pay $27K for defamatory Facebook posts

A Saskatoon based dog rescue operator has been ordered to pay over $27,000 in damages to five women after a judge ruled she defamed them in several Facebook posts.

A Saskatoon based dog rescue operator has been ordered to pay over $27,000 in damages to five women after a judge ruled she defamed them in several Facebook posts.

According to King’s Bench Judge Sean Sinclair, the women were volunteers in 2022 and 2023 with Hanna’s Haven, an animal rescue operated in Saskatoon.

By April 2023, Sinclair says the relationship between the five women and rescue operator Laura MacKay had soured, and they stopped volunteering.

MacKay turned to Facebook. In a post to Hanna’s Haven’s 10,000 followers, MacKay accused the volunteers — by name — of trying to steal her dog rescue and hijack her website and online accounts.

“Unfortunately, we gave some ladies our trust as volunteers to help with fosters and adoptions of our rescue dogs. We trusted them to represent us and ensure our dogs were placed in good homes. This has not happened,” MacKay posted on her personal account and on the Hanna’s Haven page on April 20, 2023, according to the court record.

“These ladies were told they were no longer to be involved with our rescue as they tried to take over our rescue from under us and have now stolen 15 of our dogs.”

Two days later, MacKay followed up with another post, hinting the matter had been turned over to police and that she had a legal team involved. She wrote she had received a letter from the former volunteers that was “now being investigated as blackmail.”