Sex at Lunch posting leads to Vancouver school board legal threat against Kari Simpson

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      A lawyer representing the Vancouver board of education has warned social-conservative activist Kari Simpson to remove images and not retain taped copies of a noon-hour presentation on sexuality at Lord Byng secondary school.

      Simpson has claimed on her Culture Guard website that she attended a presentation called "Sex at Lunch" at the school on June 14.

      According to the Culture Guard website, a teacher instructed students not to take pictures or post anything about the event on social media. That didn't deter Simpson, who "hit the audio recorder on her cell phone and left it running".

      Lawyer Keith Mitchell maintained in a June 27 letter to Simpson that her decision to post images on social media violates the Personal Information Protection Act and the Privacy Act.

      Mitchell also informed Simpson that the official trustee, Dianne Turner, will not meet with her to discuss the event.

      "As well, you were aggressively handing out pamphlets to students on school property, without authorization, and containing content that is discriminatory and offensive," Mitchell alleged in his letter.

      He warned Simpson that failure to pull the post will result in the board seeking a removal order from B.C.'s information and privacy commissioner.

      Simpson is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada sided with broadcaster Rafe Mair and WIC Radio Ltd. in a landmark libel suit filed by Simpson.

      She objected to a Mair editorial comparing her to Adolf Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan, and former Alabama governor George Wallace. The judgement written by then justice Ian Binnie concluded that Mair's comments met the legal test of "fair comment".

      In 2012, Simpson filed a human-rights complaint against the Vancouver board of education. She alleged that it was promoting hatred and contempt with "made-up" words, such as "homophobia, homophobe, homophobic, and heterosexism".

      The group Out in Schools characterized the complaint as "a distraction" and "a terrible waste of public resources".