“Defamation is established where the words complained of: 1) are defamatory, in that they would tend to lower a person’s reputation in the estimation of reasonable people; 2) are about the plaintiff; and 3) have been published to a third party. To determine whether the words complained of are defamatory, the plaintiff must show the main thrust, or “defamatory sting,” of those words. In every defamation action, the trier of fact must determine the defamatory sting from both the plain meaning of the words complained of and from what the ordinary, reasonable person would infer from them in the context in which those words were published: Cusson v. Quan, 2007 ONCA 771 at para 34.
What the ordinary man would infer without special knowledge has generally been called the “natural and ordinary meaning” of the words. Sometimes it is not necessary to go beyond the words themselves, as where the plaintiff has been called a thief or a murderer. But more often the sting is not so much in the words themselves as in what the ordinary man will infer from them, and that is also regarded as part of their natural and ordinary meaning.
The defamatory sting is not determined on a narrow reading of the words complained of in isolation. Context is crucial, as it informs what meaning the ordinary person will infer from the words complained of: the words must be given their meaning in context. The statements do not stand by themselves, but must be read in light of what has preceded them and what follows.”