New Brunswick prof reaches settlement with National Post over ‘defamatory’ reporting about Palestine solidarity activism

A University of New Brunswick professor who travelled to Egypt last year for the Global March to Gaza has agreed to drop a lawsuit against the National Post after reaching a settlement agreement that includes a $3,500 payment and a lengthy correction.

The dispute was over an article published on the National Post website in June 2025. The article stated incorrectly that Prof. Jeff Houlahan “spent weeks last summer [2024] ignoring an eviction order to maintain a ‘Free Gaza’ encampment on university property.”

However, the union representing UNB professors had grieved a trespass notice that he received from campus security over his activism  — there was no “eviction order” — and the UNB administration formally acknowledged his right to protest and withdrew the trespass notice.

A 150-word correction now appears prominently on copies of the article online, stating that “the false assertion was defamatory.”

The article, titled “Anti-Israel activists beg their ‘genocidal’ government for rescue,” was written by National Post reporter and columnist Tristin Hopper as part of his “First Reading” newsletter on Canadian politics.

The article focused on Canadians who attempted to travel to the Egypt–Gaza border as part of an international movement calling for the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow for the flow of international aid to Palestinians, amid reports of catastrophic levels of hunger.

Many of the activists, including Houlahan and other Canadians, were ultimately detained and deported by Egyptian authorities before reaching the border, as reported at the time by the NB Media Co-op. The National Post article stated that a “who’s who of vocal Canadian anti-Israel activists are now begging Ottawa for help,” after some activists requested assistance from Canada’s Egyptian embassy.

The article referenced Houlahan and his activism in New Brunswick. The biology professor was a key player in the establishment of an “encampment” at the UNB Saint John campus in 2024, part of a larger student-led movement against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, which has been widely condemned as a genocide.

Unlike at universities in some major cities, activists in Saint John didn’t attempt to remain on-campus overnight. However, UNB security told activists that tents were banned as part of “expectations for a peaceful protest.” In May 2024, when activists pitched a tent to stay dry during rainy weather, security issued trespass notices to Houlahan and doctoral student Sarah Durham.

Activists called it a crackdown on public demonstrations, noting that the provincial Trespass Act specifically allows for “peaceful public demonstration” at universities.

The newly-published correction states that UNB formally withdrew the trespass notice and acknowledged the right to peaceful demonstration, following a grievance by the Association of UNB Teachers (AUNBT), the union representing professors, instructors, and librarians at the university.

Documents reviewed by the NB Media Co-op confirm that the university, the union, and Houlahan signed an agreement in July 2024 rendering the trespass notice “null and void” and formally acknowledging the right to demonstrate. “You and your colleagues are within your rights to continue to engage in the peaceful demonstration on the UNB Saint John campus, as you have been,” a letter signed by UNB provost and vice-president academic Petra Hauf states.

The university didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story, while AUNBT said in an email that the union doesn’t comment publicly on grievances.

The correction goes on to state that journalist Tristin Hopper, editor-in-chief Rob Roberts, the National Post, and its parent company, Postmedia Inc., “acknowledge that the false assertion was defamatory and could have damaged Jeff Houlahan’s personal and professional reputation.”

It concludes by noting that the defendants “did not respond” to Houlahan’s concerns until he threatened them with a defamation lawsuit.

The professor reached out to Hopper and Roberts multiple times over the course of a week to request a correction, before finally informing them that he’d decided to proceed with legal action, according to emails reviewed by the NB Media Co-op.

The article implied that his activism was illegal, and that he was behaving like a scofflaw, he said in one of those emails.

That corresponds with a larger narrative put forward by Hopper and the National Post, that pro-Palestinian activists “are breaking the law and Canada is not doing anything about it,” he said in an interview.

The story shows that people should think twice about what they read in the National Post, he said.

“It is clear to me that the National Post has a narrative they want to deliver and, at least in my case, they had to lie to deliver it,” Houlahan said.

Hopper, Roberts, and other senior editorial staff at the National Post didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

It’s not the first time that the National Post has been criticized for its editorial integrity when it comes to the Israel/Palestine question.

An analysis of nearly 200 news articles published between Oct. 9, 2023 and Sept. 18, 2024 found that the National Post systematically rewrote Canadian Press wire stories to slant the coverage in Israel’s favour, according to an article about the study published by The Breach.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), one of the organizations behind that analysis, has documented what it calls “an alarming pattern of negative media bias pertaining to coverage of Palestinians and their supporters in Canada.”

The CJPME found in a 2023 analysis that the National Post was “by far the largest media purveyor” of anti-Palestinian racism in Canada, the organization said in a report to a House of Commons committee earlier this year.

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, via the Local Journalism Initiative.