What happens to legal costs if an anti-SLAPP motion succeeds or fails in Ontario?

Anti-SLAPP motions carry distinctive costs consequences compared to ordinary litigation, reflecting the legislature's intent to discourage lawsuits aimed at silencing public participation. Where the motion succeeds and the underlying claim is dismissed, the moving party, generally the original defendant, is typically positioned to recover a meaningfully fuller share of their legal costs than is usual in ordinary litigation, rather than the more limited partial-indemnity recovery typically awarded to a winning party in a standard proceeding.

Where the motion fails, the party who brought it can generally expect to pay the other side's costs, again often on a fuller basis than usual, reflecting the added burden the motion put the plaintiff through in responding to it. Courts do retain some discretion not to apply these enhanced costs outcomes where it would not be appropriate given the specific circumstances, so the exact result is not entirely automatic in every case, but a party bringing or defending against this kind of motion should generally expect the costs stakes to be meaningfully higher than in ordinary litigation.