Can I be sued for defamation just for repeating or sharing someone else's statement in Ontario?

Yes. Ontario law generally treats repeating, sharing, or republishing someone else's defamatory statement as its own separate act of publication, meaning you can be sued for defamation for passing along a statement even if you did not originally create it, and even if you attributed it clearly to the original source. The reasoning is that repeating a defamatory statement gives it a fresh audience and can independently harm the subject's reputation all over again, regardless of who actually said it first.

Certain limited protections can apply depending on the context - for example, some forms of privilege may protect fair, accurate reporting of official proceedings - but simply saying someone else said this, or sharing a post without endorsing it, generally does not provide automatic protection on its own. This is a common misconception, particularly around sharing social media content, where people often assume that not being the original author removes their legal exposure entirely, when in most circumstances it genuinely does not.