What is the difference between defamation and injurious falsehood in Ontario?

Injurious falsehood and defamation are related but distinct claims. Defamation protects your reputation - it addresses a false statement that damages how others think of you, personally or professionally. Injurious falsehood instead protects your economic interests, addressing false statements about your property, products, or business, for example falsely claiming a company's product is defective or that a business has closed down, that cause you specific financial loss, even where the statement does not necessarily damage your personal reputation in the traditional defamation sense.

A key practical difference is that injurious falsehood generally requires the plaintiff to prove actual financial loss caused by the false statement, along with proof that the defendant acted with malice, whereas ordinary defamation typically presumes damage once the core elements are shown and does not require proving malice as part of the basic claim itself. Because the elements and the burden of proof differ meaningfully between the two, correctly identifying which claim actually fits the facts matters a great deal before pursuing either one.