In July 2025, the Ontario College of Teachers revoked the certificate of a retired teacher who had posted a series of hateful statements on Twitter, statements made years after she left the classroom, on a personal account, in her own time.
She thought none of that mattered. She was wrong on every count.
Ontario College of Teachers v Caranfa, 2025 ONOCT 41 is worth reading carefully if you hold any kind of professional licence in Ontario. Not because the content of the posts is in any way ambiguous, it isn’t, but because of what the decision confirms about how regulators treat online conduct, who they have jurisdiction over, and what defences do and don’t work.
Your licence doesn’t clock out
Fernanda Caranfa was not an active teacher when she made the posts but she remained a member of the College. Her certificate was in Inactive/Non-Practising status, and she identified herself on Twitter as a “retired teacher,” apparently believing that her retirement, combined with her personal account and her personal opinions, put her outside the College’s reach.
The panel disagreed. Under the Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1996, S.O. 1996, c. 12, anyone who holds or has held a certificate remains subject to the College’s jurisdiction for any period during which they held it. Inactive status changes your fee obligations, but it does not change your accountability. This principle is not unique to teachers, as most professional regulatory statutes in Ontario contain equivalent provisions. If you hold a certificate, a licence, or a registration, whether active, inactive, or otherwise, your regulator can still pursue you for conduct that occurred while you held it. Retirement is not a shield.
Your personal account is not a private space
Caranfa’s posts were on a public Twitter account, and a member of the public saw them, recognized her as a teacher, and filed a complaint with the College. The College’s investigator viewed the account directly, and screenshots were entered into evidence. There was no hacking, no leaking, and no breach of any platform’s terms. The posts were simply there, visible to anyone, including anyone who might connect them to her profession.
This is the reality of public social media: the label “personal account” has no regulatory significance. What matters is whether a reasonable person could connect the content to you as a member of a regulated profession, and in the age of real names, profile bios, and professional identifiers, that bar is not a high one.
“Free speech” is not a defence to a discipline proceeding
When the College contacted Caranfa, she responded that her posts were protected by freedom of speech, declined to attend her hearings, and told the College to stop contacting her. The panel addressed the Charter argument directly, confirming that regulated professionals do not lose their right to freedom of expression, but that they accept, as a condition of holding a licence, that this right can be lawfully limited by their regulatory body’s mandate to protect the public. Hate speech, the panel noted, sits at some distance from the values that freedom of expression is meant to protect, and attracts very little weight in the balancing exercise.
The free speech argument also did not help Caranfa procedurally. Her decision to assert it in correspondence rather than participate in the process meant that the email she wrote to defend herself became one of the most damaging exhibits in the case against her.
What this means for licensed professionals
The underlying principles of this decision apply any time a regulated professional’s online conduct attracts a complaint: jurisdiction is broad, the public/private distinction is thin, and Charter arguments require more than a passing reference to free speech to succeed in a discipline proceeding.
If you are facing a regulatory complaint arising from something you posted, said, or shared online, the time to engage with the process and with experienced regulatory defence counsel is early, because the cost of non-participation, as Caranfa discovered, is almost always higher than the cost of showing up.
FAQ
1. I’m retired and no longer practising. Can my regulator still investigate me for something I posted online?
Yes. Most professional regulatory statutes in Ontario, including the Ontario College of Teachers Act, provide that a person who holds or has held a certificate or licence remains subject to the regulator’s jurisdiction for conduct that occurred while they held it. Retiring or moving to inactive status changes your fee obligations, but it does not end your accountability. If the conduct happened while your certificate was active, your regulator can pursue it.
2. I posted something on a personal account that has nothing to do with my work. Is that still considered professional conduct?
It can be. Regulators across professions take the position that members are expected to maintain professional standards in both their professional and personal lives. What matters is not where you posted or whether you were acting in your professional capacity at the time, but whether the conduct would reasonably be regarded as reflecting on your fitness to hold a licence or on the reputation of your profession. A personal account on a public platform is still public.
3. Doesn’t freedom of speech protect what I post on my own social media?
Freedom of expression is a Charter-protected right, but it is not absolute, and it does not override a regulator’s mandate to protect the public interest. When you join a regulated profession, you accept obligations that can lawfully limit how you exercise that right. Raising free speech in correspondence with your regulator, without legal advice and without engaging in the process, is unlikely to resolve the matter in your favour and may, as happened in Caranfa, make things significantly worse.
4. What if I delete the posts before the regulator sees them?
Deletion does not undo the conduct. In Caranfa, the College’s investigator had already viewed and screenshotted the account before it was deleted, and those screenshots were entered into evidence. Members of the public who file complaints routinely preserve copies of what they saw. By the time you are aware of a complaint, the evidence is very likely already in someone else’s hands.
5. What should I do if I receive a complaint related to something I posted online?
The most important thing is to engage with the process early and with proper legal advice. Non-participation, as Caranfa illustrates, does not make a complaint go away, and it tends to compound the consequences significantly. A regulatory defence lawyer can help you understand the strength of the complaint, your obligations during the investigation, and how to respond in a way that protects your interests rather than inadvertently undermining them.
This commentary is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Contact Tamir Litigation Law Firm today at 416-499-1676 or visit tamirlitigation.com to learn how you can protect your licence and your reputation. You can also message us on WhatsApp for a free initial chat.