‘It was all untrue’: Bear Clan founder feels vindicated after defamation settlement
The Bear Clan Patrol has settled a defamation lawsuit launched by its founder as the future of the non-profit community safety organization remains unclear.
Former executive director James Favel said the settlement — financial details of which he wouldn’t disclose — compensates him for being wrongly accused by the organization and its then-board chair.
“I didn’t want to sue them into dust… (but) a settlement for me was vindication,” Favel said Friday.
“I wanted to make sure it was on the public record that they settled with me. I sued for wrongful dismissal and defamation and they settled because they were wrong in what they did.
“It was all untrue.”
Favel, who co-founded the Bear Clan in 2014, launched the lawsuit in 2022, alleging board chair Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais had defamed him in a 2020 social media post, by calling him a slang word for a sex offender.
Robinson-Desjarlais, a former CTV and APTN newscaster and the daughter of former Manitoba cabinet minister Eric Robinson, did not comment on the matter saying in an email: “I wish I could speak to this.”
Her Facebook site indicates she now lives in Calgary.
Bear Clan executive director Kevin Walker did not respond to multiple messages Thursday and Friday.
Longtime community activist Sel Burrows called the situation tragic.
“We have lost one of the best crime prevention organizations,” Burrows said. “The tragedy is James Favel was the heart and soul of that organization and he was forced out on fake charges. The people who forced him out should be ashamed of themselves… Favel was an inspiration for many.”
The settlement, which was finalized in January, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench documents say, comes after the Bear Clan’s charitable status was revoked by the Canada Revenue Agency.
CRA spokesperson Sylvie Branch confirmed the organization lost its status on July 5, 2025, for failing to submit an annual information return. The return includes revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities of charitable organizations.
“When an organization has been revoked of its charitable status, amongst other consequences, it can no longer issue official donation receipts and no longer qualifies for an exemption from income tax as a registered charity,” Branch said in a statement.
The Bear Clan’s last filed return, in 2024, showed the organization had brought in $367,676 in revenue and had $275,104 in expenses, including $183,538 for salaries.
The form states the organization received $100,000 in government funding, while employing two staff earning between $40,000 and $79,999 and one receiving between $1 and $39,999.
In 2023, the organization reported its total revenue was $341,333 while expenses were $567,932. It also noted the organization was paying wages totalling $328,668 to five full-time employees and 11 part-time employees.
There was no government funding received in 2023.
A provincial spokesman said the province had a three-year, $100,000 per year, funding agreement with the Bear Clan that ended on March 31.
“No new agreement has been established and the province would assess any impacts related to the change in the organization’s charitable status in future funding decisions,” the spokesman said.
A statement on the Bear Clan’s Facebook site says the revocation of its charitable status “was the result of administrative filings not being completed on time.
“There has been no misuse of funds or wrongdoing.”
The statement goes on to say there is a new board in place working with “professional advisers” to pursue getting its charitable status reinstated.
“Despite recent administrative challenges, our commitment to the community has remained steady and patrols continue.”
As for Favel, he says he has moved on. He has since founded a successful business which helps Indigenous communities outside of the city deal with crises.
“I’m thankful the way things turned out because it improved my life dramatically — but the community suffered,” he said.
“All that we built is gone. The Bear Clan lost its charitable status. We used to have five offices on Selkirk Avenue and they’re all gone. Just everything I built was systematically disassembled brick by brick.”
Favel said the loss includes a food program that started with a couple of bags of apples and oranges and grew to 250 tonnes of produce, baked goods, dairy and meat given out each year.
“These people pushed me out, took it over, said they knew better, and then systematically destroyed something that took me six years to build and for what?” he said.
“It’s sad, it’s really sad.”