ZOG: hate charges filed against Toronto's Your Ward News

After years of controversy, the editor and publisher of Your Ward News, a Toronto publication often described as a “hate rag”, have been charged with criminal offences by Ontario’s attorney general for wilfully promoting hatred against identifiable groups.

Both were charged with two counts each of wilful promotion of hatred under the Criminal Code, with one count for the targeting of women and another for the targeting of Jews.

“I think the government is sending a very strong message that it will not stand by and watch the wilful promotion hatred against identifiable groups and in this case specifically against women and Jews,” says Lisa Kinsella. She and her husband Warren Kinsella are founding members of a citizen’s group, Standing Together Against Mailing Prejudice (STAMP), that has campaigned against the publication.

It was the first time in Canada’s history that someone has been prosecuted for promoting hatred against women specifically, she added.

The charges are the latest blow to efforts by James Sears and Laurence St. Germaine, editor and publisher, respectively, of Your Ward News, to continue publishing their pamphlet. The publication was known for portraying Jews as dogs, glorifying Hitler and describing itself as “world’s largest anti-marxist publication.” The two were arrested this morning.

Back in June 2016, Sears had been subject to a prohibitory order on behalf of then-Public Services Minister Judy Foote that barred him from sending mail, ostensibly to prevent him from sending out his pamphlet.

The order is a rarely invoked one. The last time it was used was in 1981, when the federal government moved to ban a publishing company owned by Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel from also using Canada Post to distribute his material.

Back in March, their defence lawyer, Frank Addario, criticized the move, saying, “There’s a lot of crap in the mail and it is not a crime in Canada to publish or distribute defiant or even odious ideas in writing. It is a crime to distribute hate propaganda or defamatory libel.”

The attorney general’s approval of criminal charges means that the two are now accused of having done precisely that.

“Hate propaganda is not free speech, it’s hate propaganda,” says Kinsella. “So anyone who argues that they have the right to say anything is not well educated on Canadian law. Free speech comes with great responsibility.”

The Kinsella’s campaign against Sears and St. Germaine took a personal turn during the summer of 2017, when Sears wrote “chance that some hothead who cares deeply about me… would lose it and do something illegal like bludgeon the Kinsella’s to death.”

Those remarks let to the Kinsella’s pursuing private prosecution for uttering threats. “They were inciting others to hurt my family. And we did not want to stand by and allow that to happen,” says Kinsella. “So we went to the justice of the peace and presented our arguments for why James Sears and Leroy St. Germaine should be held accountable for these statements and the crown agreed.”

Kinsella said she has also launched another libel suit against the pair for remarks they made with regards to women, girls and sexual assault.

Both court cases are currently ongoing.

“In a multicultural and inclusive province like Ontario, the promotion of hatred stands in direct opposition to our fundamental values of equality and diversity,” said Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi in an emailed statement to Yahoo! Canada News. “Hate divides people and communities. Hate crimes are, by their very nature, serious offences because their impacts can be devastating, spreading from the individual, through the social fabric of our communities as a whole.”

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Toronto could welcome almost 170,000 immigrants over the next 3 years — are we ready?

Nearly one million immigrants will be coming to Canada over the next three years, and tens of thousands of them will wind up in Toronto — but is the city ready for an influx of newcomers?

On the heels of the Liberal government's newly-announced strategy to boost immigration levels in the years ahead, Toronto immigration experts are raising questions about whether there is adequate support for the rising tide of economic migrants, family reunifications and refugees, in a city where both stable work and housing can be hard to find.

"The rate of unemployment for racialized immigrant women is very, very high," says Catherine McNeely, the executive director of Newcomer Women's Services, a non-profit settlement organization.

The latest census data shows more than 55 per cent of visible minority residents in Toronto are living on less than $30,000 a year, she adds.

"When they do get work, it's minimum wage, it's precarious, it's shift work," she says. "We serve a huge number of women who live just north of the Danforth, where ... 57 per cent of the households have incomes under $40,000."

Margaret Eaton agrees. As executive director of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, she stresses how most immigrants are highly educated, yet an economic divide persists.

Employers, she says, need to step up and give newcomers a shot. "The heads of these big corporations have to cascade down that message to their hiring managers, and then you have to hire someone."

No. of immigrants climbing to 340,000 in 2020

And that pool of potential workers could grow quickly, thanks to the plan announced on Nov. 1.

Dubbed "the most ambitious" plan in recent history by Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, it means the number of immigrants coming to Canada will climb to 310,000 in 2018, up from 300,000 this year.

That number will rise again to 330,000 in 2019 — then 340,000 in 2020.

Coun. Jim Karygiannis, who represents Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt, praised the Liberals' plan and said previous governments haven't been "courageous" enough to move in that direction. He also says more people in Toronto means more support is needed.

"We need to get ready for them," Karygiannis explains. "We need to make sure our schools are prepared because a lot of the kids coming in do not speak English. We need to make sure we have services."

It's crucial in Toronto specifically, a city which has typically been a "huge magnet" for people coming from abroad, Eaton says.

Hussen says the government plans to prioritize integration of immigrants, ensuring they have access to the resources they require to thrive.

"The supports are there, and they will continue to be there and we are working very closely to the industry," he said.

Toronto home to 17% of recent immigrants

The 2016 census showed the city was home to more than 17 per cent of all recent immigrants to Canada, even though less than eight per cent of the country's population lives in Toronto.

If that trend continued, the city would be welcoming more than 50,000 immigrants in 2018 alone, and  nearly 170,000 over the next three years.

But as the city continues to struggle with affordable housing, one expert says it might not be a diaspora destination in the years ahead.

Diane Dyson, director of research and public policy at WoodGreen community services, says many of the recent Syrian refugees, for instance, wound up settling elsewhere in the GTA.

"A lot of them arrived in Toronto, were sponsored in Toronto, but they moved outside the city boundaries," she says, to places like Mississauga and Markham where housing is more affordable.

Still, the flow of newcomers might shrink, but it certainly won't slow to a trickle.

"If immigrants are going to come to Toronto and have success, they must be supported," says Eaton.

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