Crown says men promoted hate against women, Jews

Trial begins for pair behind Your Ward News

A free newspaper sent unasked to hundreds of thousands of people is filled with articles and imagery that promote hatred toward women and Jews, an Ontario court judge heard Wednesday.

At the opening of the trial of James Sears and LeRoy St. Ger- maine, the prosecution said Your Ward News makes statements about the two groups that are “vile and degrading in the extreme.”

“The defendants have tended to promote hatred against Jewish people and women,” prosecutor Robin Flumerfelt said.

Sears, 55, the editor-in-chief, and St. Germaine, 77, the publisher, pleaded not guilty to two counts each of wilfully promoting hatred against identifiable groups.

With a circulation of about 300,000, Your Ward News has drawn a barrage of complaints from recipients in and around Toronto and as far as Ottawa. The federal government temporarily barred Canada Post from distributing the publication in 2016 and recently made the ban permanent.

The publication, Flumerfelt said, demonizes feminists as “dangerous people” and calls women “tri-orificed chattels.” It claims women are inferior, are “natural liars with no sense of justice,” and that feminist behaviour encourages rape.

“Your Ward News describes rape as a social construct,” the prosecutor told Judge Richard Blouin. “It promotes the legalization of rape.”

Among the paper’s themes, the prosecution said, was that Jews were behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Holocaust was a myth invented by Jews to strengthen their control of the world.