Editor guilty of promoting hate seeks to stave off jail term

TORONTO — A publication found to have been filled with hatred against women and Jews was a valuable relief valve for men prone to violence, its convicted editor told his sentencing hearing on Friday.

In a statement to the judge as he sought to stave off a jail sentence, James Sears argued Your Ward News gave hope to the otherwise voiceless.

“I’m approached on a regular basis by angry men, and sometimes women, that Your Ward News gave them a voice when no one else would,” Sears told Ontario court Judge Richard Blouin. “Several men have told me that, because of our publication, they did not commit violence.”

Sears, who had wanted to deliver a 62-page “allocution” to the court but restricted himself to about 20 minutes, thanked supporters in the packed courtroom, including one woman he said had flown from Japan to be there.

He warned Blouin against shutting down the free flow of political and religious ideas.

“We’re just trying to open a discussion,” Sears said. “His honour cannot take one side of a religious debate or one side of a political debate.”

Sears, 55, and publisher LeRoy St. Germaine, 74, were found guilty in January of two counts of promoting hatred against women and Jews for the contents of 22 issues of Your Ward News, which has a circulation of 300,000 in the Toronto area and beyond, as well as an online presence.

Among other things, the publication depicted in words and imagery vile stereotypes of Jewish people, denied the Holocaust, said women are inferior to men, and that they bring rape on themselves.

The Crown called for the maximum six months jail term for each offence to be served consecutively — one year behind bars — plus three years probation during which Sears would be prohibited from publishing any kind of written material.

The defence argued a fourmonth conditional sentence would be appropriate.

Blouin said he would sentence Sears on May 31.

In her submissions, Crown lawyer Erica Whitford cited several victim-impact and community-impact statements.

“By delivering Your Ward News to our door, they were saying there was nowhere to feel safe,” Whitford cited one Jewish resident as saying.

Hate speech, Whitford said, “strikes at the heart of Canadian values.”