Let’s see, Ontario’s eccentric courts say I can’t refer to Richard Warman as the “high priest of censorship.” So, okay, this meddling lawyer, ensconced doing something or other in the Department of National Defence, doesn’t want Torontonians to be able to receive a community tabloid entitled Your Ward News through the mail. The politically correct long ago ceased debating with those who have a problem with the homosexual agenda, multiculturalism or the self-serving Hollyweird version of WW II. Disagree with them and they want to gag you and shut you down.
Local leftists, including sometime Liberal Party backroom boy Warren Kinsella, have been gunning for Your Ward News for over a year. the Main Street offices of the tabloid have had their windows smashed numerous times by the apostles of “tolerance” and “inclusion”. Then, about a year ago, the critics flipped out and tried to pressure Canada Post not to deliver the satirical tabloid. Some posties from the notoriously leftist Postal Workers Union, which for years has has a significant contingent of Maoists, threatened they would not deliver it. The complain that it is “hate” Even under Canada’s notorious “hate” law, the accused must still be afforded a trial before his writings can be declared hate.
In a healthier society, the critics would be urged to write a letter-to-the-editor, start a paper of their own, or, if they are offended beyond all endurance when Your Ward News arrives in the mail, they can simply toss it into the Blue Box for recycling. However, we live in a mean, Puritanical society assailed by domineering followers of political correctness who want to gag all dissent from their agenda.
So, along comes Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman. Your Ward News is delivered in the eastern part of Toronto. Almost certainly Mr. Warman didn’t find an unwanted copy delivered by the mailman. So, in the normal scheme of things, what’s it to him?
Anyway, he’s taken to letter writing to try to pressure Canada Post into not delivering Your Ward Newsbecause some of its views and irreverence don’t please Warman’s Ottawa sensitivities.
National Observer (March 8, 2016), an online news commentary, reports: “A prominent Ottawa human rights lawyer is after Canada Post to drop distribution of a newsletter that he says contains misogynist, homophobic, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hate propaganda.
Richard Warman wrote Public Works Minister Judy Foote and Canada Post president Deepak Chopra in early March to ask for a halt to the postal distribution of a Toronto publication called Your Ward News.
Warman told National Observer that the newsletter was something he was aware of that was floating around the Toronto area.
“It had sort of a bad smell. When I finally had the chance to look at it closely, I was shocked to see the kind of bigotry that was being disseminated through Canada Post.”
In an email response to National Observer Tuesday, Foote said, “I have reviewed some of the material in question and I too find it highly offensive and well outside the norm of Canadian values. I have reached out to my colleagues to determine the best way forward in addressing this issue.
“This includes whether the material constitutes an offense under the Criminal Code.”
Your Ward News claims distribution of 300,000 and a readership of one million within Toronto. Canada Post delivers the publication unwrapped, meaning anyone is able to see the content.
The most recent issue of the quarterly publication (it was previously monthly) shows on its cover a bizarre collage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau surrounded by women in bikinis. Beside him, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne waves a gay pride flag.
Two men are depicted on crosses, one of them clearly meant to be Christ; the other sprays blood on former advisor to Jean Chretien, Warren Kinsella, and in a word balloon says, “See you in hell, Kinsella!”
The entire spectacle is headlined “Marxist Lackeys Attack.”
Inside, the paper contains a number of racist slurs directed mostly against Jews and Muslims. The back page invites people to attend “The 1st Annual Old-Fashioned Toronto Anti-Marxist Book-Burning.”
The purported ad states that among books welcome to be burned are “FemiMarxist garbage by authors like Margaret Atwood; EnviroMarxist Agenda 21 propaganda by scientific sellouts like David Suzuki, etc.” ….
“In his letter, Warman tells Canada Post that he is concerned the Crown corporation’s distribution of the newsletter might constitute a breach of the Canadian Human Rights Act as the agency is “party to the dissemination of discriminatory material to the general public.”
Warman warns the Crown corporation that if it persists in distribution of the paper, “I will pursue the matter accordingly,” and cites, among other things, an example of defamatory libel in the newsletter against Warren and Lisa Kinsella.” …. [Actually, Your Ward News is a tabloid newspaper, not a newsletter.]
“While Warman’s letter is the most recent attempt to have Canada Post stop delivery of Your Ward News, it’s not the first time.
In May 2015, Arthur Potts, the Ontario MPP for Toronto’s Beaches-East York riding sent a letter to Canada Post’s Chopra asking the Crown corporation to reconsider its delivery of the newsletter.
In his letter, Potts noted that Toronto’s Hate Crimes Unit was probing a complaint about the then-current issue of Your Ward News, which featured “several offensive and anti-Semitic articles and caricatures.”
The Toronto Hate Crimes Unit could not be reached for comment. It’s not known whether the paper is still under investigation at this time.
Potts wrote that he was not only deeply concerned by the paper’s content and his constituents’ complaints, but added the fact that Canada Post delivered the paper, despite repeated complaints, “suggests that the Crown corporation may endorse its content.”
Canada Post did not respond to National Observer’s queries. The Crown corporation operates at arm’s-length from the government.
Megan Whitfield, the president of the Toronto Local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, told National Observer that a number of postal workers have complained about having to deliver the publication.
However, Whitfield said Canada Post has threatened to discipline any workers who refuse to carry the newsletter.
“Both on the cover and inside they’ve had some very offensive material,” Whitfield said of the publication. At the very least the Toronto Local wants to see the publication shrink-wrapped in dark plastic so that the contents can’t be seen in the mail.
Of Canada Post, Whitfield said: “They just continue to allow it to go through.”
