YOUR WARD NEWS is a scrappy satirical newspaper with over 300,000 copies per issue which is published in the East End of Toronto. Its stiletto cartoons and articles target the politically correct like the radical environmentalists, Ontario’s free spending lesbian premier Wynne, local leftist politicians, Black Lives Matter, and two of its most determined critics, Liberal Party attack dog Warren Kinsella, and Ottawa lawyer, Richard Warman. The radical left has, over the past several years, done everything to shut them down. Their windows at their Main St. office have been broken repeatedly. There have been numerous complaints to the Toronto Police Service “hate squad” (the thought police) and there  is an ongoing investigation as to whether to charge them for publishing “hate” against privileged minorities. Complaints were made to Canada Post. The local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, at one point in 2015t, refused to deliver the papers because the “hate” was too hot for their prissy fingers. Then, Richard Warman, a champion complaint filer, complained  to the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Canada Post which continued to deliver the paper. Last June, Canada’s Newfie Minister of Supply and Procurement Judy Foote, took away editor Dr. James Sears’ mailing rights. That totalitarian move (yes, in Canada, not North Korea) is now being appealed.
The latest assault on the embattled tabloid, Canada’s most spirited satirical publication since the demise of Frank Magazine, came as York University hopped to it when B’nai Brith complained and promised to ban distribution of the tabloid on campus. A November 3 statement from B’nai Brith gloated: “York University has vowed to stop the circulation of Your Ward News – a publication deemed by various human rights groups as anti-semitic, racist and homophobic – after copies of it were widely distributed on York’s Keele campus.   A spokesperson at the York University President’s Office told B’nai Brith Canada that it ‘will take appropriate steps to ensure that this publication is not being distributed or delivered to locations on campus.’ B’nai Brith alerted the York administration after copies of Your Ward News were found on official newsstands scattered throughout the Keele campus, including the Lassonde School of Engineering and the Central Square Complex.”On so many levels, the York Administration’s decision is disappointing and pathetic. Even if YWN were “anti-semitic, racist and homophobic”, so what? These are terms of abuse by those who don’t like to be criticized. These are political points of view. A university should be a forum for discussion and debate about ideas not a politically correct indoctrination factory, as many White students say York has become. The lack of commitment of the university to freedom of the press or the marketplace of ideas is scandalous.

The B’nai Brith statement insists YWN ” ‘has no legitimacy as a news publication, there is no reason for it to be distributed on campuses,’ said Amanda Hohmann, National Director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights. ‘We are glad to see that York University has taken the appropriate step of removing it, and freeing up space to display legitimate publications of value for the student body.’” The arrogant thought police at B’nai Brith insist on determining who is a “legitimate” news publication. And, sadly, York University has bent to this outside pressure group. [However, exactly what “appropriate” (there’s that politically correct catch-all term) measures can be used to stop distribution on campus, no one seems to know.] I was recently interviewed as part of Global News’s smear attack on Evalion  (See  story above.) Interviewer Christina Stevens asked why it should be important to identify who is a Jew. Evalion did a video offering her thoughts on that issue. I said it was important as the Jewish lobby, as opposed to some individual Jews, regularly seeks to restrict the rights of other Canadians to talk. This being a case in point, You don’t hear of Italians or Icelanders lobbying for restrictions on free speech

As if to make my point, the B’nai Brith statement boasts:  “York University, which has a large Jewish student population, has been roiled by allegations of anti-semitism for years. In September, York dismissed lab technician Nikolaos Balaskas after B’nai Brith exposed his anti-semitic posts on social media.” So, after B’nai Brith went whining to the York Administration about the political views of one their employees, the poor wretch was promptly fired. This is not satirical but the chutzpah would be worthy of YWN‘s zany writers, B’nai Brith actually bills itself as practising “grass roots human rights advocacy”. Well, only if “human rights” does not include freedom of speech and freedom of the press. — Paul Fromm