Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Holocaust-Denying Canadian Journalist Sentenced To Prison

MONTREAL (JTA) — A Canadian editor was handed one-year prison sentence for promoting hatred against Jews and women in his publication.

James Sears, editor of the quarterly Your Ward News in Toronto, was sentenced Thursday to two six-month terms by Judge Richard Blouin of the Ontario Court of Justice.

The publication promoted Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic blood libel claims and published columns justifying rape. It also contained racist, Islamophobic and homophobic messages.

In 2016, the minister in charge of Canada’s postal service banned Your Ward News from being distributed by mail.

Noah Shack, vice president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, hailed the conviction as a “moment of justice for the thousands of women and Jewish community members…who have been impacted by the toxic hate-mongering of Your Ward News.”

B’nai Brith Canada also praised Sears’ conviction. CEO Michal Mostyn said it sent a “clear message — that repeated and remorseless attempts to spread hate in Canadian society will not be tolerated.”

The publication’s publisher, LeRoy St. Germaine, is to be sentenced Aug. 29, The Canadian Jewish News reported.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.