Everyone likes a little satire.
John Oliver is brilliant. The Onion and The Beaverton are great time-killers. Frank magazine in its heyday made for a few chuckles, and even the Church of the Subgenius was particularly creative writing.
But a free publication that has recently expanded its reach in eastern Toronto has begun ruffling the feathers of downtown Torontonians this week.
“I’m a little offended, a little scared,” one poster wrote on Reddit. “This really exists?”
Your Ward News, previously limited to Beaches and Scarborough households, now boasts a readership of “over one million” now that it is being delivered by Canada Post to 300,000 homes in eastern Toronto.
The spring edition’s cover features a Roman-themed melange of Justin Trudeau in a bikini swimsuit, Kathleen Wynne clasping a pride flag in her teeth and Arthur Potts with a Nazi-like Liberal armband.
The publisher of Your Ward News is Leroy St. Germaine, and the editor-in-chief is Dr. James Sears, who describes himself as a physician and former Canadian Armed Forces medical officer. The paper promotes the New Constitution Party, an unregistered neo-Nazi party apparently led by Sears.
“I strategically chose to expand into areas full of brainwashed lefties because they especially need our Christian Libertarian National Socialist gospel,” Sears wrote in an editor’s message. “We now have Toronto’s largest newspaper readership and remain the world’s largest anti-Marxist publication.”
What concerns some now receiving this paper is that it appears to push beyond the boundaries of satire into hatred.
Political consultant Warren Kinsella, who is skewered in the latest edition of Your Ward News, has previously pushed to stop the publication.
“My main concern is it’s racist, it’s homophobic, it’s misogynistic, it denies the Holocaust, it’s anti-Semitic,” Kinsella said. “It’s all of these terrible things and it’s landing in people’s mailboxes. And the people who are receiving it are not paying for it.”
And author Elisa Hategan called it “a hateful, xenophobic rag … put together by a network of nutcases and old Heritage Front members.”
But Sears disagrees with those labels.
“It has never been the intention of our satirical community newspaper to ‘promote hate’, and if Your Ward News did inadvertently ‘promote hate’, we would have been arrested by now,” he wrote in an email. “We love all people, and I especially love all of humanity so much, I want them to come to Jesus to be saved (especially my Jewish friends).”
And he dismisses any outrage over the paper’s content.
“The ‘backlash’ you speak of is from thin-skinned cultural Marxist parasites who cannot handle our Trump-like candidness,” Sears wrote.
The paper’s content even caught the eye of the Toronto Police hate crimes unit, after a complaint was filed, but the investigation was dropped.
So perhaps those offended by the Your Ward News’ take on free speech should just take the advice of one poster on Reddit:
“Toss it straight in the trash where it belongs.”
well they do have the right so long as they aren’t making a call to action. Even if its hateful its still protected under freedom of speech. Also if what they’re saying isn’t protected, how do we know what we say, which is not hateful is protected under free speech? But my guess this is mostly satire trying to ruffle feathers and in that case I’m going to grab some popcorn and watch the Marxists do what they do best attack freedom and make life miserable for everyone around them and fail it’ll be a good laugh.
“Frank magazine in its heyday made for a few chuckles…”
Huh?
Frank Magazine, with a capital M, no less, has been back and going strong for a number of years now.
Published in Ottawa as Frank Magazine National Edition..
Not to be confused with Halifax Frank, which is NO RELATION and mostly Halifax and then some more Halifax, all topped off with a side of Halifax. Zzzzzzz,
As a Frank Magazine Ottawa reader and subscriber of many years (save for the Dark Painful Days of the Fabrice “Febreeze” Taylor Era™, I can assure you that Frank Magazine Ottawa continues at a robust pace with the always-intriguing insider goods and new online content Monday to Friday. An interest not seen, dare I say, since the Deflower Caroline days? These are exciting and rapidly changing times in politics, media and publishing. Frank’s bi-weekly print and online editions are ripe with satirical hilarity as they continue their mission to “expose the guilty, provoke the greedy and mock the powerful.” There’s a whole new cast of characters since the Duffy scandal and the Trudeau majority so the fun is really just beginning!
Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself. If I remember correctly, I think they’ve got a great deal on the online/print combo right now: frankmag.ca / @frankmagonline / facebook.com/frankmagottawa
Also throwing some serious SIDE-EYE SHADE at the claim by Your Ward News that they have “a readership of “over one million” now that it is being delivered by Canada Post to 300,000 homes in eastern Toronto.” Clearly some sloppy fact-checking by CityNews. This publication, what ever it is, is NOT satire..Y’all need to Google that too!