After years of controversy, the editor and publisher of Your Ward News, a Toronto publication often described as a “hate rag”, have been charged with criminal offences by Ontario’s attorney general for wilfully promoting hatred against identifiable groups.

Both were charged with two counts each of wilful promotion of hatred under the Criminal Code, with one count for the targeting of women and another for the targeting of Jews.

“I think the government is sending a very strong message that it will not stand by and watch the wilful promotion hatred against identifiable groups and in this case specifically against women and Jews,” says Lisa Kinsella. She and her husband Warren Kinsella are founding members of a citizen’s group, Standing Together Against Mailing Prejudice (STAMP), that has campaigned against the publication.

It was the first time in Canada’s history that someone has been prosecuted for promoting hatred against women specifically, she added.

The charges are the latest blow to efforts by James Sears and Laurence St. Germaine, editor and publisher, respectively, of Your Ward News, to continue publishing their pamphlet. The publication was known for portraying Jews as dogs, glorifying Hitler and describing itself as “world’s largest anti-marxist publication.” The two were arrested this morning.

Back in June 2016, Sears had been subject to a prohibitory order on behalf of then-Public Services Minister Judy Foote that barred him from sending mail, ostensibly to prevent him from sending out his pamphlet.

The order is a rarely invoked one. The last time it was used was in 1981, when the federal government moved to ban a publishing company owned by Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel from also using Canada Post to distribute his material.

Back in March, their defence lawyer, Frank Addario, criticized the move, saying, “There’s a lot of crap in the mail and it is not a crime in Canada to publish or distribute defiant or even odious ideas in writing. It is a crime to distribute hate propaganda or defamatory libel.”

The attorney general’s approval of criminal charges means that the two are now accused of having done precisely that.

“Hate propaganda is not free speech, it’s hate propaganda,” says Kinsella. “So anyone who argues that they have the right to say anything is not well educated on Canadian law. Free speech comes with great responsibility.”

The Kinsella’s campaign against Sears and St. Germaine took a personal turn during the summer of 2017, when Sears wrote “chance that some hothead who cares deeply about me… would lose it and do something illegal like bludgeon the Kinsella’s to death.”

Those remarks let to the Kinsella’s pursuing private prosecution for uttering threats. “They were inciting others to hurt my family. And we did not want to stand by and allow that to happen,” says Kinsella. “So we went to the justice of the peace and presented our arguments for why James Sears and Leroy St. Germaine should be held accountable for these statements and the crown agreed.”

Kinsella said she has also launched another libel suit against the pair for remarks they made with regards to women, girls and sexual assault.

Both court cases are currently ongoing.

“In a multicultural and inclusive province like Ontario, the promotion of hatred stands in direct opposition to our fundamental values of equality and diversity,” said Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi in an emailed statement to Yahoo! Canada News. “Hate divides people and communities. Hate crimes are, by their very nature, serious offences because their impacts can be devastating, spreading from the individual, through the social fabric of our communities as a whole.”