Attorney General Arthur Wishart today declared that the Canadian Province of Ortario is powerless under law to stem the mailing of hate literature in the province. He said that his department has examined every example of such literature brought to its notice in the past year, and found no case in which it could prosecute with any reasonable hope of success.
The attorney general made the statement as he thumbed through a two-inch pile of pamphlets and letters, mainly attacking Jews, Negroes and persons labeled Communists. They included material cursing Jews and threatening to exterminate the whole Jewish race, and an attack on Abraham Feinberg, rabbi emeritus at Holy Blossom Temple, written by a 20-year-old Scarboro youth, David Stanley. The writers of such literature, the attorney general said in an interview, undoubtedly are aware that they cannot be touched by the law.
Ontario was willing and anxious to initiate prosecutions that could be successful, Mr. Wishart said. However, he pointed out that he could see no way in which the province could bring in its own legislation to stop the hate mongers. Although it was felt that the existing hate literature was not obscene within the meaning of the Criminal Code, he viewed it as criminal in its intent, in that it was “obscene, in my thinking, dirty.”
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