Initial post [redacted]
Postal workers upset over having to deliver controversial newspaper
Thu, 2015-03-26 21:03
#1
Postal workers upset over having to deliver controversial newspaper
Thu, 2015-03-26 21:07
#2
Toronto letter carriers are being threatened with discipline if they refuse to deliver a controversial newspaper that slams politicians from across the political spectrum with profanity, the postal workers union says....
Your Ward News, produced as a community flyer by the New Constitution Party of Canada, slams a number of municipal, provincial and federal politicians by using profanity in some instances and calls former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau a “Neo-Nazi fascist, anti-Semite and Quebec separatist.”
Thu, 2015-03-26 21:22
#3
Interesting timing, considering the question of doctors wanting to be able to refuse to do their job for personal reasons.
Nothing in there about anyone making a human rights complaint about the flyers. That would seem to me to be a course that doesn't set quite such a bad precedent.
Thu, 2015-03-26 21:33
#4
They are also spectacularly stupid.
Thu, 2015-03-26 23:05
#5
No kidding.From that one page it is not the worst thing I have had turn up in my mailbox - that would be an anti-abortion pamphlet I got a few years back - but I can appreciate it would be a challenge to deliver something like that. I'd be embarrassed.
Sat, 2015-03-28 19:35
#6
Ah yes. "Dimitri the Lover" stirring up shit again.
I was going to put up a link to his site and thought better of it. Anyway, you all have google.
Sat, 2015-03-28 19:41
#7
I don't know if we can reasonably blame Dmitri for whatever comes of this.
If I'm not mistaken, he's mailed his little "newsletter" before, and probably just mailed it again.
Sun, 2015-03-29 05:08
#8
According to the article, the one worker objected to delivering the newsletter on "religious grounds".
I'm sorry, but if we allow that exemption, where does it end? "I can't deliver this left-wing magazine because they're pro-choice and I think abortion is a sin"?
Tue, 2016-06-07 16:40
#9
Canada Post ordered to stop delivering controversial Your Ward News
The federal government has ordered Canada Post to stop delivering Your Ward News, a low-budget, free newspaper that has offended homeowners in Toronto's east end and beyond.The newspaper, which is the brainchild of editor-in-chief James Sears, has been labelled anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi by several groups who have campaigned for years to get Canada Post to cease distributing it.
They got their wish Monday when the minister responsible for Canada Post, Judy Foote, issued what's known as a prohibitory order against the future delivery of the paper.
Interesting. I had always believed that Canada Post operated at arm's length from the government of the day.
This is pretty funny though:
Sears accused Foote of issuing the order to silence criticism of the government."We're the top paper that's critical of the Liberal Party in all of Canada," he said.
Seems the further out on the loopy fringe you go, the more convinced you become that the gov'mint is desparate to shut you down because you're exposing all of their uncomfortable truths.
Tue, 2016-06-07 19:25
#10
I looked at their website and it is a nasty right wing rag that deliberately tries to provoke. Sort of a Canadian version of Charlie Hebdo
Tue, 2016-06-07 20:01
#11
I wonder if Canada Post would deliver a Charlie Hebdo, if paid to?
Anyway, I still find this interesting because no matter how odious Dmitri or his little newsletter might be, it still sort of seems like this has less to do with hate speech, or the breaking of any laws, and more to do with "he's icky and we don't like him". I wouldn't mind seeing a more explicit rationale for this order, just to satisfy my curiousity.
Tue, 2016-06-07 22:36
#12
Here's background on "Dmitri" for those of us not living in Toronto:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sears
Wed, 2016-06-08 17:58
#13
It appears that the question to address is whether or not a postal worker can refuse to deliver mail because they object to the contents and/or who is receiving it.
Washington Postal Worker Won’t Deliver Mail to Marijuana Shops, Allegedly for Religious Reasons
Regardless of who’s doing the delivering, it should be obvious that the recipients’ occupation or personal views should have no bearing on whether they receive the mail, just as the contents of the packages are irrelevant. We often argue that pharmacists who disagree with birth control still have an obligation to fulfill those prescriptions, and postal workers must similarly do the job they’re being paid to do.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/06/08/washington-posta...
Wed, 2016-06-08 22:07
#14
Well, the Bible IS pretty clear about marijuana. :)
But it appears that postal workers, even as some objected, did continue to deliver YWN until ordered not to.
Thu, 2016-06-09 00:17
#15
Well, the Bible IS pretty clear about marijuana. :)
Sat, 2017-06-24 18:43
#16
Men behind 'hate-rag' newspaper charged with uttering threats
"...there was the chance that some hothead who cares deeply about me and my family, would lose it and do something illegal, like bludgeon the Kinsella's to death."
Whoopsie.