North Bay, Ont., man guilty of hate crimes for antisemitic posts, jailed for 9 months

A North Bay man, Kenneth Paulin, has received a precedent-setting nine-month jail sentence for wilfully promoting hatred against Jewish people online.

A 51-year-old man from North Bay, Ont., has been found guilty of hate crimes for anti-Semitic propaganda he posted on social media.

Kenneth Paulin was charged June 20 following a seven-month probe by criminal investigators with the North Bay Police Service.

The investigation began after police received “reports of concern regarding the online content being produced by the accused,” police said in a news release at the time.

“A lengthy investigation was undertaken during which multiple warrants were executed to further the investigation. A request was submitted to the Attorney General of Ontario seeking approval for the formal charges of wilful promotion of hatred and wilful promotion of antisemitism.”

Nine-month sentence

In a news release Wednesday, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in Toronto said the case is the first time in Canada someone has received jail time for denying the Holocaust.

On Sept. 18, Paulin was sentenced to nine months in jail and two years of probation “for the wilful promotion of hate against Jewish people and the wilful promotion of antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust,” the centre said.

“His posts vilified the Jewish community, promoted blood libels and conspiracy theories, incited hate and violence against Jews and repeatedly mocked and denied the Holocaust,” the release said.

The posts repeated many of the false conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism, including that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War didn’t really happen.

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, the centre’s senior director of policy and advocacy, submitted a community impact statement to the court in August, calling Paulin’s content “an orchestrated effort to spread hatred, to normalize antisemitism and to encourage others to view Jews as enemies to be mocked, hunted and destroyed.”

“The vile antisemitism we are confronting today has inflicted deep and lasting harm on Jewish Canadians, the minority group most frequently targeted by hate crimes in this country,” Kirzner-Roberts said in a statement released Wednesday.

“But it’s important to note that such hatred does not end with Jews – it corrodes our democracy, emboldens extremists and threatens the values that hold Canada together.”

“We are grateful to police, the Attorney General and Crown prosecutors for ensuring this precedent-setting case was pursued with the seriousness it deserves,” she added.

“We are also pleased that a jail sentence has been handed down, not only for the incitement of hatred against Jews, but also for the denial and glorification of the Holocaust. By standing firmly against such hateful rhetoric, this ruling affirms that every Canadian deserves to live with dignity, safety and freedom, free from intimidation, dehumanization and fear.”