Dear Ms. Gamble;
Earlier today, I appeared before Mr. Justice James Ramsey of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario to deliver the attached Community Impact Statement on behalf of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF), of which I am Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors. I was joined by Richard Robertson, Director of Research and Advocacy at B'nai Brith Canada, and by Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies.
Each of them also delivered Community Impact Statements on behalf of their organizations. Additional Community Impact Statements from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and from Rabbi Stephen Wise of Congregation Shaarei Beth-El in Oakville were read out in court by the Crown Attorney.
Nate Leipciger, a Jewish Canadian survivor of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, delivered a personal victim impact statement.
The sentencing hearing ended with Mr. Bory being sentenced to 23 months' time served, after taking into account the standard time-and-a-half credit for pre-trial custody.
I was disappointed in the result, given that the Crown had asked for the maximum sentence of five years imprisonment for the offence of advocating genocide, concurrent with two years for inciting hatred, plus consecutive sentences of one year each for two counts of uttering threats, for a total of seven years.
Typically, a maximum sentence is imposed for the worst cases involving the worst offenders. Mr. Bory's crimes, which consisted of multiple incidents including repeated threats of death, coupled with his extensive collection of firearms, certainly put him close to that category.
In my view, the maximum penalty of five years for advocating genocide is too low; it ought to be seven years or ten years.
The main point of my statement is that Jewish Canadians have, and must be accorded full civic equality under the law. Leslie Bory's crimes must be taken by our justice system with the same gravity as if they were committed against any other community -- Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, etc.
Given the seriousness of Mr. Bory's crimes, and their effect on the Jewish community, particularly Holocaust survivors, I walked out of the courthouse feeling that the Jewish Community in Canada didn't receive that full measure of equality.
Michael Teper
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