Who’s posting anonymous hate on the streets of Toronto?
“Can I live with you,” Rene Highway asked.
I said, “Sure.”
Rene was on of the world’s great male dancers.
His brother Thomson is equally renowned.
The time Rene lived with me is a deeply cherished memory.
Through Rene I met and learned from many of the very best in the community indigenous to this land.
When he left to live with Micah Barnes I said, “It has been wonderful to live with you.”
One day Rene told me that he had gone out picking berries with some folks.
They were all being attacked by insects.
They asked Rene why the bugs were not attacking him.
Rene said to them, “Before I began to pick berries I told the insects I would leave them some.”
Rene Highway was the living embodiment of the best of our Indigenous culture.
He also embodied its wonderful wildness.
He was not bound by western conventions. Neither is Tomson.
Both men were and are Queer.
Tomson’s play Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing is filled with that wicked wildness.
I am writing this to make it clear that I have experienced the very best of what the people Indigenous to this land have to offer.
In John Neilhardt’s BLACK ELK SPEAKS Black Elk describes meeting Queen Victoria who said she felt the people Indigenous to this land to be the best on earth.
I’m with Victoria.
Not everyone is Jesus of Nazareth.
Some are Judas Iscariot.
This is true of all communities, all peoples.
James Fenimore Cooper in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS not only gives us Chingachgook and Uncas, but also the diabolical Magua.
On June 18, 2025 a man plead guilty to criminally harassing myself for decades.
A Toronto Councillor said, “I have seen those anonymous posters harassing you. They are hate. Why aren’t the police doing something?”
I replied, “The police are doing what they can. You do something.”
Councillor John Filion said to me, “I can’t help you against those hate posters. X’s office informed you there is nothing we can do.”
Neither statement is true.
X’s office did not inform me.
Yes, there is something the city can do.
When Adam Vaughan was a City Councillor his office did something. As a result Adam was anonymously slandered on the streets with posters stating: “WHY IS ADAM VAUGHAN SUPPORTING REG HARTT’S KIDDIE PORN THEATRE?”
The CITY OF TORONTO’S STREET POSTER BYLAWS are extremely well thought out. They are eminently fair: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/municode/1184_693.pdf
§ 693-5.3. Posters and community posters on kiosks and community posters on public utility poles, location and specific requirements.
Despite § 693-5.2A(15) and (16) (poster and community poster location requirements), a
poster or community poster may be placed on a kiosk and a community poster may be
placed on public utility pole located on a boulevard if the poster or the community poster
complies with the following requirements:
(1) No more than 22 centimetres by 28 centimetres (8.5 x 11 inches) in size;
(2) Consists only of lightweight cardboard or paper;
(3) Securely attached flush to the surface of the kiosk or public utility pole using only
staples or removable tape;
(4) Placed no higher than 2.0 metres above the ground;
(5) Includes the date of posting on the front of the poster or community poster;
(
6) Displayed for not more than the earlier of:
(a) 30 days; or
(b) Five days after the end of the advertised event, if any;
(7) Not more than one poster or community poster conveying essentially identical
information is posted on a single kiosk;
(8) Faces towards the property fronting on the highway and away from the portion of
the highway ordinarily used by vehicles;
(9) Includes valid contact information for at least one owner of the poster or community
poster; and
(10) Does not cover or overlap another poster or community poster.
The city has the tools.
What it seems to lack is the will to use them.
For the police to act they need absolute proof.
When, providentially, I was able to provide that proof the police acted.
On June 18, 2025 the man responsible for this plead guilty.
The reason I wrote of the Highway brothers at the start of this is that his lawyer stated to the court his client is a member of the Indigenous community.
Yes, he is but that has nothing to do with the matter.
I’m not going to provide the man’s name. That really is not the issue.
The issue is that from the year he started his street poster business (2000) and his used bicycle businesses that man has not only been unable to leave room for others he has covered up, torn up and pasted behind the flyers for his business the posters of myself and others.
He is the antithesis of the best of our Indigenous community.
To put it bluntly, he is the polar opposite.
This has nothing to do with his ethnic origin.
His lawyer told the court there is bitterness between his client (who is 60) and myself (who is 79).
Clearly his client has bitterness in his soul.
I do not.
So does this mean the attacks on myself as well as others stopped?
No, it does not. The attacks continue.
On August 13, 2025 the Judge rendered their verdict.
I refrained from making a victim impact statement. I did create one but I asked it not be presented to the court.
Why?
First, because I am a witness not a victim.
Secondly, because it would have no impact as when it would be presented would be after the Court had made its decision.
The man who has posted not hundreds, not thousands but rather hundreds of thousands of anonymous flyers designed with one purpose which to to incite violence upon their subjects (read THE GLOBE AND MAIL article below) got the lightest possible sentence: A one year PEACE BOND.
That means that after one year passes he can pick up where he left off.
Will he?
This man was arrested and charged in 2017. He was forbidden to post flyers related to myself for two years.
He stopped doing that.
He began posting flyers to promote his street poster and used bicycle businesses with my artwork.
When I told the authorities I was told, “He’s trying to get under your skin. Don’t let him.”
Then, after two years had passed the posters got murderous.
Right now the flyers I post for my programs as well as those others post for theirs are postered by his.
Often they are torn down, torn up and posted in clumps of confetti behind his.
By artwork is being repurposed to promote his businesses.
I expect that after a year passes the murderous posters will start going up once more.
Nonetheless, I am content with the verdict.
I agree with our Indigenous Elders.
Beating a person for doing wrong beats the wrongness in.
I told the police that only someone not in their right mind does things like this. I said, “This man needs help not punishment.”
His lawyer informed the court he is getting therapy.
Therapy means nothing is the person getting it refuses to act on it.
Unable to post slander I believe the man is now posting slanderous statements on my flyers and those of others.
Where did the police fall short?
They did not fall short.
As I told the City Councillor, the police are doing what they can.
They did what they could.
Did the Judge fall short?
No.
The Judge relies on the Crown.
The Crown dealt lightly with the murderer (the word is not too strong).
The Crown ignored the murdered.
For this is murder plain and simple.
Everything that can be done up to this moment has been done to destroy utterly not only myself but others.
His lawyer did his job. Not going to fault the lawyer.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL made it clear the statements on those posters are lies designed to incite, seemingly, violence upon their subjects.
The Crown, however, saw the murderous lies on those posters.
As a a result of the falling short of the Crown myself and the other targets of this hate are at risk.
What do I want?
I want The City of Toronto’s Street Poster Bylaws enforced.
That is not an unreasonable request.
It is too late to think of imposing upon this person the conditions the police imposed on him when he was arrested and charged.
It would have been a small thing to impose those conditions.
Our Justice System is not a just system.
It is just a system.
“You saved my life,” said Terry Ross (the first subject of these attacks and a former employee of the man posting these flyers) after I bought a video camera (my first) and then Mayor David Miller’s office acted to stop them : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6wuSoPjlc&t=2s .
To see the mountain of evidence the Crown turned a blind eye to contact myself.
For confirmation of everything I have stated above read Oliver Moore’s article printed in THE GLOBE AND MAIL in 2012.
Moore said when he called, “I’m new to Toronto. When I saw those posters targeting you I did research. I know the statements are false. I want to do a story.”
I said, “Then please include he other people who have been and are being attacked otherwise people will say this is a feud.”
I believe the man’s lawyer presented this to the Crown as a feud.
It is not.
At the moment a man who is the spiritual brother of Bruce McArthur has been allowed to get away with murder.
Is he going to stop?
He’s a serial slanderer.
He can’t stop.
He needs to be stopped.
I have done all I can do.
The police did all they can do.
It is time for THE CITY OF TORONTO to do what it is called to do.
Mayor Olivia Chow please do what Mayors Miller and Ford did.
Councillor Dianne Saxe please do what Councillor Adam Vaughan did.
Stand up. Speak up. Enforce the City’s Street Poster Bylaws.
Please work to get this serial killer (I don’t use the word lightly) somewhere where we will be safe from him.
Hell, even the man’s lawyer has a duty to protect the people.
He is, after all, an officer of the Court.
Thank you for listening.
Reg Hartt 2025–08–18.
https://reghartt.ca/cineforum/?p=22372
Toronto alternative-theatre founder stands up to bullying threats
The founder of a landmark alternative theatre in downtown Toronto is refusing to back down in the face of a poster-bullying campaign that seems designed to bring violence upon him and his associates.
Reg Hartt, who runs the Cineforum out of his Bathurst Street home, had decided earlier this week that it was too risky to stay open. Patrons keen to see Salò on Tuesday night were sent home disappointed and he said he planned to lie low for a while and then start angling for a new venue.
But by Friday he was determined to stand firm. He will screen a Jane Jacobs picture and a psychiatric hospital documentary tonight and is “rebooting” his film schedule. Among the movies he plans to show is the gay pornographic classic Boys in the Sand – the very picture an anonymous detractor cited on a downtown poster that was part of an attempt to smear Mr. Hartt.
“If he can do it to me he can do it to anyone,” he said during an interview in a tiny screening room decorated with old movie posters and paraphernalia.
“The only way I can deal with this is stand up and say, ‘here I am.’ If someone wants to let their emotions run rampant, if something happens, I’ll deal with it.”
His theatre and arts centre typically includes a rotating cast of house guests and creative types. It is known for its screenings of unusual movies, including uncensored animated films, as well as extemporaneous lectures from the founder.
The 22-year-old Cineforum almost fell victim to the latest salvoes in a barrage of vitriol on posters throughout the downtown, including attacks against Mr. Hartt, which come close to calling him a pedophile.
The poster campaigns range from overt incitements to violence – in one case offering $500 “to brutally break” the legs of a particular person – to more indirect threats. One person was labelled a police informant, alongside his photo. Another was accused of videotaping drug dealers, on a poster that said where he lived. One poster mimics others put up by Mr. Hartt, but adds a racial epithet. He believes it was designed to provoke attacks upon him.
One of the people targeted said that he was put in danger by the posters.
“I’m actually kind of scared,” said the man, who did not want to be named. “You got a lot of crack heads. They get all freaked out on that stuff and you never know what they’re going to do. I got to watch my back every day.”
The targets of some of these posters insist they know who is responsible, pointing to a local figure with whom they have soured business relationships. The person they accuse did not respond to several requests for comment.
In Mr. Hartt’s case, the attacks were a careful mixture of implication and accusation. Recently put up in various locations, including near schools, were a trio of posters headlined “ATTENTION PARENTS.”
The first poster mentions recent local child porn arrests. The second claims that Mr. Hartt has possessed and displayed material of “children in sexual situations” and says he watches local school kids walking home. That poster includes the bold-type phrase “BOYS BEWARE.” The third poster encourages people to contact politicians to shut down the theatre and asks those with “stories about Reg” to e-mail them. But the account is not active and the wording of the e-mail address is itself a smear.
Mr. Hartt acknowledges the danger he is in, noting that pedophilia is society’s great taboo, but said he is more worried about the posters that describe the videotaping of drug dealers. The man accused of that lives in the neighbourhood, putting the many people who drift through Cineforum at risk if retribution occurs.
“He was sending people to take us out,” Mr. Hartt said of whoever is putting up the posters.
He said he sees little relief in going to the police or taking a legal route, noting that the person he believes responsible has no money and would probably ignore a cease-and-desist order. And having thought about it through the week, he decided the venue was too important to shut down.
“This place is a combination of the academy of Athens, the factory of Andy Warhol, the salon of Gertrude Stein and the original Paris Cinémathèque of Henri Langlois,” he said. “This place means a lot to a lot of people, even if it means nothing to most of Toronto.”
Rene Highway
https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/highway_r.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Highway
Thomson Highway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomson_Highway
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/highway-tomson
https://broadview.org/tomson-highway-interview/
This Dexter (David Peter Allen) speaking about what he witnessed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWdWntiH-ts
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