Harding was convicted in 1998 on federal hate-crimes charges stemming from a June 1997 incident in which he distributed pamphlets outside a public high school, Weston Collegiate Institute in Toronto. Harding \ufffd who said that until that point he spent most of his time evangelizing Muslims \ufffd was protesting the school's policy of setting aside a room for Muslim students to pray during school hours.
In one of his pamphlets, Harding listed atrocities committed by Muslims in foreign lands to back his assertion that Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.