Saturday, August 25, 2012

Continuing Our Heritage Front Project (And An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part XI)

We are still continuing our project of documenting the history of the Heritage Front by collecting photographs, letters, and hate propaganda from the period between 1989 and 1994 when the hate group was at it's peak, 1995 to 1999 when the group was in decline after Elisse Hategan testified against the leadership and Bristow had become known as a CSIS mole, and 2001 to 2005 when Marc Lemire attempted, and ultimately failed, to revive the hate group under his leadership. We are also eager to receive any other information that could be provided, be it related to the Heritage Front or any other Canadian hate group (we did receive some very interesting documents concerning the Western Guard not long ago).

Not long ago we received a parcel containing copies of "The HF Report" which was the Heritage Front journal that existed after "UpFront" was discontinued; the publication of "The HF Report" took place between 1997 and 1999. However, we should have looked closer, as we also found a copy of "UpFront" which we have already mentioned here on this blog in relation to our documentation of Marc Lemire's Heritage Front connection:





To see the larger images, click here, here, and here.

At the time this edition of, "UpFront" had been published, Marc Lemire was 20 years old.

What is it he told Ezra Levant, not once but twice, when Lemire was interviewed?
Uh, the Heritage Front uh, was active back in, uh, the the 90s and I was a young kid at the time. I had some, uh, interest in some of the things that they were doing in particularly thing like uh opposition to employment equity, things like reducing immigration. So I uh, listened to some of what they were about, and uh, I went away from it. I mean I was involved with them peripherally in my teenage years.
We had actually thought this was the earliest reference to Lemire as being a member of the Heritage Front, however he was also mentioned in the April 1995 edition of "UpFront" as well, Under the heading, "Racialism and the Electronic Highway":

The working name right now is `PatriotNet' and could be ready by the next issue! 
One such BBS which you can phone right now is the POLITICALLY INCORRECT Bulletin Board Service. To get there, you leave the Internet entirely and return to your computer and modem. You dial 416-467-4975. Then you are connected to the remote computer (reminder: if you call from outside the Toronto 416 area code, long-distance charges apply just as for `voice' telephone calls!) The first thing that you see is a series of questions asking for your name, address, phone number, a personal password, and other information (once you've done this, subsequent calls go a lot faster). Next you enter the Main screen and see the text message, "...This BBS is a forum for people to practice their right to Freedom of Speech, Thought and Expression without fear of censorship or harassment. We are proud to call ourselves `Politically Incorrect'!" From there you see a variety of comment screens that eventually guide you to the Main Menu. 
From the Main menu you can make choices. For example press a letter key to earn about Euro-hotlines that are open 24-hours a day in the Toronto area. Yet another tap on the keyboard lets you make comments to the Sysop, the person who operates the system. The most useful selection is the one that lets you view which files are available for downloading form the BBS to your own computer's memory. It is these files which are the most interesting aspect of the BBS. For example, you can download the latest issues of Up Front. 
Also, there are a variety of files that come from newspaper articles, other racialist, right-wing, revisionist and populist publications, as well as some pictures. It takes a few tries to learn how to use a BBS, but it's simple once you get the hang of it. You can also `View' the text files without even downloading them. But, keep in mind that you have a daily 70-minute limit. The Politically Incorrect BBS is Canada's first BBS that deals with immigration, government hypocrisy, and freedom of speech issues viewed from a `non-conventional' perspective. 
It was the creation of Christopher Saunders and Marc Lemire who went on-line in December of 1994. As of this writing, there were already over a thousand calls made to the BBS. About 51% of the phone calls came from the 416 area code and, interestingly, several calls came from outside of Canada. Typical or racialist groups, 77% of callers were male, 7% were female (16% did not specify). The group has accidentally gained publicity by `cross-postings' made by people who have dialled in to the BBS and then mentioned it in another interest group back on the Internet.
We are still gathering documents. If you have any that you have scanned, or if you have any old photos lying around gathering dust, please send us your scanned copies.

No comments: