Sunday, September 03, 2017

Disguised B&H Leader McKee Gets Far To Close To Prime Minister Trudeau

I haven't written a great deal about Calgary's Blood & Honour, though I have been keeping an eye on them. For the most part their public profile has been relatively low with the occasional flyer and/or sticker promoting the group being found around Calgary. They have however hosted a number of private events, some of which have been discussed on the blog, at their new club house. Their online activity seems to be primarily trolling news personalities and Calgary businesses that have somehow run afoul of the racist gang:











The trolling has helped myself and others figure out a few things about the growth and membership of Blood & Honour Calgary which may be shared at a later date. That said, it is no doubt frustrating for the targets of these online attacks, however is is mostly childish and quite frankly a bit embarrassing that this has been the most public form of activity that McKee and co. have been engaging in.

But then there's the kind of "trolling" that is much more concerning because it represents a major security breach.


A number of years ago, ARC discovered this photo of former RaHoWa member and unrepentant neo-Nazi Jon Latvis posing for a photo with then Toronto mayor Rob Ford:


At the time we wrote a brief article about the incident, we noted that while we didn't believe that Ford was a closet supporter of National Socialism (though his own views on race had been problematic to put it mildly), we did suggest that Ford's people needed to do a much better job of screening people.

More recently, the police chief of Sudbury, ON had to apologize for being photographed with members of the Soldiers of Odin, an anti-Muslim gang who's Finnish founder is an avowed neo-Nazi:


In Ford's' case, Latvis had been out of the public eye for such a long time it was perhaps understandable in retrospect why Ford's people might not have recognized him, though the uniform really should have resulted in asking Latvis to explain himself before being permitted to be that close to the mayor. In the case of the Sudbury police chief, the SoO has been the focus of numerous news stories over the past two years, print as well as video, and as they did nothing to hide their membership in the gang (they are wearing their patches for Christ's sake) the same excuse really can't be made by Paul Pedersen or Councillor Gerry Montpellier who also posed for a photo with the SoO.

Ultimately though, none of these are quite as serious as having the leader of a violent hate group who himself has been accused attempted murder and convicted of possessing bomb making materials, weapons charges, uttering threats, and assault, as well as suspected of being involved in ordering the attack on a member of a rival hate group as well as a home invasion of Calgary anti-racist activists, within an arm's length of this country's head of government

In July Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Alberta to attend the Calgary Stampede (I was out of the country at the time). While in Calgary there were the usual casual brief encounters with citizens that Trudeau has become well known for, posing for photos and signing autographs. One of the people who had such an encounter was Calgary Blood & Honour leader Kyle McKee, though his intentions were not quite as innocent as those others who had the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister.

Prior to Stormfront being shut down, I was able to grab some screen shots of McKee bragged about "trolling" the Prime Minister:


The video features McKee disguised as a regular, albeit dressed a bit over the top, Stampede attendee asking Trudeau to autograph what at first appears to be an article of clothing. When McKee and the person holding the camera leave after receiving said autograph, McKee reveals that the article of clothing was in fact a Nazi flag:


The folks on Stormfront of course thought this was hilarious:




Now unlike the Rob Ford, Paul Pedersen, and Gerry Montpellier incidents where neither the Latvis or the SoO tried to conceal their identities, McKee purposely disguised himself and hid his motivations to embarrass the Prime Minister. That said, this serves as an example of why public figures and their handlers need to do a better job of vetting public petitioners. On the one hand I don't think that this incident is as embarrassing as McKee and his supporters believe it to be nor does it make Trudeau look stupid. On the other hand I do think that it a huge concern that this man was able to be a literal arm's length from the Prime Minister:








And if these imaged and links detailing a small subsection of the criminal history of a man who promotes to use of violence to enact social and political change don't raise about a thousand red flags, perhaps a comment left by a fan of McKee's efforts, and B&H's response, will:


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chelsey Davenport (now McKee), works for FBC in Calgary.

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/chelsey-davenport-94822baa

https://www.fbc.ca/alberta/calgary-tax-accounting

I wonder how she & Kyle would like someone fucking with their livelihood, by contacting her employer?

Anonymous said...

The jacket this guy had on had the full back covered in his groups insignia. I'm not sure I would say it was very hidden what group he belongs to