I started this blog in November of 2007, not long after I turned 31.
This month I will be celebrating my 50th birthday.
I think when you get to a certain age you start to look back on your life and wonder how things would have been different had you gone down another path. If I had never started the blog for example, what direction would my life had taken? Doing so came with a lot of sacrifices and at great personal cost (especially when I think back to those first few months after January 2020 when I was finally identified as the founder and main writer of ARC) so I think it natural to consider a lot of "what ifs?".
A life with no regrets is rare, and I have a few. For example as much as I have travelled internationally I really wish I visited Syria prior to the civil war, before the destruction of so many incredible historical sites. But an area I don't regret is the work I did here on the blog because I know it served a purpose and I know that people were helped because of it. While fame (or infamy in some peoples' view) was never a goal of mine -- quite the opposite in fact -- even being doxxed opened up a lot of doors. I've been interviewed by numerous media outlets in Canada including appearing on "The Fifth Estate" three times... the first anonymously (for about 11 hours at least) and the other two as myself. I am regarded as an expert on the far-right in Canada, though I would hasten to add to this my expertise is less so now as I am semi-retired and don't keep up with the personalities and groups as much as I once did. The information I have published on the blog has been used by others; members of the media, people fighting the influence of the far right, and academics such as Dr. Stephanie Carvin and Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam with whom I co-wrote an article and who used ARC as a primary source in their book, For Blood and Soil: Far-Right Extremism in Canada. Outside the blog, I have a tight knit group of friends who care about me, family who love me, and a career that I find fulfilling and which has allowed me to make a meaningful contribution to society through educating the next generation (hell, as I'm in my 25th year in the classroom I am now teaching the children of my former students).
In short, I will have left a legacy behind. Even after I shuffle off my mortal coil, there will be evidence in the work that I did and the lives that I touched that I was here. I served a purpose. I was valued not only for the work I did but for the relationships I had and lives I touched when I was alive.
But what legacy will the people who have appeared here on the blog leave behind? If past is prologue, not much at all.
John Beattie was the founder of the Canadian Nazi Party. Founded in the mid 1960s, the most newsworthy event in the small group's history was in May 1965 whe he and his group were prevented from holding a rally and chased out of Allen Gardens in Toronto by anti-fascists and simply ordinary citizens who knew enough that a Nazi without a punched face wasn't a Nazi they wanted in their city. By the 1970s he had fallen silent for the most part, but he was in the news again in the 1980s when he formed the British People's League and held an events he called "Aryan Fest" on a rural property near Minden, Ontario in 1988 and 1989.
I'm not sure when he moved from Toronto to Minden but he appears to have remained there the remainder of his life. He ran for the position of Deputy Reeve in 2014... but someone MAY have released the emails he was sending to people on what he refered to as his blind list which belied his claims of not being a racist. And for years he would post videos on YouTube for The British People's League. These videos were unscripted and usually rambling so of little interest, though there was one that did turn out to be quite interesting for who else appeared in it.
One thing that was evident as the years passed. John was growing older and more frail. He was ravaged by Parkinson's disease and the number of videos he posted diminished by the year.
And then they stopped completely.
This is the only announcement I could find anywhere announcing his death. It is an announcement to creditors. I found no obituary. No memorial. Even the date provided for his death is "on or around April 4, 2025" which suggests that a precise date isn't certain.
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| Beattie's last post on Facebook less than a week before he was declared deceased |
Some years ago in 2011 I wrote an article "The Sad Life of John Beattie". In essence, at least at that point in his life, John had become completely estranged from his entire family. His Stormfront post is what really jumped out at me:
In the years since I don't know if John was able to reconcile with his children, but based on the sole, lonely, announcement giving creditors until February 5, 2026 to submit claims before the estate’s assets were distributed, I'm not sure that he ever did.
Sadly, I think that this article might be the only sort of memorialization John will receive. Even his YouTube channel, the last upload occurring on November 4, 2024, requires some digging to find.
I'm legitmately not writing to dunk on John Beattie in his death though no doubt I will be accused of doing so. I look at John's life with pity. This is what it stood for? This is what he will be remembered for, if he is even remembered for anything at all? This is his legacy?
It is just such a damn waste of a life.
Over the years I have noted the deaths of others on this blog, all of whom leave a similar legacy. Some were known in their lifetimes. Others much less so. But what they have in common is that they ultimately never really left anything of value behind when they passed. This list is but a few:
- Joel Gauthier
- Doug Christie
- Carl Finlayson
- James Keegstra
- January Korinth
- Philippe Rushton
- Bill Harcus (known as James Edsel at the time of his murder)
- Martin Weiche
- Jeff Hughes
- Robert McCorkell
- Ernst Zundel
And to this list, in addition to John Beattie, we can also add Thomas Trenerry formerly of the Aryan Guard.
How many others have died that have appeared on this blog but who have been and will be forgotten?
One thing I have learned in nearly two decades of this work, and something other anti-racist activists and researchers will undoubtedly recognize, is how often the same story repeats itself. Twenty years ago, the Aryan Guard was the going concern. Today it is the Second Sons. The names change, the logos change, and a new collection of self-appointed leaders announces that this time they are building something that will last. Then come the personality conflicts, the infighting, the petty jealousies, and the inevitable splits. After a few years, perhaps a decade, most of these groups collapse. Some members end up in prison. Others launch smaller successor groups that struggle to attract even the attention their predecessors received. Still others simply drift away. What once consumed their lives becomes another obscure entry in an archive maintained by the very people who opposed them. And that is the bitter irony: after years spent demanding attention and imagining their place in history, the most enduring record of their efforts may be the work of those who documented the harm they caused.
Being forgotten is hardly the worst thing that can happen to a person. Most of us will eventually be forgotten. The people we helped, the children we taught, the friends we stood beside will carry something of us forward without necessarily remembering where it came from. That is enough. The tragedy of a life devoted to hate is how much of that life is spent making other people’s brief time on this earth more frightening, more painful, and more difficult. The groups collapse and the names fade, but the damage can outlive them. Other people are left to do the work of helping those they hurt.
As I approach 50, I know there are paths I will never take and experiences I will never have. I can live with that. I have people I love, work I am proud of, and reasons to believe that my being here has done some good. But to anyone still giving their life to these movements, I would say this: you have already wasted years you will never get back. Think about what you are getting in return. Think about who you have hurt, who you have pushed away, and what you could still do with the time you have left. You have one life. It is a terrible thing to spend it giving other people a reason to be relieved when you are gone.
