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Showing posts with label Storm Alliance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Storm Alliance. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Yellow Vest Extremists: Two Case Studies From Edmonton and Calgary

I've been offline -- at least on the blog -- for over a week now in part due to finishing up some work-related projects (the work I'm actually paid to do), prepping for the holidays, and a long, long, LONG, drive back to the mother province to visit my family; ma has been dutifully fattening me up with cookies and nanaimo bars while pa has been providing home brewed beer at trying to engage me in discussing an activity known as "sports." Still, I have been keeping abreast of at least some of the activities the far right have been engaging in.

Last Saturday another series of Yellow Vest protests occurred. Fewer cities and towns appeared to have participated and the numbers were down in all cases while a number of venues saw an increase in the number of counter-protesters. Online the infighting and factionalism has been growing as participants sling insults at each other almost as much as they do towards the Liberal government in Ottawa and Notley government in Edmonton. Also, while there had been some effort to minimize the number of violent threats on the main Yellow Jacket Facebook pages, those efforts appear to have collapsed. 

It was inevitable that this new movement would attract mainly the same faces (Steven Myatt, Ron Banerjee, Georges Massaad, Faith Goldy, Georges Hallak, etc) and groups (Soldiers of Odin, Northern Guard, Storm Alliance, La Meute, Canadian Combat Coalition, III%ers etc) I've been seeing at these protests the past number of years in addition to some newer, though still familiar, movement such as those who are associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory(s). Two of the faces associated with the Yellow Vests will be familiar to readers and include one more recent addition as well as someone who frequented the days of ARC Classic.While the initial momentum in much the rest of Canada appears to be waning as the attention span of the supporters diminishes and the weather turns colder, Alberta is still quite active. 

In Edmonton the Yellow Vest protesters were outmaneuvered by the counter-protesters who showed up in larger numbers equaling or even perhaps slightly surpassing the Yellow Vest reactionaries, last week, the previous weekend saw a large number of far-right extremists show up including members of the Wolves of Odin. Now ARC readers will be familiar with this group as it used to be the Edmonton chapter of the Soldiers of Odin before they were compelled to change their name by the mother hate-group in Finland due to negative media attention. Prior to the name change the SoO were the focus of a story involving members of the hate-group hobnobbing with members of the United Conservative Party. Among those who attended the UCP event as well as the Yellow Vests protest on December 15 (where a journalist was roughed up, btw) was this fella:

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Tuesday, December 11, 2018

My Observations Concerning Saturday's Anti-UN Migrant Compact Protests

As I watched protests in a number of Canadian cities which were ostensibly about opposing the UN's non-binding agreement setting up guidelines for the orderly and safe movement of people as a violation of Canadian sovereignty but which were in fact anti-immigrant (read: non-white) and Islamophobic in nature, I couldn't help but make a few observations.

First, the choice to wear yellow vests to mimic the French protests (the vast majority of whom are not racist trash and who have endeavoured to remove that element from their midst) indicates a distinct lack of originality on the far-right in this country. I mean, are they not capable of any sort of creativity? They copy the name Pegida even though the acronym makes no sense in the Canadian context. They form groups such as the Soldiers of Odin which originated in Europe and the III%ers based on an American model which itself is mostly myth. It's all rather disappointing.

Second, despite some media coverage of the events, the numbers of those who participated in the events haven't really grown that much and still consist mainly of the same people I've seen year after year.

Take Ottawa for example.

This was supposed to be the marque event and was to have featured Maxime Bernier who ultimately no-showed. Some have suggested this was due to not wanting to associate with the extremists (some 14 or 15 groups in total) who organized the Ottawa event, however one speech suggests that he might be comfortable with these bigots after all:


He has certainly not been shy about appearing with individuals belonging to.... shall we say questionable groups such as the Proud Boys?


Or having supporters of white nationalists work in his new political party:


Had he shown up to the Ottawa event, he might have felt quite comfortable with organizers such as Le Meute and the Storm Alliance as well as participants including the Northern Guard, Soldiers of Odin, III% militia, Canadian Combat Coalition, Donald Trump supporters, Christian Heritage Party supporters, and QAnon conspiracy theorists among others:


Still, despite being the largest of the protests with more than a dozen groups participating in the organization of the event, they may have attracted a little over 200 people. The anti-fascists countered with roughly 100. The same could be said of most of the protests that occurred across the country and though they claim they will be holding more events including this Saturday, I'm not sure if they will improve on these already low numbers given the weather growing colder and the upcoming holidays.

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Saturday, December 08, 2018

Anti-Migrant Protests: Maxime Bernier No-Shows in Ottawa and Brief Notes on Other Protests

Last month we saw Faith Goldy and roughly 40 alt-right (including ID Canada) supporters hold a protest opposing Canada signing the UN Migration Compact. Today in Ottawa was another anti-migrant rally which also features a whose who of racist and Islamophobic groups including La Meute, Storm Alliance, III% militia, Northern Guard and speakers such as Thomas Quiggin.

Also amongst this group was to have been former Conservative Party of Canada leadership hopeful and now leader of the breakaway PCC Maxime Bernier who has made opposition to immigration and multiculturalism key components of his far-right party's identity:


The bigots who have been profiled on ARC have been drawn to Bernier like a moth to a flame since he left the Conservative Party (which appears to have been pulled even further right in an effort to draw those supporters back) since Bernier left to form the PCC. He seems to be very comfortable associating with these groups:














On the day of the event however, Bernier seems to have conveniently found a scheduling conflict:



His university fan club however did show up:





Justin Ling attended the event and reported as follows:

























Looking through the social media pages of the folks covered here, I find the following. First a video by Travis Patron of the neo-fascist Nationalist Party of Canada and accompanying comments:


The Dan Dubois of the Canadian Combat Coalition reposted one of Patron's videos to their group:


Just to get a flavor of what these folks are about for any new readers, these following screen shots should prove instructive:


The Northern Guard and former Proud Boy member Robert Jones chimed in with their thoughtful critique of the Anti-Hate Canada article discussing the events planned for today:


Also, Canadian Combat Coalition supporter, Northern Guard supporter, and QAnon conspiracy nutbar Duke Willis who attended the Ottawa protest and uploaded a video"


It also looks like there are other anti-migrant protests in both Toronto and Calgary, though there appears to be no more than a couple of dozen individuals participating in each; Steven Myatt is involved in the one in Calgary where he now lives and Ron Banerjee is in Toronto.

Here's Banerjee leading a chant to "lock [Trudeau] up":



Here is a brief video of Calgary. Note the Soldiers of Odin are present. The claim that there are over 100 people appears to be exaggerated:


The III% militia in Alberta also commented on the Anti-Hate Canada article, some making not so veiled threats:


The leader of a fringe Alberta separatist party, Dave Bjorkman who was part of the story involving Soldiers of Odin members attending a United Conservative Party event (see here and here) claims to be one of the organizers for an anti-migrant event in Edmonton as well. In the first video Bjorkman suggests that the UCP are involved in the rally as well:



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Wednesday, August 22, 2018

More on Diane Blain (Trudeau Heckler) and Mainstream Conservative Reaction

The fallout from Le Troupeau's expose of Diane Blain and her association with the Storm Alliance and Front Patriotique du Québec continues to reverberate in Canadian political news. To recap, Blain and other members of a the far right Front Patriotique du Québec managed to get into a Liberal Party event. Ms. Blain started shouting questions at Justin Trudeau that became increasingly racially exclusive and he called her out for it. Initially Trudeau was criticized for how he handled Blain since the video only caught the latter part of the exchange and provided little context, however Le Troupeau was able to prove the whole thing was a set-up intended to cause a reaction resulting in a decidedly different understanding of the event.

Le Tropeau has provided further information since first publishing the expose:










The mainstream Conservative talking points had initially been to attack Trudeau for calling a nice, little, old lady a racist and not addressing a legitimate question. After Blain was exposed, the talking points changed.... slightly. They acknowledged that she was a racist, but the question was still legitimate and Trudeau had no right to call her a racist for asking the question.... even though she was a racist.

This is a position taken by no less than the leader of the Official Opposition:


The problem with this, as noted earlier, is that the video only caught the part where Trudeau called out Blain for being a racist. It didn't include the initial confrontation when Trudeau attempted to address her question (while a companion of her's belittled the statement concerning Mohawk territory) and only called her out when she began using offensively racist language:


And it is of course important to understand why the language Blain used was offensive:










Perhaps it shouldn't be surprised that Andrew Scheer, a man who has proven himself to be a feckless, milquetoast, coward who can't stand up to Bernier for his overt bigotry but then accuse Trudeau of being divisive for calling out a racist since too many of the people who side with both Blain and Bernier represent a sizable base of the Conservative Party right now. I mean, this IS the party that spoke of "Old Stock" Canadians, barbaric practices hotlines, and Canadian values purity tests.

Certainly, the white supremacists that ARC covers heard the dog whistle:



If Paul Fromm agrees with you, you are definitely on the wrong side of history.
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Sunday, August 19, 2018

Storm Alliance Staged Confrontation With Prime Minister

Back in January when Justin Trudeau was participating in a number of town halls across the country, he was also being heckled by some of the folks ARC has covered on the blog. One of those groups was the Storm Alliance, a group created by the former president of the Quebec Soldiers of Odin chapter (and the vice-president of the national group). They generally remained silent during the town hall, though their presence was intended to be intimidating I suppose.

A few days ago, the Storm Alliance confronted Mr. Trudeau in a much more overt manner:




Our friend in Quebec "Le Troupeau" on Twitter has the story:
















This next one is especially important:




UPDATE: "Le Troupeau" provides an English-language summary as well.








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Saturday, July 14, 2018

Brief Recap of Canadian Combat Coaltion Rally in Ottawa: "No Show" Goudreau Shows

I was actually out for much of the day and didn't have much of an opportunity to follow the events in Ottawa. I had surmised that it would likely be about the same size of the Million Canadian March organized for Parliament Hill the previous summer, perhaps in the range of 150 to 200 people.

I was wrong.

The numbers appear to be far less in the range of 80 to 100 people:



Anti-immigration rally on Hill fizzles, leader disappointed 
It’s one thing to click the like button on Facebook, but quite another to show up in person for a Canada-first, anti-immigration rally on Parliament Hill. 
The Mounties and Hill security didn’t need to set up all the extra barriers on Saturday because only 100 people showed up, or about 900 fewer than organizers had expected. 
“I’m disappointed. The response on social media seemed bigger,” said Dubois, the 58-year-old national president of the Canadian Combat Coalition, or C3 as the self-described Canadian patriots call it. “I was expecting 1,000. Canadians are complacent. No wonder Canada is going down the tubes.”
As a comparison, this was Parliament Hill on July 11:


Ouch!

Also, considering the distance from the road and the fact they were closed in, it seems that they were primarily preaching to the converted.

Besides the Canadian Combat Coalition shirts, I noticed a smattering of Storm Alliance, Northern Guard members, and (sigh....) Wolves of Odin (I mean, really?) There may also have been some III% militia, La Meute, and Soldiers of Odin members present; Georges Massaad was in attendance as well. Those who spoke today included Dan Dubois, Duke Willis who is an administrator on the Northern Guard Facebook page, Steven Garvey, Mary Forrest and Laura Lee, and finally Ron Banerjee who bragged that there were no extremists amongst them.

Well, given the rhetoric from Banerjee recorded here over the years as well as that of his fellow travelers at this rally, I have to call shenanigans on him.


However even if I were to accept this claim (which, once again, I don't) he might have difficulty explaining the presence of this fella:


That's right, Kevin "No Show" Goudreau, a full on neo-Nazi, showed up to the rally and marched at the head of the pack with Dan Dubois and the Canadian Combat Coalition Banner:


I've edited a video in which Goudreau appears a number of times:


Now ARC had reported that "No Show" Goudreau claimed he would be attending. We know that Dan Dubois is a regular reader of the blog so he would also be aware of this plan as well as what Goudreau looked like. Granted, I didn't expect Goudreau would attend and perhaps neither did Dubois, but when Goudreau did arrive he seemed quite welcome:






It would appear that these folks have no problem with neo-Nazis marching along side them. If Meir Weinstein of the JDL appears tomorrow as advertised, it might be a fun show to watch.

Unfortunately tomorrow as today I will not be monitoring from the bunker as I will again be out. I will attempt to update Day 2 as soon as possible on my return however.
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