Hate Crime Legislation in Canada

A video from a seminar sponsored by the Canadian Anti-racism Education and Research Society.
Sargeant Rick McKenna of the Vancouver Police Hate Crime Unit speaks at a conference on hate on the Net held at Simon Fraser University sponsored by the Canadian Anti-racism Education and Research Society. Other parts of the conference can be acquired at www.stopracism.ca.

Leaving a message? Be warned.

If you leave a comment advocating violence and threatening anyone who is written about on this blog, not only will we not be posting your message, we may pass the message along to the authorities should the threat be specific.

We guess that whomever posted the message we received is a troll who is trying to set some sort of trap for us; we allow the message to be posted and the troll then goes on Free Dominion or another such site to claim that we support committing acts of violence. Not going to happen. If the threat was serious, we're keeping the post in moderation and should anything happen to the individual you made vague threats about and you're responsible we'll make sure that anything we can do to find you, prosecute you, and convict you will be done.

Don't test us.

Aryan Nations in Saskatchewan? Not so fast.

At one time the Aryan Nations had a more high profile presence in Canada. The Canadian branch of the Idaho-based hate group was led by Terry Long. After staging a rally in Provost, Alberta (AryanFest) in 1990, the movement in Canada fell apart due to some high profile criminal incidents. In Saskatchewan, the Klan member and who was leader of the province's Aryan Guard group was named Carney Nerland. Nerland was arrested and convicted in the death of Leo LaChance, a Native trapper who was shot by Nerland in January 1991. That same year Long was implicated in an attack against Keith Rutherford by skinheads that left Rutherford blind in one eye.

After leaving prison Nerland disappeared and hasn't been heard of in the media. Long moved from Alberta to BC, was divorced by his wife, and except for his relationship with Todd Conroy, former leader of Volksfront Canada, has also remained silent since the mid 1990s. There were some half-hearted efforts to start up the Aryan Nations in Central Canada in 2003 (Andrew Talbot and Joe Subic were the only two active members at the time) but all have appeared to have been for naught.

Then, we came across this:


So, what's the story?

Jody Issel of Regina, Saskatchewan looks as if he's trying to restart the Aryan Nation's in Saskatchewan based upon the poorly constructed website he set up. Unfortunately, he's run into a few problems. First, there doesn't look like there's more than a handful of people associated with his little gang. That's minor compared to the other issue. It seems that none of the groups in the United States who claim to be the true Aryan Nations (as the hate group splintered after losing it's Idaho compound in a law suit and the death of Richard Butler) know who this group is.

Not that we care, but if you're going to claim to be an official branch of the Aryan Nations, shouldn't you let the head office know about you? There are reports that the various factions in the United States aren't pleased that their name is being used without their permission. Also, we're interested to know how long this hate site will be hosted by GeoCities which has a policy of not allowing hate sites to use their system.

BOK (Brotherhood of Klans) Canada: Update

We wrote a brief note a few months ago regarding the re-emergence of the Klan in Saskatchewan. A Canadian branch of the American based BOK, Brotherhood of Klans, was established in the province and made itself known to the public in August 2007. It is lead by Christian (Chris) Waters, formerly of Ontario.

Though their efforts to organize a Klan rally didn't seem to get off the ground (unless they count the laying of wreaths at the war memorial in Victoria Park, thus dishonouring the men who died fighting the extremism espoused by the likes of the Klan), on March 21, 2008, some members of the BOK traveled to Calgary to take part in the rally organized by the Aryan Guard. As a result, we now have been able to identify one more Klan member by name, as well as a person currently unknown.

A Closer Look At Aryan Guard Values

The Aryan Guard has, on their website, a list of what they claim to be their "activist values" as well as a mission statement. We thought we would take some time to look at what they claim to value and how exactly they act out those values.

Mission Statement One: We are family orientated folk with strong family values…

When we think family values, we generally don't think that cheating on a pregnant teenage girlfriend with a married woman and taking pictures of the encounter to really constitute said family values. Then, after being called on it, trying to justify the encounter by saying you thought you and the girlfriend had broken up but were wrong and besides it's done and people shouldn't make a big deal out of it. The fact that Aryan Guard members rallied around their leader may prove his gang to be more cultish than anything, but then we might be old fashioned.

A Brief Open Letter To Connie Fournier of Free Dominion

Looks like we've come to the attention of Connie Fournier and the folks at Free Dominion due to our endorsement of Big City Liberal's blog and its analysis of the arguments made in the Lemire case.

Violent Far-left ARA Brownshirts endorse Big City Lib

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the ARA, here is an excerpt from an article I wrote about them a few months ago. Maybe we should offer $100 for a picture of the M.J. Murphy shaking their hands!


...and from a poster on Free Dominion referring to him or herself as "Red":

Connie I hope the Conservative Bloggers report ARA is endorsing Big C Lib, snicker and Kinsella calls us Neo Nazis and I'm not whiteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Irony, tiss wonderful.


Uhm, we're NOT the ARA.

Marc Lemire, Ezra Levant, and Mark Steyn

Those who follow the activities of the far right in Canada are well aware of the situation involving Marc Lemire. He's the former head of the Heritage Front (the leadership he assumed after Wolfgang Droege stepped down and which Lemire promptly ran into the ground) who is challenging the validity of Canadian hate crime laws. Owing to their recent brushes with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Levant and Steyn have been highlighting Lemire's court challenge and have been going after Commission members and Richard Warman, the human rights lawyer who initiated a case against Lemire and who has been successful in every case that he has brought before the Tribunal.

Well, we haven't been talking too much about it here on this site, mainly because our attention has been more on street-level thuggery of groups such as the Aryan Guard in Calgary. That being said for those who are interested in the Lemire case, or in the hypocritical response of Ezra Levant, we invite the reader to visit the following blog:

Big City Liberal Strikes Back

This blog is the most comprehensive source of information when it comes to the Lemire court challenge, as well as the involvement of Levant, Steyn, Free Dominion, and other parties. Truth is the information so completely demolishes the arguments of Lemire and his cohorts that rather than reproduce the information here, it's better to simply get the news from the source.

Update: Noble Reported Released

Bill Noble was released from the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre in British Columbia on Friday, April 25, 2008 after serving two months of a four month prison sentence for violating Canadian hate crime laws. Noble will also have to abide by other restrictions, including a three year period where he will not be allowed to access the Internet or being in the vicinity of a computer that has the ability to access the Internet. We imagine there might also be restrictions on whom he may associated with as well, however this is not yet certain.

Noble is a member of the Calgary based neo-nazi gang the Aryan Guard. He has a long history of associating with racists before his involvement with the Aryan Guard, including Glenn Bahr (founder and leader of Western Canada For Us), Nathan Touchette, Ciaran Donnelly, Jessica Beaumont, Paul Fromm, Terry Tremaine, and many others.

White Pride? Who Do They Think They're Kidding?

On March 21, 2008, the Aryan Guard (updated as of April 26, 2008) marched through downtown Calgary under the banner of "White Pride." "White Pride" is a phrase used by racists to sound as if they are not in fact racists, but merely proud of their heritage. They complain about the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in United States and Black History month and claim that if minorities can be proud of their heritage, then why can't they? "It's discrimination against White folks," they lament and caterwaul about the terrible injustice that they are not allowed to be proud of their heritage, ignoring the fact that days commemorating European heritage already exist, including but not limited to Saint Patrick's Day, Columbus Day, Robbie Burns Day, Thanksgiving, Oktoberfest, St. Steven's Day, Victoria Day, Polish Heritage Month, and so on and on and on. But why would racists allow facts to get in the way of their propaganda message?

So "White Pride" was the mantra of the Aryan Guard on May 21, 2008 and has been since it's inception. In fact, one Aryan Guard member was quoted on the day of the rally by a reporter from the "Calgary Herald":

"We're just proud to be white, that's all. Why can't we be proud to be white?"

The Aryan Guard posted the following on their website regarding the march, again calling their march a rally for White Pride:

The Aryan Guard and affiliates, including a few B.O.K members, the leader of the NSPC, and other supporters successfully hosted a White Pride March, for the elmination of Racial Descrimination against Whites.  

45+ individuals marched throughout downtown expressing their pride within their race, many carrying White Pride World Wide and Celtic Cross flags and screaming chants of white liberation. 

The White Civil rights activists were met by 120+ confused, angry communist and anarchist youth individuals, who seemed to oppose our declaration of White Pride and our advocation for the elimination of racial descrimination against whites. Interestingly enough, the communist and anarchist organizations seem to be in bed with each other - regardless of the fact their political beliefs are a complete contradiction, this shows how true to their beliefs they really are. 

The founder of the Aryan Guard, Kyle McKee, later responded to a criticism leveled at the Aryan Guard on Stormfront which echoed the sentiments above:

[in response to the post on March 30, 2008 that reads, “If we don't want people to call us nazis or neo-nazis we really have to stop celebrating Hitler's birthday.”] LOL thats awsome!Do you think that is what it is gong to take? because just a little over a week ago we marched down the street with white pride flags and they seemed to think that was about white suppremisy and hate! I don't think it will make alot of diffrence if we do or don't selibrate a great mans birth! I for one am not to concerned about someone calling me names!

In August 2007, McKee was already talking about organizing a march under the banner of "White Pride":

Let's organize a Straight pride parade and a White pride parade. If they say anything then that would be discriminating against a race or sexual preference. and for any one in Calgary or some one that could find out when we have gay stuff here so we can start protesting them?

So the events of March 21, 2008 were not about hate or "suppremisy" (we assume he means "supremacy") according to McKee. If that's the case, then maybe McKee should talk to the person who was wearing the jacket in the next photo:

Work in progress.

ARYAN GUARD at the One Peoples Project. This is a continual work in progress. As we're able to identify people, the entry will be modified.