Ronny Cameron's October 21 Rally Polarizes Toronto Far Right

Islamophobe and "I-can't-be-racist-because-some-of-my-best-friends-are-Black" bigot Ronny Cameron has been promoting himself as a leader of men for some time now, however he hasn't really done much himself other than bother people at progressive events by engaging in poorly argued "gotcha" interviews with attendees after which he declares himself the winner. Most of the time the people he's interviewing let him natter on and then leave him to bask in his own sense of self-importance, a little befuddled and somewhat bemused by the odd figure who accosted them.

Tomorrow though will be Ronny's first significant attempt to show that he is a person to be taken seriously by the fringe movement he wishes to be a player in:

Since there will be a counter rally, some in the media has expressed concern about the possibility of violence, however it should be noted that only one side is really looking forward to such encounters:

She seems nice.

Thus far a little over 130 people claim they will be attending the "Trudeau Must Go" anti-government rally in Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday, though I can't help noticing that some are from places such as British Columbia and New Brunswick which suggests their presence might be more inspirt than in person. There are also several 100 who claim to be interested in attending. Those groups who plan on attending include the Northern Guard, Soldiers of Odin, Canadian Combat Coalition, and members of the Proud Boys:

The video posted by Steven Alexander Harald Helga Hildegard Helmut Holdine Hedwig Heidrun Gregory Myatt featuring Georges Massaad as well as Eric Brazeau of the Northern Guard goes on for some time and includes plans for a new council of patriots called the Order which TOTALLY doesn't sound like a fascist wet dream at all. But for all the talk of unity, they can't help themselves from throwing shade on other groups.

Toronto resident misanthrope Ron Banerjee seems less than pleased:

Guest Article: What’s Going on in Québec? (Part 1)

As we saw on September 30, many far-right groups across Canada tried to rally against “illegal” immigration but ended up gathering only a handful of protesters, largely outnumbered by anti-racist activists. Everywhere except in Québec. In Québec, the groups gathered at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, at the border between Canada and the US, and managed to attract over 200 people protesting the influx of immigrants that had come to Canada over the past months. There were around the same number of counter-protesters and also a large police presence there, and the organizing group, Storm Alliance, considered the Québec rally a big success, which was not the case in the rest of Canada.

Most of the groups active today started in late 2015, following the Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee crisis in the Western world. Some of them are chapters of other groups, like the Soldiers of Odin and PEGIDA, but most of the big groups of the moment were founded in Québec, starting with La Meute:

La Meute (French for Wolf Pack) first started as a Facebook-based group created by Éric “Corvus”

Venne and Patrick “Ptrk” Beaudry, two Canadian army veterans:

The bulk of their activism is anti-Muslim as they are afraid of Canada and Québec in particular becoming “like France,” which they see as having been taken over by “Islamists.” They are managed in a militarized way, with different ranks having different colour wolf paws on their Facebook profile photos and with 17 different sub-groups, or Clans (lol), one for each administrative region of Québec. They also have an English section (formerly managed by Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, of Charlottesville fame) as well as a France chapter. They started having rallies in the spring of 2017, when they gathered in Montreal against M-103. They believe that the anti-fascists who come to oppose them are pro-government and pro-Sharia because they can’t fathom being against Islamophobia and against authoritarian governments at the same time. They rallied again on August 20 in Québec City, where they gathered in an underground parking lot that was surrounded by anti-protesters. They had to wait for hours for the opposition to leave so they could walk silently around the block for a while. They still claimed the moral victory (which the media also gave to them) because they didn’t break anything or hit anyone, unlike “antifa” who had to run around and organize against police and actual Nazis protecting the perimeter:

They have also been known for organizing against a small town’s proposal of a Muslim cemetery, to harass government employees to try to get the right to wear their Meute hat on their RAMQ card’s photo, to joke about killing MPs, and various other things. They claim to have 60, 000 members but they count members from the general Facebook group plus all the small regional groups together even though there are clearly duplicates (even better, the administrators are in every group, so this is clearly an inflated number).

Since the beginning of September, La Meute has been plagued by a lot of internal infighting. Corvus had already left some months prior, and then Stéphane Roch, Sylvain “Maikan” Brouillette and some others changed the passwords, kicked Beaudry out and formed a for-profit company called Nous sommes la meute (we are La Meute). They were angry at Ptrk for using his personal company to sell their merch and for the money not being accounted for. Some members remained loyal to the former leader and we also saw members move on to another group with the same values, Storm Alliance.

Storm Alliance was created by Dave “Treg” Tregget, former Soldier of Odin Québec leader, and
fellow “patriot” Colin O’Leary from New-Brunswick:

They are also divided by regions, with presidents and vice-presidents but they try to have a better public image than La Meute by saying they stand for Canadian values and the Charter of Rights, instead of against Islam. They organized 2 events at the Québec-US border, one on July 1 and one on September 30, against refugees. They were hoping for a coast-to-coast rally all over the border in most provinces, but as you know, it only really worked in Québec. La Meute was also part of that last rally, even though there had been some beef between the two groups in the past months. Storm Alliance also invited themselves to an environmental rally in Québec City in an effort to become more mainstream (no one seemed to care about the cause, they just wanted to clash with "antifa"):

After telling his members that it was cancelled, Treg went with only a few select SA members that he calls DFSA for Defense Force Storm Alliance and/or Don't Fuck with Storm Alliance. They stayed on the margin of the march, with their SA clothes covered, and then went to a restaurant and took a photo together, wondering where the "antifa" even were:

Now they are planning a rally in Québec City together on November to protest the government commission on systemic racism:

Paul Fromm to Speak Before Ontario MPPs

On Thursday, a committee studying Bill 163 (An Act to enact the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, 2017 and to amend the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in relation to abortion services) will be meeting. A number of stakeholders will be appearing before committee members, including one familiar to the folks who read this blog:

A committee of MPPs has invited Canada's most infamous white supremacist to speak about access to abortion services: https://t.co/GUhKGtkIKk pic.twitter.com/uZvffYAOEl

— Jonathan Goldsbie (@goldsbie) October 18, 2017

(Correction: "Invited" is an inaccurate verb, as committees only handpick who to hear from when there are more requests than spaces.)

— Jonathan Goldsbie (@goldsbie) October 18, 2017

(Queen's Park committees aren't like City Hall, where they take anyone who signs up. You apply and then get asked to make a presentation.)

— Jonathan Goldsbie (@goldsbie) October 18, 2017

"White supremacist," by the way, is generous, as the SPLC just outright calls him a "neo-Nazi": https://t.co/iucpKUjkFI

— Jonathan Goldsbie (@goldsbie) October 18, 2017

Neo-Nazi would be an accurate description even based on what he finds funny:

Yeah, hilarious.

More importantly though are the people and ideologies whom he associates with:

Soldiers of Odin Member Photographed With More City Officials in Ontario

October 19 Update: The Huffington Post picked up the story.
October 21 Update: The CBC has also taken on the story and features excellent commentary from Warren Kinsella.

In August Sudbury police chief Paul Pedersen apologized for being photographed with members of the Soldiers of Odin, a group that at my most charitable I would describe as a right-wing vigilante group but is even more accurately described as an anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, hate group.

So with this in mind, as the SoO has been present in Canada now since around 2015, AND since they have been the subject of a fair amount of media attention, AND since many of their members seem to have at least an affinity for organized criminal gangs such as the Hell's Angels which should alone be a cause for concern even if their anti-immigrant rhetoric is not, AND since experts on extremists groups have been warning police agencies about the dangers posed by groups such as the SoO, AND since the Sudbury police chief had to apologize in August for having his photo taken with the SoO suggesting that police in the country should be aware of who the hell the SoO are based on that incident alone, one would think it wouldn't be hard for, let's say for the sake of argument, the Winsdor police chief and mayor to find themselves in a position where they would take a photo with members of the SoO.

One would evidently be incorrect:

Sigh....

I mean, is it really THAT hard not to find oneself taking a photo with members of hate groups? Really? I've managed to get by for more than 44 years without once even accidentally having my photo taken with a member of a hate group. 

Why the hell is this so difficult? 

Don't. Take. Photos. With. Hate groups.

Police who read this (and I know that there are a fair number who do), if you're wondering why minority communities often have trouble trusting the police, might I suggest that a police chief of a significant Canadian city in a photo with a member of a group that has been attacking some of the members of those minority communities does not bloody help.

And holy hell Mayor Drew Dilkens! At least when Rob Ford was photographed with a former member of Rahowa, he could reasonably argue that he had no idea who Jon Latvis was since Latvis had been out of the public eye for almost two decades. The SoO has been in the news repeatedly since late 2015. What is your excuse?

I am mildly annoyed now.

Islamophobe Infighting: Part "I've Lost Track"

Alternative title: "Please, Won't Someone Think of the Children!?"

When this writer learns of far-right nationalists and fascists who are at each others throats (such as this recent article detailing the fight between Ryan Dean and Dan Dubois), it seems inevitable that if I scratch the surface even a tiny bit, so much more is revealed.

Such as, for example, Devon Mannix trashing the Proud Boys and other similar alt-light groups:

This would appear to be a little awkward as one of the individuals who traveled to Calgary in order to participate in the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam MEGA Patriot Rally was Brandon Vaughan, a member of the Proud Boys:

Vaughan arrived in Calgary with fellow dude-bros Georges Massaad and Steven Alexander Frey Baelish Greyjoy Clegane Gregory Myatt to attend the.... er.... historic event:

So given how tight Mannix (who also attended the June 24 25 WCAI rally as well as other WCAI organized events) is with Joey DeLuca and Jesse Wielenga (who himself may be out of the movement entirely, at least as of now), ARC and our friends who monitor these groups are left wondering that Mannix's relationship with the WCAI might be now:

Mannix himself provides the answer. In short, the relationship between himself and the WCAI, as well as Myatt and Ronny Cameron, is not good.

Not at all:

Jesse Wielenga Finished With WCAI?

In a recent (and as it turns out final) Facebook update before seemingly deleting his most recent account, Jesse Wielenga wrote that he was "finished" and that he would be devoting more time to his family. If we are to believe him, he's facing a pretty significant crisis that might result in the curtailment of his access to his children:

If this turns out to be true, it is a far cry from the bravado that has characterized Wielenga's rhetoric in the past:

However despite the bravado, it was clear that things were not going well for Wielenga:

Things really came to a head in early September when according to Wielenga, he lost his job due to his public overt racism:

Wielenga expanded on this turn of events in a video also featuring Devon Mannix who appears to have been facing his own troubles due to his notoriety:

Based Leftists, eh?

I sort of like that.

Ryan Dean Impersonating Dan Dubois of Canadian Combat Coalition.... Badly

A few weeks back Carl Fleury in Alberta posted to Facebook announcing that he was the new head of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Combat Coalition and that they were recruiting in the province:

This might be somewhat awkward considering the CCC was originally founded by Ryan Dean from Alberta and that Dean had been ousted from his own hate "patriot" group by the Ontario branch:

Fleury's involvement in the CCC is also of some interest considering his participation in some of the early WCAI and and CCC rallies in Calgary when the CCC was lead by Dean.

To say that Dean didn't deal well with the coup and subsequent banishment from the group he founded and lead would be an understatement. And while he immediately formed another group with an equally ridiculous name (North American Freedom Fighters) it appears that he is unable to let the slight he feels go as the following video (which may also serve as a preview of the remainder of this post) indicates:

One thing Ryan Dean has become well known for is creation of fake web posts in an effort to undermine the people he feels have wronged him or the movement he is a part of. But becuse he is really good at making enemies across the spectrum, Dean is as likely to target his fellow bigots as he is anti-fascists with these often very transparent efforts.

Recently ARC received the following information from someone claiming to have dirt on Dan Dubois, the current leader of the CCC (based in Ontario) who initiated the coup that forced Dean out:

At the same time, direct messages allegedly written by Dubois and sent to Dean have been making the rounds online. In those messages Dubois tears down his ideological allies and makes overtly racist comments:

The thing is, it seems pretty clear that Dean himself is both the sender and recipient of those messages and that Dean further edited the screen shots to implicate Dubois:

Dubois speaks about this in another video posted a few days ago:

Kevin Goudreau Planning Rally in Toronto And Might Be Pretending To Be A Hammerskin

When anti-government/anti-refugee extremist groups held rallies across the country on September 30, they were outnumbered in most locations by as many as 10 to 1 (only in Quebec were numbers more or less equal and perhaps Regina where no one even noticed the four people who were protesting). Perhaps the most humiliating event was that experienced by Kevin Goudreau in Peterborough, ON where 300 to 400 counter-protesters showed up while Goudreau hid. Only one fascist supporter attended and he was given what I've come to describe as an antifa kiss. Now while many of those supporting the anti-government/anti-refugee cause were justifiably disappointed, Goudreau has been trying to frame the day as a great victory. A recent video posted by the Goudreau continues on this theme:

ARC readers know Goudreau has a tendency to engage in self-aggrandizing rhetoric, so Goudreau claiming victory by not showing up is par for the course. Also something that ARC readers know, but haven't experienced in a few years now, is the Goudreau's menagerie of imaginary friends which includes the membership of the White Canadian Nationalist Party, many of his early girlfriends, and now it seems CNP boosters from other hate groups.

For example, Goudreau posted the following on Stormfront announcing a rally to take place on November 4 in Toronto:

What is interesting is the videos suggest that the Hammerskins are now supporters of Goudreau:

Those who are aware of the history of the racist movement in this country would be surprised that Goudreau would receive support from the Hammerskins because of a very long running grudge held by Goudreau against the Hammerskins as well as the Hammerskins generally viewing Goudreau as a mouthy little joke. That nature of their relationship is best explained by this photo which has been kicking around since 1989 or 1990 in which a Hammerskin finds Goudreau's face to be irresistibly punchable:

Belated Thanksgiving Douchebaggery From Ronny Cameron

Belated on my part I should note.

Thanksgiving is a holiday that I feel particularly conflicted about. On the one hand the modern sentiment behind it is laudable; expressing gratitude for one's family and good fortune as well as a commitment to help those who have not been as fortunate. On the other hand, First Nations peoples continue used as props commemorating the holiday on a continent in which the settler governments did their damnest to wipe said First Nations peoples from the land they have occupied for between 25,000 and 15,000 years (and perhaps longer as more archaeological discoveries continue to be made). Those efforts included extermination as well as cultural genocide.

So while we might loves us some turkey and pumpkin pie, we might also understand that First Nations peoples' perspective on Thanksgiving would very reasonably be a much more somber affair. I would like to think reasonable people who have at least a rudimentary understanding of the history of this country would try to understand this point-of-view.

Not troubled by such sense of decency, knowledge of history, or any social decorum however is one Ronny Cameron: