Ford Family Member Connected to KKK in 1980s

Remember this photo?

It recently appeared on "The Daily Show" earlier this week. This is Toronto mayor Rob Ford with Jon Latvis, founding member of the racist band RaHoWa with ties to the Heritage Front, Creativity Movement, and violent racists. We found this photo and sent it to Warren Kinsella by way of a friend, and long story short, it created a bit of a minor scandal. Latvis himself claimed he was not racist and in fact had been fooled by RaHoWa. He further threatened to sue (including a direct message) Kinsella, however Latvis seemed unaware of how the Internet actually worked and that he had left a very long record of his active and enthusiastic involvement with organized racism. And to his friends who might have been concerned about his public rejection of racism and antisemitism, he offered this as an explanation:

At the time ARC suggested that this incident was just yet another in on a long, long, list of poor judgement calls made by Ford and his team and that he was likely not sympathetic to National Socialism. We generally still believe this to be true, though given other statements he might generously be considered to be rather bigoted. However, as a result of the current scandal (and you would have to be living under a rock to not know what we are referring to) we've learned that at least some of his immediate family were active to a degree in the racist movement in Canada. The relevant section in a "Globe & Mail" article alleging the some members of the Ford family have had a long history of being involved in the drug trade details Rob Ford's sister's involvement with members of the KKK and Heritage Front:

Ms. Ford’s relationship with Mr. MacIntyre is even more perplexing because of an earlier incident: In 2005, he and another man were accused of shooting her in the face during an altercation in her parents’ basement. She survived the blast and was rushed to hospital, while Mr. MacIntyre fled in her mother’s Jaguar. Crown prosecutors later dropped numerous charges against him, while his co-accused, Michael Patania, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a handgun.  

But even before that, there was gunplay – and it was fatal. Seven years earlier, Ms. Ford’s lover was fatally shot by her ex-husband, a drug addict named Ennio Stirpe. At his trial, Mr. Stirpe testified that his victim, Michael Kiklas, was a martial artist, which forced him to bring along the shotgun as “an equalizer.” 

Not mentioned in the press at the time was the fact that Mr. Kiklas was a white supremacist – a group with which Ms. Ford associated in the 1980s. 

Her friends included Gary MacFarlane, a founding member of the short-lived Canadian chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the late Wolfgang Droege, perhaps the most notorious white supremacist in Canadian history, a former Klansman told The Globe in an interview. Two other former associates of Ms. Ford confirmed her association with known white supremacists. 

Among Mr. Droege’s numerous criminal endeavours, he also sold cocaine and marijuana, which led to his death in 2005 when he was killed by a customer. Mr. Droege was incarcerated for much of the 1980s in U.S. prisons – both for drug trafficking and for his role in a bizarre plot to overthrow the government of Dominica in the Caribbean. 

The former Klansman, who agreed to answer questions by e-mail on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Kathy Ford was close to the movement, but he said he couldn’t recall meeting any of the Ford brothers. He described hanging out in the Fords’ basement and being snubbed by Doug Sr. when Ms. Ford invited him to a party on the family boat. Her father, the former Klansman said, clearly did not approve of his beliefs, while she was engaging and fun but hardly a committed soldier in the race war. 

“Some people are real ‘believers’ and know all the history, dates, facts etc… Others just join to piss off their parents, or carry out some other act of personal rebellion,” he wrote. “Clearly [Kathy] was the latter camp.”

Again it should be noted that there isn't as yet any indication that Rob Ford was involved with these groups and individuals and it seems that the father, Doug Sr., disapproved of his daughter's relationship with white supremacists. Still, given how things have been for Ford the past week and a half, this revelation doesn't help.