Canadian Anti-Hate Network Applauds Facebook Censors for Purging “Old Stock Canadian”
A long-standing anti-immigration and overtly racist series of social media channels successfully cultivated a following of over 32,000 Facebook users through unabashedly anti-Muslim, anti-2SLGBTQ+, conspiratorial ready-to-share content. The “Old Stock Canadian” page has finally been removed, seemingly as a result of our sending a media request to Facebook for this story.
Started in 2016, the moderators of Old Stock Canadian never had much success outside the social giant, though the Facebook Page proved itself a resilient source of hate content that outlasted many of its ilk.
“Friends, it seems the TRUTH was too much to bear so Liberal FARCEbook took us off their platform,” wrote an admin on a little visited website associated with the page. “Well over 36,000 members will now be looking for a new home. Hopefully, they will find it here on this website.
“In the meantime, we will retool and look to other platforms as well where our conservative voice will be heard again.”
On Twitter and Instagram, as well as their website, they have a minimal following. Many of their website posts have just a single view, according to the site’s own counters.
“We removed the Old Stock Canadians Page for violating our Community Standards. We will continue to monitor and take action in line with our policies and strongly encourage people to use all available reporting and blocking tools,“ a representative from Facebook told the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
“Old Stock Canadians” is a phrase that has been popular among white supremacists and Canadian nationalists since Prime Minister Steven Harper used it during a leadership debate in 2015.
“We do not offer them [refugees] a better health care plan than the ordinary Canadian receives, said Harper. “I think that’s something that new and existing and old stock Canadians agree with.”
The statement caused a minor stir at the time, as many begged the question, what is an old stock Canadian? Harper would later clarify he meant Canadians whose families had been in Canada for more than one generation. The Conservatives tried to move on from the gaffe and their opponents decried it as a dog-whistle.
Much like “White Boy Summer” has become the white power dog whistle of 2021, the phrase “old stock Canadian” quickly was adopted as a self-signifier in far-right Canadian circles, and continues to be used. It, for example, was often used in the propaganda of groups like ID Canada.
Source: Twitter
The now-removed Facebook page and still active Twitter account for Old Stock Canadian trade in a variety of similarly styled memes. Typically yellow block letters and carrying messages that target everyone from members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, conspiracy theories around COVID-19, anti-Muslim sentiment, and more.
“Liberals universities like Dalhousie are no longer institutes of learning but rather, create racially motivated radicalism,” reads a caption added to a picture promoting diversity at a Halifax university. “Case in point, if we tried to dismantle non-white privilege, matriarchy and homosexism, what do you think would happen? Besides the massive demonstrations that would befall us.”
Some of the content is political in nature, targeting left and centre-left politicians, but the most animus is reserved for Muslims and immigrants.
“Islamophobia is a liberal narrative intended to deflect from the real concern of radical Islamic fundamentalists intent in destroying us infidels,” a pinned post under the section “Islamophobia” reads on the page’s counterpart website. “A movement that has gained momentum in recent decades within several Muslim nations. Islamic fundamentalists oppose the infiltration of secular and westernizing influences and seek to institute Islamic law, including strict codes of behaviour. In other words, sharia law which oppresses women to become the slaves of this male-dominated cult.”
Other sections target 2SLGBTQ+ people, with post titles like “Young Girls Are Transgendering At Alarming Rates,” “Gender Dysphoria Has Gone Mad,” and, simply, “Cancel Pride.”
Members of the now-defunct Facebook page included people like William “Damien Maje” Majeau who was previously the subject of reports for filming people, including children, coming to and from an Alberta mosque during the early stages of the pandemic. He returned earlier this year to take more photographs.
Members of the Northern Guard, an east coast centred biker-style hate group are also followers. This includes founder Nick Gallant and member Ed Jamnisek, who produces Kevin Johnston’s live stream show. Gallant has generally tried to extricate Northern Guard from accusations of hate and racism. Early in the group’s founding, however, he appeared on a podcast in 2018 and stated he would be “pushing that white nationalism,” according to the ARC Collective.
Loss of Freedoms & Canada’s End the Lockdown Movement
[On May 17, the Globe and Mail published an opinion piece co-authored by Bernie Farber smearing the END THE LOCKDOWN rallies. For several days, I sought to reach the editor and Opinion Page editor of the Globe. They are unreachable by phone. I sent an e-mail proposing a rebuttal piece. I got no answer. I submitted a response which forms part of the article below. I received no answer. The Globe happily publishes smears by one of Canada’s most notorious opponents of free speech, but permits no reply. Here is the Farber hatchet job: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-overlap-between-lockdown-agitators-and-hate-groups-is-a-threat-to/]
Since mid-March, 2020, End the Lockdown rallies have been a regular weekly occurrence in cities across Canada. At first, most of the press ignored them or dismissed them, as Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford did, a “a bunch of yahoos.” However, their staying and spread across the Dominion have made them impossible to ignore.
So, many in the elite have changed their tune.
Calgary’s mayor Naheed Nenshi is a Moslem who alleges that the End The Lockdown Movement is a vast rightwing conspiracy. “They are people who are marching in thinly veiled white nationalist supremacist anti-government protests,” he said. His accusations were echoed by Jagmeet Singh, he of the rainbow coloured collection of turbans, the $2,000 suits, the BMW Coup, hailed by BuzzFeed as the “most stylish politician in Canada”. He is a supporter of the radical Sikh Khalistan movement and, in 2013, was banned from India. He heads the socialist New Democratic Party in the Dominion Parliament. Recently Singh said the protests are part of “extreme right-wing ideology.” He complained “To brazenly not follow public-health guidelines puts people at risk and that is something that we’ve seen with extreme right-wing ideology, ”
And Bernie Farber, long one of Canada’s fiercest opponents of free speech weighed in. Writing in the Globe and Mail (May 17, 2021)he alleged: “The principal actors of the anti-lockdown movement have either been or rubbed elbows with some significant haters on the scene. Vancouver neo-Nazi Brian Ruhe, Quebec’s far-right conspiracy streamer Alexis Cossette-Trudel, a big name among France’s QAnon following, is an important mouthpiece of the francophone anti-lockdown movement. Neo-Nazi Paul Fromm is a fixture at rallies in both Ontario and in Kelowna, B.C. Antimask activist Chris Saccoccia’s social-media feeds feature Holocaust denial and racist posts.” Farber was for years the CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, whose lobbying brought about Canada’s notorious Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code, the “hate law”. Farber lobbied mightily to have me fired from my 25-year teaching position as an English instructor in Peel County. He now heads the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), funded by federal government grants and a huge donation from the Bank of Montreal.
The CAHN tosses around the smear “neo-Nazi” promiscuously. Farber’s fellow board member at the Canadian Anti-Hate Network Evan Balgord elaborated on the conspiracy theory: “We have two pandemics: We have the actual pandemic and then we have this pandemic of hate.Things are kind of getting worse both online and offline … with maybe one pandemic, we have kind of a solution for, but the hate thing, we don’t have a vaccine for that.” The Toronto Star (May 10, 2021) quoted Balgord: “Balgord said such events make for ‘fertile hunting’ for new recruits because hateful ideas are not being policed, and once someone believes in one conspiracy theory, it’s easy to believe in others. ‘We now have a greatly increased number of people who are coming into close contact with racists and bigots of all stripes with more conspiracy theories.'” he said.
As early as last December, Canada’s censorship lobby was sounding the alarm. The Kelowna Courier (December 18, 2020) reported: “Anti-mask and anti-lockdown rallies in Kelowna have caught the attention of anti-hate groups across Canada because of what they say are ties to a known Canadian white supremacist. According to Elizabeth Simons, deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the presence of Paul Fromm at several local rallies dating back to the spring, and his association with rally organizer David Kevin Lindsay, are troubling.
Fromm has been described by anti-hate groups as a known neo-Nazi. According to Simonds, far-right and white-nationalist groups and supporters are directly involved in organizing many similar rallies across Canada. ‘It’s hugely concerning seeing this trend right across the country,’ she said.”
Jewish lobby groups have, in the past, been adept at “divide and conquer”, decreeing who may associate with whom or meet with whom without being tainted.
However, with Canada’s End the Lockdown movement, the old tactic is just not working. That’s because of the nature of the movement, as I shall explain. If the End the Lockdown movement is not a vast rightwing conspiracy, then what is it? As they say on the dating sites: “It’s complicated.”
On May 17, the Globe ran an opinion piece by Bernie Farber and David Fisman entitled “Overlap between lockdown agitators and hate groups is a threat to us all” which caricatured the END THE LOCKDOWN rallies that have occurred on a weekly across the Dominion.
A reader, uninformed by information available on the Internet or his own experience at a local rally, might conclude these rallies comprised people strutting around in funny armbands or earnest conspiracy weirdos with tinfoil hats. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Attend one of these rallies and, although the attendees are angry at the job killing lockdowns, and the loss of freedom to gather to worship, you find a happy atmosphere, reminiscent of a 60s love-in. Far from being a “hate group”, these rallies are joyous events, often with people dancing to boom box music and songs like Twisted Sister’s “We’re not gonna take it anymore” or Rolling Stones Mick Jagger’s new anti-lockdown song “Easy Sleazy”. No one wears a mask — well, occasionally, some wit wears one of those mediaeval doctor’s masks that looks like a bird’s beak. People embrace and hug complete strangers. Everyone is welcome. Indeed, one of the groups participating in many rallies is called Hugs Over Masks. In Toronto, a Chinese lady circulates through the crowd offering a tray of her home-baked treats free to fellow “freedom fighters.” Sadly, this elegant lady, in high heels and a fashionable dress, was handcuffed and arrested on May 8 for being in possession of a megaphone.
The END THE LOCKDOWN rallies are a political protestof a sort unseen since World War II. They started in Vancouver in mid-March 2020 The next weekend, they spread to Toronto. Those calling for an end to the crippling lockdown were sniffily dismissed by Premier Ford as “a bunch of yahoos”. Ironically, many of these people had been part of his populist “Ford Nation.”
Since then, the rallies have spread right across the country. The remarkable fact about these protests is their regularity and consistency. They occur weekly in cities large and small. Movements in the past have staged mass rallies but not weekly and not right across the country. In the late ’60s, the left organized large anti-war demonstrations in major cities opposing the war in Vietnam twice a year. Similarly, in the mid-80s, the left staged large demonstrations against President Reagan’s star wars programme. Although these demonstrations were large, they were not weekly. Other groups have organized large protests but only on occasion like Right to Life’s annual pro-life rally in Ottawa and demonstrations against specific legislation like more stringent gun control.
The consistency and persistence of the END THE LOCKDOWN rallies are remarkable and they have spread and become a weekly occurrence from Kelowna to Penticton to Kamloops to Calgary to Edmonton to Fort McMurray to Saskatoon to Brantford and many other places. These rallies are really like ’60s “happenings.” The word goes out, usually over the Internet and concerned people show up, often with little advance notice and usually with little media attention. For instance, on May 14, over an estimated 50,000 END THE LOCKDOWN supporters gathered in Queen’s Park and heard speakers like Maxime Bernier, leader of the populist People’s Party of Canada. The rally and Mr. Bernier’s message went all but uncovered in the mainstream media. That evening, a smaller demonstration estimated at about 5,000 people supporting Palestine had sporadic clashes with a smaller group supporting Israel at Nathan Phillips Square. That was the event that got all the media attention.
Participants hail from a wide range of backgrounds. I have talked to participants who voted Liberal, NDP, Green, Conservative or People’s Party in the last election. Mr. Farber, who, I suspect, has never attended an END THE LOCKDOWN rally, alleges participants are dedicated to “an anti-public health agenda aimed at undermining the Canadian economy and the health and well-being of Canadians”.
What unites these people, young and old, working class, middle-class, rural, urban, is a passionate attachment to freedoms they see being vacuumed away in government lockdowns and restrictions. Far from undermining the economy, they want the economy re-opened and the job and business crippling lockdowns ended, perhaps like the state of Florida which is wide open, with businesses open and no enforced mask mandate and an infection rate slightly lower than Ontario, which has been locked down since November.
Some from the start some feared that enforced masking was a dry run for forced vaccination. Now, there is widespread talk of some sort of proof of vaccination being a requirement for air travel, attendance at sporting event or entry to certain jobs.
Many are appalled by the loss of religious freedom. Three Alberta pastors have been handcuffed and jailed for holding Sunday services. Yes, in Alberta, not North Korea. A ban or severe limitation on gatherings essentially cancelled Christmas and Easter worship. Religious folk and many civil libertarians are horrified at the padlocking of defiant Christian churches as has happened to Pastor Henry Hildebrandt’s in Aylmer and Pastor James Coates’ in Edmonton.
The essential spirit of the END THE LOCKDOWN rallies was captured at a mass protest on a scorching July 1, Canada Day, on Parliament Hill. A sea of Canadian flags and some old Red Ensigns is one section set up a booming chant of “Freedom, Freedom” to be answered by a sea of Quebec Fleur de lys flags and a few flags from the Revolution of 1837 in another section and their chant “liberte, liberte”. — Paul Fromm
groups participating in many rallies is called Hugs Over Masks. In Toronto, a Chinese lady circulates through the crowd offering a tray of her home-baked treats free to fellow “freedom fighters.” Sadly, this elegant lady was handcuffed and arrested on May 8 for being in possession of a megaphone.
The END THE LOCKDOWN rallies are a political protest unseen since World War II. They started in Vancouver in mid-March 2020 The next weekend, they spread to Toronto. Those calling for an end to the crippling lockdown were sniffily dismissed by Premier Ford as “a bunch of yahoos”. Ironically, many of these people had been part of his Ford Nation.
Since then, the rallies have spread right across the country. The remarkable fact about these protests is their regularity and consistency. They occur weekly in cities large and small. Movements in the past have staged mass rallies but not weekly and right across the country. In the late ’60s, the left staged large anti-war demonstrations in major cities opposing the war in Vietnam twice a year. Similarly, in the mid-80s, the left staged large demonstrations against President Reagan’s star wars programme. Although these demonstrations were large, they were not weekly. Other groups have staged large protests but only on occasion like Right to Life’s annual pro-life rally in Ottawa and demonstrations against specific legislation like more stringent gun control.
The consistency and persistence of the END THE LOCKDOWN rallies are remarkable and they have spread and become a weekly occurrence from Kelowna to Penticton to Kamloops to Calgary to Edmonton to Fort McMurray to Saskatoon to Brantford and many other places. These rallies are really like ’60s “happenings.” The word goes out, usually over the Internet and concerned people show up, often with little advance notice and usually with little media attention. For instance, on May 14, over an estimated 50,000 END THE LOCKDOWN supporters gathered in Queen’s Park and heard speakers like Maxime Bernier. The rally and Mr. Bernier’s message went all but uncovered in the mainstream media. That evening, a smaller demonstration estimated at about 5,000 people supporting Palestine had sporadic clashes with a smaller group supporting Israel at Nathan Phillips Square. That was the event that got all the media attention.
Participants hail from a wide range of backgrounds. I have talked to participants who voted Liberal, NDP, Green, Conservative or People’s Party in the last election. Mr. Farber, who, I suspect, has never attended an END THE LOCKDOWN rally, alleges participants are dedicated to “an anti-public health agenda aimed at undermining the Canadian economy and the health and well-being of Canadians”.
What unites these people, young and old, working class, middle-class, rural, urban, is a passionate attachment to freedoms they see being vacuumed away in government lockdowns and restrictions. Far from undermining the economy, they want the economy re-opened and the job and business crippling lockdowns ended, perhaps like the state of Florida which is wide open, with businesses open and no enforced mask mandate and an infection rate slightly lower than locked down Ontario.
Some from the start some feared that enforced masking was a dry run for forced vaccination. Now, there is widespread talk of some sort of proof of vaccination being a requirement for air travel, attendance at sporting event or entry to certain jobs.
Many are appalled by the loss of religious freedom. Three Alberta pastors have been handcuffed and jailed for holding Sunday services. Yes, in Alberta, not North Korea. A ban or severe limitation on gatherings essentially cancelled Christmas and Easter worship. Religious folk and many civil libertarians are horrified at the padlocking of defiant Christian churches as has happened to Pastor Henry Hildebrandt in Aylmer and Pastor James Coates in Edmonton.
The essential spirit of the END THE LOCKDOWN rallies was captured at a mass protest on a scorching July 1, Canada Day, on Parliament Hill. A sea of Canadian flags and some old Red Ensigns is one section set up a booming chant of “Freedom, Freedom” to be answered by a sea of Quebec Fleur de lys flags and a few flags from the Revolution of 1837 in another section and their chant “liberte, liberte”. — Paul Fromm
A YEAR AFTER OUR CRIMINAL COMPLAINT TRAVIS PATRON STILL HASN’T BEEN CHARGED
THE LEADER OF THE NEO-NAZI CANADIAN NATIONALIST PARTY IS ESCALATING HIS ATTACKS ON THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
July 16, 2020
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
In June 2019, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network filed a criminal complaint with the RCMP in Saskatchewan for an antisemitic video posted by Travis Patron, leader of the neo-Nazi [false] Canadian Nationalist Party. The RCMP says they launched an investigation. A full year later the RCMP has not made any further statement on the status of that investigation, despite Patron escalating his antisemitic calls to arms. It’s turning into international news.
Given the most recent incidents, CAHN board member Richard Warman filed a renewed criminal complaint with the RCMP and CIJA and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center followed suit, filing their own complaints.
If you support our work against the neo-Nazi [false] Canadian Nationalist Party, help us out at antihate.ca/donate. Thank you!
The video that prompted our June 2019 complaint deals in antisemitic tropes, calls Jews a “parasitic tribe,” and says they need to be dealt with once and for all; any reasonable person would understand the video as a call for deportations and genocide.
At the time Patron claimed it wasn’t about Jews:
“Unless you self-identify with the accusations in the video, then it doesn’t concern you. But if you choose to be offended by it, ask yourself WHY? Is it wrong for Canada to rid itself of a parasitic relationship that has only served to suck us dry? #Zionism #cdnpoli”
Patron has a social media history of supporting “historical revisionism,” a term Holocaust deniers [false — skeptics] use to self-identity, liking posts quoting Hitler, and promoting the writings of Quebec fascist Adrian Arcand, a Hitler supporter who was arrested and interned during WWII.
Despite his barely veiled neo-Nazism, [false] our promise to name their members should they not renounce their support, and the pending investigation, Patron’s Canadian Nationalist Party was ultimately recognized as a federal political party with all the inherent benefits in time for the 2019 election. Unsurprisingly, Patron and his two candidates received almost no votes.
In November 2019, Patron was charged with aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm for allegedly attacking two women who wouldn’t get in his car. Those charges are pending.
Since then Patron has made nonsense arguments that he isn’t subject to Canadian law and dispensed with any pretense that he isn’t targeting Canadian Jews. He has posted a video giving a Nazi salute, which he calls a Roman salute, and published a flyer with the transcript of the first antisemitic video, adding:
“The people we speak of are not truly ‘Jews.’ They are liars and deceivers attempting to shield themselves from criticism using a false identity. Let us be aware and expose them for what they are: a tribe of parasites.”
Patron has since made other videos in the same vein, and is also dealing biblical antisemitism, including sharing an infamous bible passage saying Jews are of the “synagogue of Satan.”
CAHN believes the evidence is more than sufficient for the RCMP to criminally charge Patron with the wilful promotion of hatred against the Jewish community who have every right to be protected from Patron and the poison of his hate propaganda.
It’s been over a year since the first criminal complaint. How much longer do we have to wait?
Derek Sloan incident as told by Paul Fromm the Godfather of free speech for Canadians. Refuting the censorship minority lobby lies [especially the Canadian Anti-Hate Network] spread by the FAKE News media of being a “neo-Nazi”. Thanks to Rebellion Radio, https://youtube.com/watch?v=vwxZdVrACjE
Journalist Lawrence McCurry Investigated & Concludes CAFE Director Paul Fromm is No “Neo-Nazi”
Federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole announced that he was “asking” his MPs to kick fellow Ontario Tory MP Derek Sloan out of the party’s caucus. Using the Globalist/ Left-tard tacit of guilt by association for taking a donation from white nationalist and freedom of speech advocate (and personal friend) Paul Fromm.Paul Fromm is NOT a Nazi or the loathsome white supremacist the controlled corporate (Globalist) media claim he is.I have found Paul Fromm to be a staunch advocate for free speech and democracy and not a racist, Nazi or a white supremacist, this is a media LIEbelow is a short interview I did with Paul Fromm back in July 2017 please watch and share this film.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qASo8Km8JrY…
Taxpayer Funded Canadian Anti- Hate Network Wants Return of Sec. 13
Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was inserted at the last minute, in 1977, on the request of Jewish lobby groups and the then-Deputy Attorney General of Ontario, to “get” one man, John Ross Taylor who was using a telephone answering machine with a recorded message to spread his views. This was in the late 1970s, before today’s Internet technology. Sec. 13 stated: “It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.” These privileged groups included race, religion, sexual orientation or identity. Mr. Taylor and a number of others using telephone answering machines to spread their views were slapped with “cease and desist orders.” These had the force of a court order.
To broadcast the same or “similar” (whatever that is) messages was considered contempt and cold land you in jail. Happy Warrior John Ross Taylor, an honest and guileless man, was twice sentenced to a year in jail, the last time when he was 77 years of age.
By the late 1990s, the Internet had replaced telephone answer machines. Sabina Citron, a bitter enemy of revisionist publisher Ernst Zundel, made a complaint against him about the Zundelsite, which was located in the U.S. and run by an American citizen, educator and novelist Ingrid Rimland (who would eventually become Mrs. Zundel). This was a hard fought case, which lasted from 1997 to 2002. CAFE was an intervenor. On the censorship side were a number of Jewish groups. The defence argued, inter alia, that the Internet was not “telephonic communication”, as the section was then worded. Bill C-36, an omnibus anti-terrorism law covering many things was brought in as a response to 9/11. It gave control of the Internet to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and clarified that it did cover the Internet.
Along came Richard Warman, an Ottawa lawyer and bitter enemy of free speech — he had earlier tried to get various venues for British author David Icke cancelled. Warman started filing a flurry of human rights complaints against various nationalist bloggers, historical revisionists and others. For a while he was even working for the Canadian Human Rights Commission , in a way, drumming up business for them.
Most of his victims were poor and few could afford a lawyer. CAFE assisted a number of these victims (Terry Tremaine, Glen Bahr, Jessica Beaumont, Melissa Guille, and others, and intervened in the Marc Lemire/Freedomsite case.
We witnessed a massacre. Along the way, it was ruled that truth was no defence, intent was no defence. No harm had to be proved. In one case, we proved that, prior to Warman’s complaint, only one person, anti-free speech offence hunter Richard Warman, had ever clicked on the offending comment. The wording of the Section “likely to expose” is very loose. What is “likely”? No evidence had to be presented that anyone actually saw the comments, believed them and started to hate a privileged minority. Hatred may be hard to define, but what about “contempt”? Contempt is a negative feeling toward a person.
As it turned out, ANY strong criticism of a privileged group, even if true or fair comment, could lower a person’s opinion of that group and, therefore, might “expose them to contempt.” We learned that there was no defence to a charge under Sec. 13. The anti-free speech complainants, the vast majority Warman’s, won in every case but one — a record only surpassed in North Korea. The press paid no attention to this bullzosing of freedom. Often, echoing the complainant they had demonized the victims as “neo-nazis” or “racists” or “White supremacists”.
Eventually, others decided to mimic the success of Jewish groups and Warman, who worked closely with them, to silence their critics. A group of Moslems, angry at Mark Steyn for his book on the Islamicization of Europe, which had been exerpted in Maclean’s made a Sec. 13 complaint against Maclean’s. Finally, the press paid attention and they learned that there basically was no defence to a charge and that the vast majority had been brought by one man.
Soon, religious groups began to pay attention. We had warned Real Women back in 1998 that having we their teeth on historical revisionists and immigration critics, the thought control freaks would move on to others — Christians who opposed abortion or the LGBTQ agenda. A groundswell of opposition arose to Sec. 13. A Conservative Party conference called for its repeal. A Conservative backbencher, Brian Storseth, introduced a private member’s bill repealing Sec. 13, which passed in 2014.
Warman no longer has his favourite toy. The enemies of free speech have smarted ever since. Now, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, on whose board sits Richard Warman and Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress and a decades-long advocate of censorship. Sadly this frenetically pro-censorship gropup has lucked into government money. Even worse, this summer they were the beneficiary of a $500,000 grant from the Bank of Montreal. [No, corporate Canada is no friend of free speech.]
Thus free speech supporters should be concerned by the following news from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.: “Earlier this month [December] we met with Heritage minister Steven Guilbeault and a number of social justice organizations to discuss legislation surrounding online hate. We argued that reinstating s. 13 is fundamental to successfully dealing with the problem. We were joined by numerous voices in support of these measures — the Mosaic Institute, the National Association of Friendship Centres, the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, and others — and we are committed to a coalition to realize a better solution for today.” The problem was views on the Internet dissenting from political correctness.
Government-funded Militant Anti-Free Speech Group, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network Wants Sec. 13 (Internet Censorship) Back
Hatemongers Don’t Face Serious Enough Consequences in Canadian Courts
While Canada has clear legal definitions of what does and does not constitute hate speech, enforcement is lacking. In the cases when known peddlers are actually brought before a judge, the trials are delayed, extended, and lack consequences. It’s time to bring back section 13. Posted on December 30, 2020
We need to do away with the myth that hate and racism aren’t
issues in Canada, especially online. We produce hate speech and
internationally recognized hate figures at a disproportionately high
rate — in many measures we’re worse than the United States on a per capita basis.
As it stands now, we do not have the legal tools needed to reverse this trend.
On 4Chan, we represent almost 6% of posts made to the worst
message board on the site, and earlier this year UK based think tank
Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified 6,600 online channels where Canadians posted hateful content.
Before we begin, let’s quickly debunk the central bad faith
argument against our hate speech laws. “Hate” is not impossible to
define or undefined — the Supreme Court has clearly defined it and endorsed a guide to determining what is and isn’t criminal hate speech. Our laws have been challenged and upheld by the Supreme Court as Charter consistent.
The laws strike a good balance between freedom of expression
and criminalizing what is dangerous hate speech. Unfortunately, they
aren’t enforced and they don’t have sharp enough teeth to be a
deterrent. The very worst actors continue spreading hate largely with
impunity.
Police services across Canada are the main roadblock. A few do
take it seriously and act, but most are reluctant in the extreme to
investigate hate-related charges against individuals — whether that’s
hate speech, continuous harassment, and even death threats. Sometimes,
overwhelming community pressure on the police works — but shouldn’t be
necessary.
Even if the law is applied correctly, it’s not strong enough to
be a deterrent. Some hatemongers make a mockery of it and use the
opportunity to grandstand.
James Sears, the discredited former medical doctor who served as editor for Toronto-based Your Ward News,
was sentenced to the maximum one year in prison in 2019 for promoting
hatred against women and Jews. The crown proceeded with the charge as a
summary offence.
Ontario Justice Richard Blouin wished he could hand down more,
saying at the time “It is impossible, in my view, to conclude that Mr.
Sears … should receive a sentence of any less than 18 months in
jail.”
Sears hasn’t seen a day in jail yet. He was allowed to stay
out, pending his argument that his lawyer misrepresented him by not
giving him an opportunity to deny the holocaust and call notorious
antisemites as “expert witnesses.” He regrets nothing.
Hate vlogger Kevin Johnston was initially charged with a single
count of wilful promotion of hatred in 2017. Johnston has still not
been tried. In 2019 he lost a $2.5 million judgment
to Toronto philanthropist Mohamad Fakih for his role in racially
motivated defamation against Fakih in which he repeatedly accused him of
being a terrorist.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Jane Ferguson called Johnston’s attacks on Fakih “hate speech at its worst.”
Travis Patron, leader of the overtly neo-Nazi federal Canadian Nationalist Party, has been “under investigation”
by the RCMP for over a year for a video in which he claimed Jews are a
“parasitic tribe” and called for their expulsion from Canada. Patron
continues to make antisemitic posts and flyers and do photo ops giving
the Nazi salute.
It’s an open and shut case. What could possibly make it take this long to lay charges?
In 2018, a warrant was issued for Gabriel Sohier Chaput, aka Zeiger — called one of the most prominent neo-Nazis in North America, and writer with The Daily Stormer,
a white supremacist website — for spreading hatred. Having been on the
run for two years, in August 2020 Chaput reappeared and is awaiting trial in Montreal.
Chaput is one of the ideological leaders of the newest
generation of neo-Nazi terrorists — his hands are soaked in blood. It’s
a travesty that the most he’s likely to get is a year. It’s uncertain
whether he will even spend it in prison, given the pandemic.
Neo-Nazi Paul Fromm was under investigation by the Hamilton Police Service for posting the manifesto of the Christchurch killer, titled “The Great Replacement” — a nod to the white supremacist conspiracy theory that white people are being replaced — in full on his website in 2019. Fromm had stated, “[The shooter’s] analysis of the crisis we face is cogent.”*
They decided not to charge him.
British Columbia’s Arthur Topham, convicted in 2015 of one
count of communicating online statements that wilfully promoted hatred
against Jews, and again in 2017, had been sentenced to a six month
conditional sentence, two years probation, a curfew, and was banned from
posting online.
Some of these people just won’t stop — not as things are.
Our hate speech law, s. 319 (2), is crafted to balance freedom
of expression while criminalizing the worst hate speech. Unfortunately,
it’s not a deterrent for the most vitriolic offenders because the police won’t enforce it, and some hate mongers laugh off the consequences.
It feels like we’re banging our heads against the wall filing criminal complaints.
Before 2014, members of the public could file a hate speech
complaint under s.13. Credible complaints went to the Human Rights
Tribunal, and a panel of judges could order hatemongers to stop. It was
relatively fast, gave communities the power to defend themselves
legally, and it worked. It gave us direct access to justice
If they refused to stop, they were in violation of a standing
court order and were relatively quickly thrown in jail. Eventually, most
of them learned their lesson.
Earlier this month we met with Heritage minister Steven
Guilbeault and a number of social justice organizations to discuss
legislation surrounding online hate. We argued that reinstating s. 13 is
fundamental to successfully dealing with the problem. We were joined by
numerous voices in support of these measures — the Mosaic Institute,
the National Association of Friendship Centres, the Chinese Canadian
National Council for Social Justice, and others — and we are committed
to a coalition to realize a better solution for today.
Every single anti-racist and human rights group we know of wants it back.
_____* This viciously anti-free speech group utterly distorts my posting of the Christchurch Manifesto. Yes, I said his analysis of the dire position of Europeans, betrayed internally and being replaced by an elite-organized Third World invasion_was correct. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, I added that his solution — shooting up two mosques and killing 31 people was NOT the solution._________________________________________
THE CBC Picked Up a Smear By the Fiercely Anti-Free Speech VICE” — nationalist’ Paul Fromm received federal COVID-19 relief money to fund his groups
Canadian Association for Free Expression and Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform both received relief money
[A few comments:
1. The hypocrisy of anti-free speech loudmouth Bernie Farber of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network is appalling. Apparently, he’d like a politically correct litmus test for receiving relief funds that we all pay for. The irony is rich in that CAHN gets government grants and a subsidy from the Bank of Montreal (BMO). They are no slouches as grantcatchers feasting off taxpayer’s funds. One of their board members announced this past summer: ” Good news! Canada is giving us a $270,000 grant through the Anti-Racism Action Programme.”.
2. Then, we must take instruction from one ” Kojo Damptey, Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion’s interim executive director.” He hails from that hotbed of liberty, Ghana. He’s all for a political litmus test: ” “They should have a list of organizations that espouse racist rhetoric, xenophobic rhetoric, and not provide them with public funding,” It’s 2019/2020 Annual Report shows it took in $532,477 from various governments and universities to expound its anti-White, anti-free speech propaganda: ” For the year2019/2020 we received funds from ,Community, and Social Services, Ontario Trillium Fund, Ministry of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism, Hamilton Community Foundation, Ryerson University, In Spirit Foundation, Hamilton Health Sciences,Laidlaw Foundation,and the City of Hamilton.”]
CBC News · Posted: Dec 23, 2020 3:49 PM ET | Last Updated: 1 hour ago
Paul
Fromm, a self-described white nationalist who founded the Canadian
Association for Free Expression and Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform,
received COVID-19 relief funds for both of those groups. (Lorenda Reddekopp, CBC News)
Anti-hate groups
are urging the federal government to reconsider which employers can
apply for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) after
self-described white nationalist Paul Fromm received COVID-19 relief
funds for two of his groups.
Vice first reported he received money for the Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE) after the government published a searchable registry of companies that have accessed CEWS.
CAFE
is a non-profit that has intervened in several human rights cases
across Canada, including on behalf of websites encouraging homophobia
and Holocaust denial.
CBC News has since learned Fromm also
received money for another group of his — Citizens for Foreign Aid
Reform, which opposes foreign aid and multiculturalism.
Fromm
has appeared in far-right protests, spoken regularly on the white
nationalist radio show Stormfront, and is the subject of a Hamilton
police investigation after complaints he shared the New Zealand mosque
shooter’s manifesto on the CAFE website. Stormfront describes itself as
being “pro-white news, opinion and inspiration.”
“I’m a white nationalist,” Fromm said in an interview. “I’m proud of our European heritage and I want to keep it.”
Still,
he denies being labelled a neo-Nazi or white supremacist, and told CBC
News on Wednesday that his organizations met all the requirements to
receive CEWS funds.
Paul
Fromm, a self-described white nationalist who ran for mayor in
Hamilton, is seen here at a yellow vest protest in front of Hamilton
city hall last year. (Hamilton Against Fascism/Facebook)
“The
criteria as I read it was not ‘What are your politics?’ The criteria is
‘Are you an employer, do you have an employer number, have you been
impacted by the COVID shutdown and if so, you qualify up to a certain
amount,” Fromm said.
“Given the rules, there’s not much [the government] can do.”
The government was unable to provide an interview.
Katherine
Cuplinskas, press secretary for the office of Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland said the government
“categorically condemns white supremacy, far-right extremism, and racism
in all its forms.”
“Wage subsidy funds can only be used for
employee remuneration. Should these funds have been abused, the
penalties can include repayment of the wage subsidy, an additional 25
per cent penalty, and potentially imprisonment in cases of
fraud,” Cuplinskas wrote in an email.
Anti-hate groups want government to review system
Bernie
Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said he was shocked to
learn Fromm successfully applied to CEWS. Neo-Nazi groups getting
taxpayer money is a “a glitch in the system” from a government trying to
navigate a pandemic, he added.
“I don’t think any of us can
really blame the government for having a glitch in the system. I think
we can blame the government if this glitch in the system isn’t fixed
immediately,” he said.
“I think Canadians want to hear our
government say ‘Whoops, this was a mistake … it’s an outrage at a time
when people are literally losing their homes and livelihoods and need
this money badly, that it would be going to people like Paul Fromm.”
Fromm
would not reveal the number of employees in either organization, but
acknowledged the number was “small and modest.” He also didn’t disclose
how much money he received but said it was “small potatoes.”
Cuplinskas wouldn’t
say whether the government plans to investigate the issue further, but
Kojo Damptey, Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion’s interim executive
director, said he hopes it does.
“They should have a list of
organizations that espouse racist rhetoric, xenophobic rhetoric, and not
provide them with public funding,” he said. “If our government are
funding racist institutions, white nationalist institutions, what kind
of society are we building and what does it say to many
marginalized communities that have been affected by this sort of
rhetoric?”
New Covid Conspiracy Newspaper With Extremist Ties Eyes Canada-Wide Distribution
A
new newsprint and online publication is making the rounds at Ontario’s
anti-lockdown protests. Billing itself as a source for information not
affected by government or big tech censorship, after only one issue Druthers has already made itself a home for fringe voices and ideas.
By Rayne
Posted on
December 18, 2020
Druthers,
a new print paper devoted to Covid conspiracies, launched its first
edition in Toronto on November 28. Claiming 25,000 hard copies in
circulation and an online edition, it is receiving a lot of buzz in
anti-mask/lockdown circles.
A second issue is planned for January 1, and editor Shawn Jason
Laplante, who goes by Shawn Jason online, announced that a partnership
is in the works with Ted Kuntz of Vaccine Choice Canada (VCC).
The status of this arrangement is unknown, and Laplante told
the Canadian Anti-Hate Network he was “just exploring some ideas,” when
asked for comment.
He presented it to his supporters a little differently.
“I just received a phone call from Ted Kuntz, president of
Vaccine Choice Canada and it looks like we are joining forces to make
Druthers even bigger and deeper reaching!” Laplante wrote in the private
Druthers Facebook group on December 4.
In the print edition, all of page two of the paper’s first issue was devoted to a press release from VCC.
While he told us there wouldn’t need to be a newspaper without
the “rampant censorship” seen in society, his goal is to reach national
circulation of half a million copies.
Current funding for the paper is coming from a mixture of
sources, including crowdfunding, ad and merchandise sales. Laplante
states on his GoGetFunding page that
$3,000 is all that is needed to produce and distribute 25,000 copies,
and that $5,000 would enable him to complete a publishing run of 50,000.
For the upcoming January 1st edition, he has raised $1,680 as of
December 6. Assuming all the supporters who advertised their business
ventures in the first edition paid for the space, he brought in
approximately $1,125 through advertising sales.
Laplante, who appears to be based in Toronto, writes in his first editorial that Druthers’
creators are “explorers of truth” who “love and care for all of
humanity.” While this may be what he would like people to believe, it is
not the case.
Dave Bolton of Newmarket, who is working closely with Laplante on Druthers, is the father of Mike Bolton, another frequent anti-lockdown protest attendee who describes himself as a fascist Atomwaffen Division supporter.
The paper is being promoted by the anti-Muslim ACT! For Canada’s website, alongside white nationalist and former University of New Brunswick professor Ricardo Duchesne’s Council of European Canadians, QAnon content creator Amazing Polly, and The Epoch Times, among others.
The paper was also promoted by a user on the notorious white supremacist forum Stormfront. RykerB posted a description of the project that appeared on other sites, including ACT! For Canada:
“This is exiting [sic] news! The first issue of this new newspaper is
complete. 25,000 physical copies have been printed. Druthers thanks
everyone for their love and support in bringing this to fruition. This
weekend they begin distributing the hard copies freely around Toronto
& neighbouring cities. In addition to the physical newspaper there
are also digital, and online versions.”
In response, Laplante stated he was unaware of the promotion on Stormfront and ACT! For Canada.
“Druthers is being talked about everywhere by many people. I’m
not a hater at all. Quite the opposite,” he said. “Heck, I don’t even
hate the globalists who I believe are committing massive crimes against
humanity right now.”
In addition to the expected anti-vax, anti-mask rhetoric, and
articles about how to organize a protest march and how to navigate
relationship challenges that may arise when one’s significant other is
not on board with anti-mask beliefs, Druthers also dips into the far right side of things by recommending “websites of interest” including The Corbett Report, Rebel Media, Dan Dicks’ Press For Truth, Lamont Daigle’s The Line Canada, and Hugs Over Masks, among others.
An article entitled “Panopticon: COVID-19 and the reign of
terror” by self-described “environmental journalist” Guy Crittenden
raises eyebrows with its heavy reliance on QAnon ideas and assorted
conspiracies, comparison of global COVID responses to Nazi eugenics and
the Holocaust, while leaning on a thinly veiled antisemitic trope that
globalists are “not connected to spirit.”
When asked about the content of the articles, he acknowledged
that “some people will call some articles conspiracy theory,” but said
his paper is about “exploring truths rather than trying to be a voice of
authority.”
At first glance, 48-year-old Shawn Jason Laplante appears to be
an unlikely publisher of such content. Indeed, some of his friends even
called him out for an October 4th Facebook post promoting his favorite
YouTube channels including Wayne Peters’ What’s Up, Canada?, Dan Dicks, and Amazing Polly, among others.
A self-described “Reality Alteration Specialist,” Laplante, a
home renovator and carpenter by day, has poured his passions into his
many side projects that, until now, promoted love and peace while
selling T-shirts and coffee mugs.
His most successful venture was I Love You Pass It On, or
ILYPIO, an admittedly endearing effort to spread little love cards
around the world to make people smile. He boasts that he got the cards
into over 800 communities worldwide, and his T-shirt made it into a
couple of music videos and was even promoted by Darius McCrary of Family Matters fame.
In an ironic twist, back in 2015 Laplante organized teams to
give out free hugs around Toronto, which almost seems like training for
what was to come in 2020. However, at that point, it does not appear
that he was telling his friends to “keep an open mind” when it comes to
far-right/racist material.
In June he asked for volunteers to take over the management of
the ILYPIO project, stating in the comments, “I’m feeling drawn to step
up my activism game. Iloveyoupassiton was
always intended as a form of activism, but lately I am moving towards
more aggressive activism… As the powers that be have upped their game
recently, so must I.”
This new aggression is leading Laplante to boost people like
antisemitic conspiracy theorist, David Icke on his social media and
within the pages of Druthers.
Icke is a one-time British football player known for his
promulgation of the theory that most major world leaders are a race of
reptilian and pedophilic aliens. Icke is also a decades-long
superspreader of conspiracies and misinformation — he claims that
“Rothschild Zionists” control the world, that Jews financially supported
Hitler during the Second World War, and that Jews were behind both the
9/11 terror attack and the 2008 recession.
Icke has also argued that schools should permit the study of Holocaust denial.
Recently, Icke was banned from YouTube after promoting the idea that COVID-19 was actually caused by 5G technology.
Laplante said in a comment that he was unaware of Icke being antisemitic.
Also, appearing in the pages is controversial Aylmer pastor
Henry Hildebrandt, who is making news for his hardline anti-mask
leadership of his congregation. Twenty years ago Hildebrandt courted
controversy when he fought the Children’s Aid Society to maintain the
right to strike his children and counsel his congregants to carry out
similar discipline in their families.
While Laplante is careful to say he doesn’t fully agree with
some of the individuals and organizations he highlights, at some point
fellow travellers become fellow believers and it is very concerning
where this new venture will lead him. In a brainstorming thread on
Facebook, Laplante proposes targeting COVID testing centres with his
propaganda while others suggest handing out flyers to parents outside
schools at drop-off/pick-up times.
“I don’t propose people distribute newspapers at COVID testing
centers,” he said when asked, “but offering up a flyer with some
information about the tests isn’t a bad idea.”
Laplante and Druthers
illustrate the dangers that come when New Age or anti-vax proponents mix
with racists and other far right actors. A strong belief in seeing the
goodness in everyone coupled with an attitude that “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend” leads to an increasing suspension of common sense
and moral judgement while pursuing the common goal of fighting covid
safety measures.
It remains to be seen whether Druthers
will continue to grow or will fall flat despite the support and assumed
injection of funds from VCC, but one thing is certain: Laplante has
strayed significantly from his proclamations of equal love and care and
it may take a significant change for him to return to that worldview.
With files from Elizabeth Simons and Kurt Phillips.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) Exposed: The Wrath of CAHN by John Klein
The Wrath of CAHN
John Klein
January 22, 2020
Canada is among the world’s most tolerant and peaceable countries.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network wants you to believe otherwise, however,
working tirelessly to convince Canadians their country is a seething
hotbed of (mostly white, right-wing) hate groups. John Klein lays bare
the hypocrisy, intolerance and damage done to individuals and free
speech rights when a small group of political activists model themselves
on a much larger American group and appoint themselves as our country’s
figurative judge, jury and executioner.
You can’t tell the haters without a program.
For
decades the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has styled itself as the
indispensable guide to what constitutes hatred in the United States.
Its signature “Hate Map”
has long been cited in the media and by commentators as an objective
and reliable reference point for measuring the worrisome growth of hate
groups across America. And according to the SPLC, hate is always
growing. The latest Hate Map puts the number of active hate groups in the U.S. at 1,020,
up by 70 percent since 2000. Another thing that’s seemingly always
growing at the SPLC: its bank account. Thanks to its self-declared
status as arbiter of American hate, and in conjunction with highly
sophisticated fundraising techniques, the group holds an astounding half-billion dollars in assets, making it one of America’s richest non-profit advocacy groups.
Despite
such obvious trappings of success, the Alabama-based SPLC has lately
found itself on the receiving end of the sort of nasty accusations it
typically makes of others. Last year the organization was rocked by
several internal accusations of sexual impropriety and racism against
co-founder and former chief litigator Morris Dees, who was fired that
March. Dees − long the public face of the organization, as well as a
member of the Direct Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame for his
masterful use of direct mail solicitations − was apparently fond of
reminding his black female staffers how much he liked “chocolate”, among
other lewd remarks, as well as inappropriate touching; it was recently revealed that decades ago he faced an accusation of molesting his stepdaughter with a sex toy.
“Chocolate” lover: SPLC co-founder Dees was at last fired from the organization.
Beyond the damaging hypocrisy of an anti-hate group being accused of sexist and racist behaviour, the SPLC has also been sued
by several organizations and individuals claiming they were maliciously
and erroneously targeted as “haters” and, in the case of Muslim
reformer and counter-extremist Maajid Nawaz (whom it had labelled an
anti-Muslim “extremist”), has had to pay out millions of dollars. This
is a remarkable fact, considering the legal hurdle for defamation in the
U.S. is nearly insurmountable.
The reputation of the SPLC’s much-cited Hate Map has also been seriously damaged in other ways. A recent insider’s account in the New Yorker alleges the SPLC’s hate data has been deliberately exaggerated in order to coax donations from “gullible Northern liberals”. And the far-left magazine Current Affairs devastatingly declared that the SPLC “is a scam: It finds as much ‘hate’ as possible in order to make as much money as possible.”
The SPLC’s upside-down world: Counter-extremist Muslim reformer Nawaz was labelled an “anti-Muslim extremist.”
While
the reek of hypocrisy was highly inconvenient, the allegations of “hate
inflation” undermine the group’s very legitimacy. The confluence of internal crises and external criticisms has prompted nearly every top SPLC official abruptly to leave the group, Twitter to drop the SPLC as one of its hate-monitoring “safety partners” and a U.S. Senator to request the IRS investigate its non-profit status.
In
short, the SPLC’s carefully crafted public image as a virtuous
hate-fighter has been shredded. It hardly seems a model to emulate. Yet
that’s exactly what the fledgling Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) is
doing.
Canada’s SPLC
CAHN began operations in early 2018, billing itself
as an “independent, nonprofit organization made up of Canada’s leading
experts and researchers on hate groups and hate crimes.” Its mandate,
according to CAHN’s website, “is to monitor, research, and counter hate
groups by providing education and information on hate groups to the
public, media, researchers, courts, law enforcement, and community
groups.” And it makes no bones about the inspiration for its domestic
anti-hate crusade. In a letter
to a House of Commons committee introducing itself to Canadian
parliamentarians last April, CAHN claimed to be “modelled after, and
supported by, the esteemed Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in the
United States.” The letter was delivered several weeks after the no-longer-esteemed Dees was fired for allegations of sexual and racial misconduct.
CAHN claimed to be “modelled after, and supported by, the esteemed
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in the United States.” The letter was
delivered to Parliament several weeks after the SPLC’s
no-longer-esteemed co-founder Dees was fired for allegations of sexual
and racial misconduct.
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CAHN
is chaired by Bernie Farber, well-known in Canadian media circles for
an earlier career as CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). Other
key members of the organization include executive director Evan Balgord,
a former special assistant to Toronto mayor John Tory, controversial
“anti-hate” lawyer Richard Warman and Ontario Institute of Technology
professor Barbara Perry.
The
first necessary step in following the SPLC’s path is to establish CAHN
as a useful source of hate information in Canada. CAHN’s principals make
themselves readily available to media outlets eager to tell terrifying
stories about the proliferation of hate groups in our midst. The CBC and Global News appear to be the most ardent devotees of this service, although a wide range of publications at home and abroad
avail themselves of CAHN’s self-proclaimed expertise. In a particularly
successful twist on its formula, CAHN board member Amira Elghawaby
recently announced on Twitter that the Toronto Star will have her write a “bimonthly” column focused on “exploring human rights”.
The
group also makes savvy use of social media for publicity and
fundraising, and as a weapon in its anti-hate activities. Ricochet
Media, an online portal that bills itself as a crowd-funded public
interest journal (but is at least partly Government-of-Canada funded and
seems to publish only left-wing content), is another outlet where
CAHN’s messages are quoted approvingly and amplified. This breathless article,
for example, alleged “levels of extremist activity not seen in
generations” and called upon governments to do more than merely monitor
and research right-wing extremists.
Perry makes the stunning claim that approximately 300 hate groups
are extant in Canada. If true, this would give Canada a three times
higher per capita incidence of hate groups than even the SPLC claims
exists in the U.S.
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Having
inserted itself into public discussions on hate, the next requirement
in SPLC mimicry is to build a case that Canada is a seething hotbed of
hatred. CAHN’s website offers a veritable avalanche of revealed hate: neo-Nazi groups are lurking in central Canadian suburbs, hate groups you’ve never heard of are organizing across Atlantic Canada, gender-identity hatred is simmering on the West Coast, anti-Semitism is surging everywhere.
The
recent federal election produced an apparent bumper crop of hate in
Canada, with CAHN training its steely eyes on everything from Maxime
Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada to the Yellow Vest movement to an entirely insignificant collection of political no-hopers
scattered across the country. As for the total amount of hate in this
country, Perry makes the stunning claim that approximately 300 hate groups are extant in Canada. If true, this would give Canada a three timeshigher
per capita incidence of hate groups than even the SPLC claims exists in
the U.S. Despite the shock value of her allegations, Perry has not
produced the actual list, or any verifiable evidence that such a claim
is accurate. In 2015, Perry claimed there were only 100 hate groups in Canada.
Haters,
haters everywhere, from PPC leader Bernier to the Yellow Vests. If this
is the best CAHN can do, is there really that much hate in Canada?
Arguing hate is in such great supply in this country is quite a feat given that Canada generally tops global surveys on
racial tolerance and acceptance of immigration. And despite CAHN’s
breathless claims, open expressions of racism in Canada are actually quite rare. Interestingly, visible minorities and non-visible minorities often report experiencing similar rates of discriminatory acts.
The most recent Statistics Canada survey
of police-reported hate crimes happily reveals a substantial
year-over-year decline. Some places in Canada reported precisely zero
hate crimes in 2018. Belleville, Ontario and Trois Rivières, Quebec were
two such cities. Many other places recorded a mere handful. Examples
are St. John’s, Newfoundland with one; Lethbridge, Alberta with three;
and Abbotsford, B.C. with six. Out of 2.3 million Criminal Code
violations that year, there were just 1,798 hate crimes – substantially
less than one-tenth of one percent of the total. And the vast majority
of these offences were for mischief or graffiti. Actual violence is
very, very hard to find. Fewer than 100 instances of hate-motivated
assaults were recorded across the entire country in 2018, of which just
two were homicides.
In truth, Canada appears to be a country remarkable for its lack
of hate. But you wouldn’t know this from listening to CAHN. In response
to the recent happy news that hate crimes fell sharply in 2018, CAHN
complained that these new figures “aren’t showing the whole picture.” It then launched a campaign for “better hate crime statistics.” What CAHN really wants, presumably, is bigger hate crime statistics. As American journalist Wilfred Reilly memorably said of the Jussie Smollett hate-crime hoax in Chicago, “the demand for bigots exceeds the supply.” Reilly is African-American.
Judge, jury and executioner
In
addition to claiming hate is always on the rise, CAHN closely follows
several other discreditable SPLC tactics. Among these is the practice of
“doxing” its enemies. Doxing
involves publishing the details and contact information of
organizations, businesses and even private individuals deemed to be
purveyors of hate. The objective is to expose those it declares to be
haters to public opprobrium, or worse. It can get out of hand.
CAHN has doxed the founder of a far-right podcast who owns a small business in Thunder Bay. It also threatened to publish
the names and addresses of members of the Canadian Nationalist Party in
an unsuccessful attempt to derail their application for official party
status with Elections Canada. And it published the names of hundreds of
donors to the quixotic Toronto mayoral campaign of Faith Goldy. “Naming
and shaming is part of our mandate,” the group explains on its Twitter
account.
In many cases, the only evidence of hate to be found amongst CAHN’s
targets is that they question Ottawa’s sacred twin ideologies of
diversity and multiculturalism. But simply calling for illegal
immigrants – who have, after all, broken Canada’s laws – to be deported
is not itself evidence of hate.
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In
one horrifying example of naming-and-shaming’s potential consequences
in the United States, Jessica Prol Smith, an editor at the
Washington-based Family Research Council, a pro-marriage group opposed
to homosexuality, found her life threatened by a gunman. In 2012, Floyd
Lee Corkins II shot and wounded a security guard at Smith’s building
before being subdued; he later admitted his actions were largely
motivated by the SPLC’s designation of Smith’s employer as a hate group.
Corkins was charged with domestic terrorism and is serving a 25-year
prison sentence. Smith recounted these events last summer in the
memorably headlined USA Today article “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered.”
The
SPLC and CAHN thus grandly claim for themselves the overlapping roles
of investigator, adjudicator and punisher of actions, opinions and ideas
they determine to be wrong. Of course, all of these properly belong to
government, and all are wisely separated in democratic states. No single
organization should ever have such sweeping powers combined, let alone a
private group of activists. CAHN’s arrogance in assuming all three
brings to mind the ancient Roman poet Juvenal’s famous aphorism: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards themselves?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? After her employer was labelled by the SPLC, Jessica Prol’s life was threatened by a gunman.
Other CAHN tactics borrowed from the SPLC include filing highly-dubious requests to police for criminal hate speech investigations and restraining orders
against utterly inconsequential people, such as long-time polemicists
Kevin Goudreau and Paul Fromm. Elsewhere, CAHN has successfully pushed Facebook to de-platform its opponents, such as the Soldiers of Odin,
a tiny group of nativist bikers who have done charitable work and who
dispute the news media’s characterization of them as racist. And it is
currently pushing the same for Canada’s chaotic Yellow Vest movement,
which embraces a dizzying array of social and economic concerns (and
whose sister group in France is led by a native of Martinique). It also convinced Toronto City Council to audit Goldy’s mayoral campaign finances.
A field guide to spotting hate in Canada: bring your microscope
Often,
those targeted by CAHN or the SPLC are not only insignificant and/or
obscure, but too weak or disorganized to fight back. One SPLC staffer noted
Dees’s favoured approach was to pick opponents who had a “poor
education…limited funds, few if any good lawyers…[it] was like shooting
fish in a barrel.” During Farber’s time as head of the CJC, former Maclean’s columnist Mark Steyn described him
as someone who’d spent most of his career fighting “irrelevant
penniless shaven-headed nobodies” as opposed to actual threats to
minority rights and society as a whole.
As
with the SPLC’s targets, sometimes CAHN’s also push back, however.
Canadian Nationalist Party leader Travis Patron some time ago sent a
cease-and-desist letter to CAHN’s Balgord, demanding he retract “false”
claims that his Canadian Nationalist Party is “Neo-Nazi” and that it is
“under investigation for alleged ‘hate speech.’” If Patron’s bank
account permits, it will be up to the courts to decide the validity of
his case against CAHN.
Regardless
of the legal outcome, Canadian voters don’t appear to be buying what
Patron is selling. He received just 166 votes – or 0.4 percent of total
ballots – in the Saskatchewan riding of Souris-Moose Mountain in the
recent federal election. Patron has demonstrated such little traction
with the voting public that it seems pointless to bother getting worked
up about anything he says. CAHN’s efforts have likely provided him with
far more publicity than his trivial Canadian Nationalist Party could
ever have hoped to earn on its own.
In
many cases, the only evidence of hate to be found amongst CAHN’s
targets is that they question Ottawa’s sacred twin ideologies of
diversity and multiculturalism. But simply calling for illegal
immigrants – who have, after all, broken Canada’s laws – to be deported,
as Patron has, is not itself evidence of hate. Neither is engaging in a
debate over Canada’s annual immigration intake. CAHN’s animosity
towards Bernier’s PPC (whose supporters are “terrible people”,
according to executive director Balgord) and his pledge to limit
immigration to 150,000 people per year is rather hard to fathom.
Any party committed to admitting 150,000 immigrants per year – about the same as Australia’s annual intake
and significantly more than Canada itself welcomed for many years under
former prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney − cannot
logically be considered anti-immigrant, regardless of who chooses to
join the party as a result of such a commitment. Most of the world’s
countries, in fact, accept almost no immigration at all. Regarding
Bernier’s criticism of “extreme multiculturalism”, in his later years
Pierre Trudeau also came to lament
how official multiculturalism had metastasized into identity politics.
Plus, Bernier’s party was recognized by the federal Leaders’ Debates
Commission as a serious and legitimate entity deserving a place in the
national televised events.
It is certainly not necessary for a reasonable person to agree with the positions taken by Patron, Goldy, the Soldiers of Odin et al − and in many cases their claims are
embarrassingly naïve, delusional, aggressive or simply plain wrong − to
recognize that democracy works best when a full-range of views can be
aired and dismantled as necessary. Censorship is not the answer to bad
ideas. Better ideas are.
CAHN
has targeted Faith Goldy, pictured above with her then-Toronto Mayoral
campaign team, and the Soldiers of Odin, seen here at a Fraser Valley
community clean-up event.
Instead
of engaging or debating, the preferred tactic of the aggressive
anti-hate movement is to attack. The CAHN website boasts that, “We convinced an Art gallery to Cancel a People’s Party of Canada Event in Winnipeg.” How? Via smear tactics and other ugly de-platforming techniques. But with a large segment
of the Canadian population deeply concerned about current immigration
policy, wildly throwing around claims of “hate” and neo-Nazism at
opponents who merely seek to debate immigration orthodoxies can only
coarsen public discourse.
Naming-and-shaming for thee, but not for me
CAHN
makes no evident attempt to acknowledge the massive grey area between
hotly debated viewpoints and outright hate. Rather, it actively picks
sides and ignores the consequences. The group flatly bills itself as a “monitor” of “right-wing extremist groups” (and then just white supremacist groups, apparently). Warman has explained his purpose is to create “maximum disruption”
for alt-right organizations. As such, CAHN habitually ignores equally
egregious activity by the far-left. In line with the SPLC, CAHN also
generally avoids attacking the speech or association rights of Muslim or
Sikh extremists, current allies of white liberals.
CAHN’s Perry as well complains about law enforcement agencies’ tendency to distinguish between hate groups and terrorist groups.
To most people, such a distinction might seem clear and reasonable. In
the one category are groups holding strong views that many people might
find distasteful or even awful, but that don’t incite or engage in
violence; in the other are groups planning and/or carrying out attacks.
Perry’s preference, however, is to blur the difference between the two –
thus conflating the holding of views she considers objectionable with
illegal activity aimed at destroying Western society.
When
presented with evidence of apparent hate-related activity that appears
to meet or exceed the flimsy standards applied against foes such as
Patron, but emanating from the other end of the political or religious
spectrum, CAHN seems unable to rouse itself off the couch, let alone
commit to a full-on anti-hate or doxing campaign. Consider the group’s
surprisingly flaccid response to Islamist activist Jawed Anwar’s plans for an Islamic Party of Ontario.
While
admitting Anwar espouses the sort of hardline religious views about
gender and homosexuality that CAHN despises when promoted by white
Christian polemicists like Patron or former Ontario Progressive
Conservative leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen, it brushes off
Anwar as an inconsequential distraction. “There are no indications that
[Islamic Party of Ontario] has any support,” reads CAHN’s Facebook page.
“To make it out to be a significant threat at present time is
fearmongering.” To a principled defender of free speech rights, this
statement could seem reasonable on its face. Coming from CAHN, it is
remarkable for its hypocrisy. If causing a ruckus about idiosyncratic
groups with an insignificant public presence is “fearmongering”, then
CAHN is a banner candidate to be Canada’s fearmonger-in-chief.
CAHN seems equally unconcerned about Canadian branch plant operations of the violent Antifa movement or the overt anti-white prejudice of Black Lives Matter
(BLM). Both organizations are examples of alt-left extremism, no
different in principle from the alt-right groups CAHN seeks to put out
of business, and often far worse in practise. Antifa members are
frequently found assaulting their opponents in messy
counter-demonstrations, while BLM
prefers civil disobedience that often seems to go just slightly too
far, at times resulting in serious physical injuries, including to police officers.
The Antifa and BLM movements are somehow exempt from investigation and scrutiny by CAHN.
In this area, CAHN’s approach is unlike the SPLC’s, which regularly denounces the violence of these groups (although still keeping them off its extremist list). The CAHN website actively encourages citizens to partner with Antifa in staging counter-demonstrations (which the SPLC specifically advises against). Balgord has also defended its tactics in print despite the movement being accused of domestic terrorism
by the Obama Administration. And with no hint of irony, Balgord
explicitly defends Antifa thugs’ preference for facemasks as a necessary
precaution since it “protects themselves from doxing” − the very tactic
favoured by CAHN against its opponents.
Given
such tendentiousness, Farber and his cohorts’ attempt to position CAHN
as a reliable and objective arbiter of what constitutes hate strains
credulity. When combined with CAHN’s behaviour to date, it is difficult
to envision anyone who stumbles into the organization’s crosshairs
receiving an impartial evaluation.
Section 13 redux
Beyond simply making life difficult for its carefully-curated enemies, CAHN’s broader ambition appears to be establishing itself
in the space vacated by the departed but unlamented Section 13 of the
Canadian Human Rights Act. This notoriously stringent law once barred online speech that “may expose” identifiable groups not just to hatred, but mere contempt. It allowed no
defences with regards to truth, intent or fair comment on matters of
public interest. And not only direct targets but any non-targeted third
party could file a complaint, while the federal human rights commission
only rarely tried to mediate the complaints. This proved to be a big
problem for poor defendants, considering free legal representation was
not available.
Section 13
was thrust into the public eye in 2002 with the arrival of Warman’s
novel strategy to proactively use the legislation to shut down voices he
disapproved of. While the law was intended for the protection of
minority groups, Warman – a white male − was responsible for an
impressive 16 complaints, the most of any individual.
Balgord has defended Antifa’s tactics in print despite the movement
being accused of domestic terrorism by the Obama Administration. And
with no hint of irony, he explicitly defends Antifa thugs’ preference
for facemasks since it “protects themselves from doxing” – a tactic
favoured by CAHN against its opponents.
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In some instances, Warman obtained his evidence by provoking extremist statements from obscure online message boards. Sometimes he even posed as a neo-Nazi poster himself, which one tribunal adjudicator later said “diminish[ed] his credibility” and “could have precipitated further hate messages.” Partly because his targets were mostly poor and couldn’t afford legal help, Warman was successful in every case but one. He was awarded tens of thousands of dollars in monetary compensation for the damages he purportedly suffered. As one Huffington Post contributor wryly described Warman: “He’s sacked more peewee quarterbacks than any other NFL linebacker.”
When
it became apparent that Section 13 was being used as a bludgeon against
free speech in Canada – most notably when three human rights tribunal
complaints were launched against Maclean’s columnist Steyn – public opinion finally shifted against it. A 2008 report
by University of Windsor law professor Richard Moon identified it as a
clear threat to legitimate political discourse and recommended it be
removed.
Journalist
Steyn torpedoes the listing ship that was Section 13 of the Canadian
Human Rights Act. Now it might be making a comeback.
A
year later Warman’s final and only failed Section 13 complaint, against
Internet provocateur Marc Lemire, was famously dismissed when a human
rights tribunal declined to enforce its provisions because it found they
were inconsistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantees
of freedom of expression. The section was finally repealed in 2013 by
the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.
Stolen identities
As
an attorney early in his career, SPLC co-founder Dees once represented
the Ku Klux Klan and had his bill paid by the White Citizens’ Council in
a case involving the beating of a Montgomery, Alabama Freedom Rider (a
group of civil rights activists who fought segregation). In 1958 Dees
had campaigned for arch-segregationist George Wallace in the Georgia
gubernatorial campaign. According to his former law partner, Millard
Fuller, Dees’ “overriding purpose…[was] making a pile of money.” He
transformed himself into an anti-racism crusader – with the Klan
becoming one of his favourite targets – after discovering it offered an
alternative route to riches via the miracle of direct mail
solicitation.
CAHN has yet
to prove itself as adept at fundraising as the SPLC, which in 2018
generated US$103 million in donations alone. We do know, however, that
CAHN boasts of receiving direct funding and support from its big brother south of the border. And in 2018 Toronto-area businessman Mohamad Fakih made a media splash with a donation of $25,000 to CAHN following a successful defamation lawsuit against his online critics.
But
now CAHN is facing its own troubling allegations of profiteering from
hate. In February 2019 Elisa Hategan, an anti-racism activist and former
member of an early-90s skinhead group called the Heritage Front, teamed
up with professor and human rights lawyer Yavar Hameed to file a
$200,000 civil claim against CAHN. Farber is also named. The lawsuit
alleges CAHN Advisory Committee member Elizabeth Moore (also a former
Heritage Front member) “fraudulently appropriated several significant
elements of Ms. Hategan’s personal life story in order to boost her own
credentials as a former neo-Nazi and did this to monetize a fraudulent
narrative.” These stolen elements include Hategan’s experience as a
former spokesperson for the Heritage Front and later as a defector who
helped prosecutors bring the group down.
Elisa
Hategan, posing here with her book Race Traitor, has filed a lawsuit
against CAHN for appropriating her story and allegedly hoping to gain
from it.
Moore
had simply been an unmemorable Heritage Front fellow traveller, says
Hategan. But instead, Hategan claims Moore took credit for a film made
about Hategan’s experiences: 1998’s White Lies. Her
suit alleges that appropriating her “narrative would be an important
method of securing greater publicity, speaking engagements and financial
opportunities for Moore, as well as publicity, consulting and speaking
engagements for Farber.” On top
of this, Hategan alleges that Farber and Moore have disparaged her
publicly in order to cut her out from employment and advocacy
opportunities, maximizing their own in the process. If true, this
wouldn’t exactly be behaviour consistent with an organization “committed
to increasing public awareness about the scourge of ‘hate’ across
Canada.” The civil trial is set to begin in March.
Theatrical vs. substantive advocacy
While
assuming the mantle of hate-fighter sounds like a heroic exercise in
defending minority rights and rescuing the oppressed, the crusade
embarked upon by the SPLC – with which CAHN, as we’ve seen, openly
associates itself – is criticized even by members of the intellectual
left as a fraudulent exercise. The far-left Nation
magazine has called “anti-hate” advocacy a form of “theatrical” rather
than “substantive advocacy.” If advocates were truly concerned about
minority uplift, its columnist wrote, they should be fighting more
tangible problems like employment and housing discrimination –
practising actual poverty law, in other words − instead of simply “fingering militiamen in a potato field in Idaho.”
That
the SPLC lost the plot by preferring activities that boosted its
fundraising effectiveness over fighting for tangible improvements in its
alleged clientele’s lives is not a new idea. As long ago as 1988, a
former SPLC staffer admitted to The Progressive
that there were “certainly bigger problems facing blacks and the poor”
than continuing to tackle a now-toothless Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, said
another former staffer, “was such an easy target − easy to beat in
court, easy to raise big money on”, and so it dominated the SPLC’s
attention. Last year, Current Affairs
also argued that the SPLC’s habit of elevating minority rights by
targeting inconsequential right-wing groups continues a “politics of
spectacle.”
Even some liberal voices in Canada have expressed concerns about “anti-hate” advocacy and hate speech generally. Former
Liberal Party MP Keith Martin, a doctor of mixed-race background,
fought hard against hate speech restrictions during his nearly 20 years
in Parliament, saying they represented what Canada fought against in the Second World War. Martin noted that
while Canadians have a right to be free from slander, they “do not have
the right to not be offended.” Laws like Section 13 created a “slippery
slope” in that they could be easily politicized and used to simply shut
down debate.
Notable Holocaust
historian Deborah Lipstadt is against such laws for the same reason.
The criticism seems particularly apt when applied to organized and
powerful groups like the SPLC and CAHN. Refusing to debate or engage
with groups or people they don’t like, and choosing instead to malign
them in the most alarmist terms possible, is to engage in the politics
of spectacle. The same goes for the active use or tacit approval of such
ignominious tactics as de-platforming, doxing, Antifa mobbing and
piling on spurious legal complaints.
Antifa
protester (l) grabs a Canadian flag from a Bernier supporter (r) at a
campaign event at Mohawk College’s McIntyre Theatre.
Because hate speech charges are so nebulous and problematic, free speech advocate and author Stefan Braun refers
to them as a “packaged idea.” When unpacked, Braun writes, hate speech
allegations are often revealed to be based on “many different reasons
besides the public good, including fear, political expedience, moral
comfort, public approval, or even the ‘bottom line.’” And because it is
so far from a clear concept, the Supreme Court has ruled that “hate
speech” requires intense and highly fact-dependent inquiry. For this
reason, hate-incitement is unique in the Criminal Code in requiring a
province’s attorney-general to personally sign off on any charges.
Policing
hate, in other words, is properly regarded as the most complex and
delicate aspect of the entire criminal justice system, balancing as it
does the Charter’s guarantees of “freedom of thought, belief, opinion
and expression” with the Criminal Code’s protection from incitement of
“hatred against any identifiable group.” Given its intricate nature, why
would anyone willingly hand over responsibility for policing hate to a
private group of activists that shows so little interest in the legal,
democratic and social ramifications of the task and openly styles itself
after a badly-tarnished American outfit? And why would so many media
outlets give such an outfit the credibility it craves by treating it as a
reliable and unbiased source of information?
A better and more civil way
Anyone
looking to reconcile concerns over hate speech in Canadian discourse
with the demands of free expression is advised to reread Moon’s 2008
report on Section 13. Therein, he suggested dealing with problematic
public opinions and statements through engagement rather than
prohibition and punishment. “We must develop ways other than censorship
to respond to expression that stereotypes and defames the members of an
identifiable group,” Moon wrote.
At
the very least, before attacking someone in public, branding them
“neo-Nazis” or doxing them to reveal their intimate personal details in
hopes someone else will make their life miserable, CAHN should first
define what it means by the labels it employs. And these labels –
hate-mongering, for example – should be applied equally to everyone who
expresses such animus, regardless of race, religion or politics.
Policing hate is properly regarded as the most complex and delicate
aspect of the entire criminal justice system. So why would anyone
willingly hand such responsibility to a private group of activists that
shows so little interest in the legal, democratic and social
ramifications of the task and openly styles itself after a
badly-tarnished American outfit?
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When
a group is identified that meets these equally applied criteria, it
should first be asked to clarify or disavow its impugned statements. If a
disavowal is forthcoming, this could be put on record to, first, credit
the target for its goodwill and, if needed, embarrass the target should
it later recant. If not, those opinions could be met by way of a debate
(in public, online, etc.) and refuted with more and better-quality
speech. As 18th-Century French essayist Joseph Joubert put it, “It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”
In addition to lubricating mutual communication and clearing up
potential misunderstandings, both sides might even learn something from
one another.
Were
“anti-hate” groups such as CAHN to take such an approach, the public
might be better assured the group was properly concerned with the best
interests of civil society and free speech. Improved transparency with
respect to donors, salaries, and its watch-list of hate groups wouldn’t
hurt, either.
John Klein is a business owner in the United States and an advocate for freedom of thought, belief and opinion.