Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: [12/18] The Canadian Far Right
Summary: The League for Human Rights (B'nai Brith Canada) 1994
         report on the extremist organization The Heritage
         Front

Archive/File:
pub/orgs/canadian/league-for-human-rights/heritage-front/canadian-far-right
Last-Modified: 1995/11/30

       The Heritage Front and the Canadian Far Right

Far from being an isolated organization, the Heritage Front has 
links with a number of notorious far-right organizations and 
individuals in North America. The December 1990 'Martyrs Day Rally' 
revealed the extent of the co-operation between groups. The rally 
was sponsored by Heritage Front in conjunction with Aryan 
Resistance Movement (ARM), which is linked to Tom Metzger's White 
Aryan Resistance, Paul Fromm's Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform, the 
Church of the Creator (COTC), History Buff Books (a Hamilton-based 
store run by Jerry Neumann, a supporter of Ernst Zundel), and by 
Women's Aryan Unity (WAU). Veteran White supremacist John Ross 
Taylor, one-time leader of the Western Guard, also attended. Such 
connections are not surprising, considering the similarities in 
platforms and Droege's personal connections.  

                 Racist "Skinhead" Movement

As well as co-operating with established organizations, the 
Heritage Front's supporters also include many skinheads. The 
connection between racist skinheads in Canada and far-right 
groups is well-documented in another publication of the League 
for Human Rights, Skinheads in Canada and their Link to the 
Far Right. At a June 1992 Heritage Front meeting held in Toronto, 
skinheads from Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Niagara Falls, New York 
and Boston made up the majority of the audience, as they do at 
most Heritage Front events.  

             Nationalist Party of Canada (NPOC)

Among its membership ranks, the Heritage Front counts many former 
associates of the White supremacist Nationalist Party of Canada; 
in fact, it is believed that the Heritage Front has taken most of 
its membership from the ranks of the Nationalist Party. This has 
led to tensions between Droege, a past member of the Party, and 
NPOC leader Don Andrews, tensions which are augmented by personal 
friction between the two men. This animosity goes back to the mid- 
1970s, when Andrew spent two years in jail for a plot to kill 
Israeli athletes in Toronto. Droege, who knew about the plan, 
declined to participate in the scheme, which was foiled.  

The Nationalist Party emerged from the ashes of the Western Guard, 
which itself was a renamed version of the Edmund Burke society. 
This latter group was founded in 1967, and included as members 
Paul Fromm, Don Andrews, J. Ross Taylor, Wolfgang Droege, and Jacob 
Prins, the Grand Dragon of the Invisible Empire Knights of the KKK. 
Early members of the Nationalist Party were Wolfgang Droege and 
Alexander McQuirter of the Ku Klux Klan. The Heritage Front is in 
many ways an offshoot of this party, which received thousands of 
dollars from Muammar Qadhafi starting in 1987. The Canadians 
present on the 1989 trip to Libya were all affiliated with the 
NPOC, although several split otf to form the Front later that year.  

The Nationalist Party was relatively quiet for a time until the 
summer of 1994, when Toronto's CITY-TV revealed that Don Andrews 
and others had secured royal support for European Heritage Day 
celebrations in three provinces. The group had mailed letters to 
municipalities across Canada trying to get support from mayors; 
they never mentionecl their White supremacist agenda. Upon 
receiving letters of support from the cities of Halifax and 
Victoria, the NPOC wrote to the Queen to receive a royal 
endorsement. In fact, someone on her staff approved the request.  

When they received the letter from Buckingham Palace, the 
Nationalist Party again sent letters to Canadian municipalities 
to get their support. However, Toronto Mayor June Rowlands alerted 
the provincial government to the situation. Once the story broke 
in the media, all of the governments that had endorsed European 
Heritage Day quickly repudiated their support.  

                   Church of the Creator

The Heritage Front has connections with the Canadian branch of the 
Church of the Creator. The American Church of the Creator is 
considered by the FBI to be one of the most violent White 
supremacist organizations in the United States, although the 
Canadian branch currently keeps a lower profile. A letter appeared 
in the August 1991 issue of Racial Loyalty, the COTC newspaper, 
from a Heritage Front member outlining Heritage Front activities.  

The Canadian leader of the COTC is George Burdi, a.k.a. Eric 
Hawthorne, who has spoken at many of the same events as Wolfgang 
Droege. Burdi is also the singer for the neo-Nazi band RaHoWa, 
and is a regular columnist for Racial Loyalty. It is interesting 
to note that the Church rejects the traditional Christianity which 
many other racist groups claim to support. The co-operation of the 
COTC with other White supremacist groups, despite the religious 
dissimilarities, suggests that the 'positive' tenets (e.g. pro-
Christian values, pro-White ideologies) of the groups are simply 
fronts for the negative beliefs (e.g. anti-Semitic, anti-Native, 
anti-Black). The Church of the Creator co-sponsored the Metzgers' 
visit with the Heritage Front. As well, the COTC's literature is 
often distributed in conjunction with Heritage Front pamphlets.  

The COTC provides security at Heritage Front activities, and in 
fact many members of the Church are also affiliated with the 
Front. In addition, it is alleged that the American COTC 
established a legal defence fund for George Burdi following his 
arrest. However, Burdi has remained silent for more than a year 
since the Ottawa incident.  

~
The League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada, 15 Hove
Street, Downsview, Ontario M3H 4Y8. 416-633-6224.

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