Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: [04/18] History of Hate - Heritage Front
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/history-of-hate
Last-Modified: 1995/11/29


             The Heritage Front: A History of Hate

Since 1989, Heritage Front members have been involved in racist 
incidents ranging from graffiti to assault. The following is a 
partial chronology of their activities starting with the inception 
of the Heritage Front five years ago:  

September l989 

The Nationalist Party of Canada (Don Andrews' White supremacist 
group) sends a delegation of eighteen members to Libya at the 
invitation of Qadhafi to mark his 20 years in power. Droege, at 
the time associated with the Ku Klux Klan, is included. The idea 
of founding Heritage Front may have originated at this gathering, 
although it has been theorized that Droege considered its creation 
as early as 1981.  

December 8,1990 

The Heritage Front holds its first annual Martyr's Day Rally to 
honour Robert Matthews of The Order. Paul Fromm, a leader of the 
Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE) is one of the 
speakers. Representatives of the Church of the Creator, the 
Aryan Resistance Movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Nationalist 
Party of Canada also attends.  

April 1991 

Wolfgang Droege meets with Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel in 
Toronto. It is one of the first public meetings of the Front after 
two years of secrecy.  

Summer 1991 

The Heritage Hotline goes into operation. Legal challenges to the 
hotline force the HF to cancel and restart the hate message 
service six more times over the next three years.  

August 30, 1991 

Wolfgang Droege is a guest on the Q107 radio show "Barometer," 
espousing views hostile to immigrants and ethnic minorities.  

September 24, 1991 

In the Toronto City Hall, Droege, Fromm, and 11 other White 
supremacists including a member of the Aryan Nations disrupt 
a meeting of the Mayor's Committee on Race Relations as 
Native leader Rodney Bobiwash is lodging a complaint about the 
activities of the Heritage Front.  

September 1991 

Sean Maguire, a member of Aryan Nations and a friend of the 
Heritage Front, is arrested and deported from Canada for 
weapons violations.  

December 1991 

Gerry Lincoln starts publication of _Up Front_, the Heritage 
Front newspaper.  

December 1991 to April 1992 

The Heritage Front distributes racist "White Pride" leaflets 
at the University of Toronto and Ryerson Polytechnic Institute.  

March 1992 

HF members Wolfgang Droege, Nicola Polinuk, Peter Mitrevski and 
James Dawson are kicked out of a Toronto Reform Party riding 
association.  

April 19, 1992 

Ernst Zundel speaks at a Heritage Front meeting, celebrating 
Hitler's birthday.  

May 27, 1992 

The Heritage Front demonstrates at Dunbarton High School in 
Pickering, Ontario in support of a student suspended for wearing 
White supremacist symbols.  

June 28, 1992 

A Heritage Front meeting is held in Toronto's Latvian House, with 
175 supporters, mostly skinheads, in attendance. Seven speakers 
are featured, including the American White supremacists Tom and 
John Metzger of White Aryan Resistance. Nazi-style salutes and 
shouts of "White Power" and "RaHoWa" (short for Racial Holy War) 
are reported. The Metzgers are arrested soon after the meeting 
and charged with entering Canada illegally.  

June 29, 1992 

Members of the Heritage Front observe and photograph an 
anti-racist rally at Queen's Park organized against hate groups 
and in support of the arrest and deportation of the Metzgers. The 
June 29 message on the Heritage Hotline proclaims, "Beginning 
June 30, communist Canada will learn the meaning of White Aryan 
Resistance"  

June 30, 1992 

The Heritage Front organizes a demonstration outside Toronto's 
Don Jail in support of the incarcerated Tom and John Metzger. The 
same day, three Toronto-area synagogues are defaced with slogans 
such as "White Power", and "Hitler Lives, Jews Die." In an interview 
two weeks later, Droege states that the spraypainting was done by 
"no one I touched bases with" and blames "the Jews" for the 
vandalism.  

July 1, 1992 

The HF message reads "this unholy alliance of Trotskyites, Marxists, 
anarchists and B'nai Brth support every perversion imaginable."  

July 2, 1992 

Tom and John Metzger are deported.  

July 21, 1992 

The Heritage Front is subpoenaed to court in Toronto by the 
Canadian Human Rights Commission for an injunction to close their 
hotline. Racists ancl anti-racists clash outside of the courthouse.

July 31 to August 2, 1992 

Droege reportedly speaks at a KKK gathering of neo-Nazi groups at 
Le Plaine, Quebec. Also featured is George Burdi (a.k.a. Reverend 
Eric Hawthorne of the Church of the Creator), and the COTC band, 
RaHoWa. This 'Aryanfest' attracts approximately seventy people, 
half the expected number, partly due to a counter-rally held by 
the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada and the 
Canadian Council on Racism and Prejudice.  

November 1992 

Wolfgang Droege receives Holocaust denier David Irving on a visit 
to Canada Irom his native Britain. After hearings in Niagara Falls, 
Irving is deported before he can address a Heritage Front meeting 
in a Toronto hotel.  

January 1993 

The Heritage Front faces a Canadian Human Rights hearing over a 
complaint lodged by the Native Canadian Centre concerning the racist 
hotline. Wolfgang Droege is represented by 22-year old chemistry 
student Ken Ernst. Five hundred anti-racist protesters clash with 
police as they escort Heritage Front members into the courthouse. 
Two anti-racist demonstrators are arrested. 
 
January 22, 1993 

Dennis Mahon of White Aryan Resistance is deported to the United 
States. He had been brought to Canada with the help of Heritage 
Front member Grant Bristow.  

January 26, 1993 

Anti-racists clash with the Heritage Front outside a Toronto 
courthouse. It is one of four separate violent confrontations 
between the Front and Anti-Racist Action in a two year period.  

March 3, 1993 

Wolfgang Droege publicly expresses his support for the Reform 
Party, despite having been kicked out for his racist views.  

March 13, 1993 

Wolfgang Droege, escorted by other HF members, is invited to 
address a class at the University of Toronto. The HF hotline 
thanks the university and professor Joseph Fletcher for their 
commitment to "free expression."  

April 27, 1993 

It is reported that the Heritage Front is running a recruitment 
campaign in Ottawa. Flyers are left on parked cars and leaflets 
are stapled to lamp posts throughout the city.  

May 6, 1993 

Wolfgang Droege claims that there are Heritage Front members in 
the Canadian Armed Forces. CBC interviews him for a segment on 
racism in the military, but can't confirm Droege's assertion. 
[Note: In August of 1994 it was revealed in a leaked government 
document that CSIS had illegally obtained access to CBC files 
for the story.]  

May 13, 1993 

Heritage Front members clash violently with the audience at a 
Toronto forum. Two Heritage Front members are arrested and charged 
with assault.  

May 29, 1993 

Racists and anti racists clash after an Ottawa RaHoWa concert. 
George Burdi is arrested for assault.  

June 3, 1993 

A fight erupts in Kitchener, Ontario; it is linked to a Heritage 
Front rally. Less than a week later, the Front holds a racist rock 
recruitment drive in Toronto.  

June 15, 1993 

Wolfgang Droege appears in court on a weapons charge stemming from a 
violent clash with anti-racists in Toronto.  

June 26, 1993 

Outside of a court hearing on the HF hotline, anti-racists clash 
with Front members in Toronto.  

August 14, 1993 

The Heritage Front uses a rock concert to recruit youth in Montreal.

October 6, 1993 

Elise Hategan, a member of the Heritage Front, faces hate charges. 
During the next four months she becomes an anti-racist, spying on 
the Front for the police. [The charges against her are withdrawn 
for her co-operation in March 1994 leading to Droege's conviction 
the following June.]  

October 14, 1993 

Kenneth Barker sets up the "Equal Rights for Whites" hotline 
less than a week after the HF line is shut down. The following 
day, he is threatened with contempt of court charges. On October 
18, the Front is ordered to close its Ottawa hotline; Gary Schipper 
says that he would rather spend time in jail than shut down the 
hotline. [The following summer his wish comes true.]  

October 27, 1993 

Kenneth Barker and another HF member are charged with robbery and 
possession of an explosive device. The charges are later dropped.  

December 1993 

Jason Hoolans attacks and paralyzes an immigrant man in Toronto 
following a RaHoWa concert. He later admits that the attack was 
racially motivated. Hoolans is currently serving a four-year 
prison sentence.  

March 17, 1994 

Elise Hategan testifies against the Heritage Front and Wolfgang 
Droege. She requests police protection, claiming that her life is 
in danger.  

March 20, 1994 

The hotline issue is settled by a consent order. Three HF leaders 
still face charges relating to the hotline.  

March 25, 1994 

Wolfgang Droege says in a newspaper interview that he cannot find 
work because of his high profile. It is also reported that he is 
broke and on welfare.  

June 3, 1994 

Wolfgang Droege, Gary Schipper and Ken Barker are convicted for 
contempt of court for their involvement with the HF Hotline. All 
three serve jail time starting on June 23, with Droege appealing 
his conviction while incarcerated.  

June 22, 1994 

A Heritage Front member in Toronto is attacked and beaten by 
anti-Racists.  

August 14, 1994 

Grant Bristow, a Heritage Front leader, is alleged to be a CSIS 
paid informant in an article by Bill Dunphy of the Toronto Sun. 
During the following weeks, information comes to light suggesting 
that he used the money to found the Front. Bristow also 
reportedly gave information on Jewish organizations in Canada to 
Tom Metzger in California. 

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

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