1995 Audit of
The organized hate movement in Canada continued to struggle
under the weight of legal challenges and public pressure.
The
Heritage Front (HF), from 1990 to 1993 the most
important neo-Nazi group in Canada, is still reeling
from declining membership, lack of money, and the legal
troubles of its leaders. In 1995, the group's
founder,
The
Wolfgang Droege, served jail time for a 1993
assault. He was released in April, but remains on
probation and subject to a lifetime weapons ban. In
December, HF leader Max French and his ex-wife June
were in court to appeal their convictions for violating a
court order related to their operation of a telephone
hate-line. Gerry Lincoln, the publisher of the HF newspaper
Up Front, also faces charges for allegedly harassing
anti-racists. Up Front did not publish an issue in the
last several months of 1995 - a clear indication that the
Heritage Front has fallen on hard times.
Attempts by the Nationalist Party of Canada (NPOC), a group
with close ties to the
The
Heritage Front, to promote a
European Heritage Week were unsuccessful for a second
consecutive year. Last year's efforts, which included
an ambitious letter-writing campaign to mayors across
Canada, were foiled when Toronto's CITY TV broke the
story in mid-1994. This year, the NPOC restricted its
activities to placing posters throughout Toronto and
in smaller towns in Southern Ontario. In Winnipeg, a similar
effort by the National Action Party was equally
unsuccessful.
The meteoric rise of
George Burdi appears to be crashing in
Canada. Burdi first came to prominence as the
Canadian leader of the
The
Church of the Creator (COTC), a
violent neo-Nazi group with connections also to the
Identity Church movement based in the United States. As a
young and eloquent speaker, he was a major asset for
the recruiting efforts for the
The
Heritage Front, of which he
was also a member. In addition, he was the leader of
RaHoWa (an acronym for "Racial Holy War"), a Toronto-based
racist rock group. The band played at several neo-Nazi
rallies, and released a cassette three years ago. Burdi was
a major player in the Canadian racist right until the summer
of 1993, when he was charged with assaulting an anti-racist
demonstrator in Ottawa. Following his arrest, Burdi stopped
making public appearances, and concentrated his efforts on
running his racist music label, Resistance Records out of
Detroit, and publishing his magazine, also called
Resistance. In June 1995, Burdi was sentenced to a year in
jail for the assault, and was paroled in September.
However, his magazine has not appeared since his release,
and it is reported that Burdi is no longer on good terms
with many of his former allies. While Burdi will most
likely try to make a comeback in 1996, his recent lack of
success may be an indicator that
George Burdi, the one-time
wunderkind of the Canadian racist right, may no longer be a
major player.
Despite the failures of these individuals, there are certain
people involved with the racist right who are still
active in this country. In December, Holocaust denier
The
Ernst Zundel found himself in court once again as a result
of a criminal conspiracy charge. The preliminary hearing
will be held early in 1996 to determine whether or not
he goes to trial. However, Zundel is still actively
distributing his hate, using both printed materials
and
a sophisticated link to the Worldwide Web (WWW).
In December 1995,
The
Paul Fromm held a public meeting of his
The
Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR) group in
Toronto. Fromm, who has been a leader in the Canadian
racist scene for more than 25 years, is a teacher in
the Peel Board of Education, just west of Toronto. He has
not been allowed to teach high school-aged students
for several years as a result of a Ministry of Education
inquiry into his well-publicized racist activities,
including speaking at a
The
Heritage Front rally on the occasion
of Hitler's birthday. Fromm's continuing role with C-
FAR, including speaking engagements in the West, bears
continued vigilance by anti-racist community groups.
In British Columbia, the enigmatic neo-Nazi,
Charles Scott,
is still actively recruiting followers for racist groups in
Western Canada. Scott was responsible for the recruitment
of CSIS agent, Luke Desilets, into the U.S.-based
The
Aryan Nations, and was named "Aryan of the Year" by that
organization. However, Scott has reportedly left that
organization to start his own group. He announced that he
was moving to Ontario to get away from anti-racist
protesters who were harassing him; but the move never took
place. According to sources in B.C., Scott is
traveling to small towns in the west to build a support
network for his new organization. This is what is
likely responsible for the increased reporting of anti-
Semitic hate propaganda in the area.
Since the decline of the
The
Heritage Front started in 1993, it
had been theorized that the Northern Hammerskins (NHS)
would move to Toronto to replace them as a the predominant
hate group. However, there has been no real
indication that NHS has been active in Toronto.
Nevertheless, they are quite involved in the hate
scene in British Columbia, and several NHS members have gone
to court in that province.
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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