Alberta III%

Yep, I'm still away and hopefully stretched out on a beach enjoying a Cuba Libre, though given my constitution more than likely laid up in a hotel room regretting not getting that Dukoral booster with a sunburn so bad you could roast a marshmallow using the heat radiating off my body. Either way, here is another now likely out-of-date article scheduled to publish while I'm away.

In a week from today, the Canadian Combat Coalition is planning on holding an event in Edmonton with the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam in attendance as well:

You were never fooling anyone with that name, Ryan.

I'm sure everyone is waiting with bated breath to hear the oratory of one Joey DeLuca

Given the disaster that the June 24 June 25 MEGA Patriot Rally turned out to be, this might be perceived as an effort to save the CCC and WCAI reputation as actual significant players on the far-right anti-Muslim/refugee/immigrant scene. Certainly Ryan Dean and Joey DeLuca would like to return to the numbers that participated in the June 3 rally which was in large part bolstered by the presence of III% Alberta members who provided security.... and were carrying weapons, btw. The III% members didn't participate in the MEGA rally ostensibly because of "security concerns" when the mayor of Calgary and Muslim student groups were invited by Garvey, however the head of the Alberta III% militia suggests another possible reason:

First, Beau Welling seems just a wee bit full of himself and the capabilities of the III% militia.

Second, even he seems to recognize that the CCC and WCAI are in fact hate groups. In this reply he does seem to be at pains to separate the III% Alberta militia from other groups. He also posted a message claiming to have spoken to the RCMP whom he claims doesn't regard the III% militia as a hate group:

Oh, not a "pure hate group."

Well that is certainly reassuring.

If such a conversation did take place, I'm guessing that Beau is either gilding the lily or really didn't understand the nature of the discussion because given the rhetoric of the membership, the III% would absolutely be on the radar of the RCMP.

At the beginning of July ARC published an article discussing the decline of the Soldiers of Odin and how the membership is drifting into other, perhaps even more extreme, movements. This fella who was (and may still be) in an SoO leadership position is a case in point:

Also, last month Mack Lamoureux wrote an article for "Vice" detailing a months long investigation into the III% movement, focusing specifically on the Alberta chapter which appears to be the most active as well as a sit down interview with Beau Welling. The article indicates the III% militia is a deeply paranoid, anti-Muslim group that readily accepts any conspiracy theory that confirms their biases. This may be somewhat of a concern under normal circumstances, but add the stockpiling of weapons for a future civil war and the "monitoring" of those citizens they consider to be un-Canadian, well, the danger meter is sort of dialed to 11.

First, let's take a look at the claim that they aren't racists. As of the writing of this article, the New Democratic Party is in the midst of a leadership campaign. One of the candidates is Jagmeet Singh, a Canadian-born Sikh (and a much better dresser than I am). The presence of Singh, who again I stress was born in Canada, was commented on by at least some III% supporters:

Well, maybe their antipathy was directed more towards the NDP, though I somehow doubt that is the whole reason.

One thing that is crystal clear though is the III% Alberta hatred of Muslims. Here are but a few of the posts that illustrate that:

There's also the anti-Muslim conspiracy theories that get trotted out with frequency:

They also seem to attract a few people who are.... shall we say questionable?

Well Evert, Thomas Trenerry certainly didn't stand alone when the Aryan Guard was a going concern:

Trenerry's involvement in the III% militia actually brings me to the other reason why the RCMP would be keeping an eye on the III% militia. Even if the racism and Islamophobia was not present, the III% militia would be a concern due to their anti-government position that is often (hell, usually) violent in nature, at least rhetorically speaking:

Again, the following is merely a Whitman's Sampler of anti-government rhetoric from III% supporters on the Alberta Facebook, national, and other provincial Facebook groups, much of which is directed at the current Prime Minister and would probably constitute a crime:

And then there is there is how they monitor people. Not just the Muslims, as was evident in the Vice article, but also their ideological opponents:

Not Jason, or Bonnie, or Andy,  or Shane,  or Marcell, or Syed, or Leah,  or Julian, or Richard, or Charles, or Grace, or Martin, or Alan, or "two brothers in Calgary," or any of the other people that have been erroneously listed as writers of the blog.  Some of the names aren't even ones I recognize as activists. It has been almost a decade and you still have yet to get it right. Then again why listen to me now when you haven't so far?

Really, you people are very bad at this.

Don't think that being a bystander gets you off the hook. Not showing the requisite amount of patriotism for a III% supporter might be enough to put you or, as in this case, your neighborhood on the list:

When reading posts such as these, I can't help thinking of the line from Alan Moore's groundbreaking comic series:

Who watches the watchmen?

July 2017 Bits and Bites Part I: More Proud Boys, Fromm and Goudreau Antics, and Hamilton Shooting

Well it has been a few days since ARC first published the story on the Proud Boys who disrupted the memorial in Halifax and who happen to be members of the Canadian Armed Forces.... for now at least. As much as ARC would like to take the credit for the story becoming as big as it eventually did, the real credit goes to the Anonymous group who published the videos on YouTube first as well as those who were present and wrote about the incident on social media. They are the ones who deserve all the credit.

Still, ARC certainly did get a lift for a few days in terms of readership over four days:

WCAI Anti-Muslim Hate Group June 25 Pretty Much Quelled

So it has been a few hours since the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam (WCAI) which is primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) an anti-Muslim hate group held their MEGA Rally at Calgary City Hall. The media did cover the event, something that DeLuca had hoped would happen because then they, "couldn't be ignored":

• Heavy police presence in Calgary as anti-Islam group clashes with opposition Sunday
• Anti-Islam rally in Calgary met with counter-protest but remains peaceful
• Counter-protesters outnumber Calgary anti-Muslim group

But as all these stories, including the following from CTV News Calgary, show, it is how insignificant the WCAI really is:

A Sunday afternoon gathering of roughly 30 members and supporters of a group with an anti-Muslim stance was met by more than 100 vocal opponents during the event in the plaza outside the Calgary municipal building.

To put this into further perspective, there were as many police officers separating the WCAI members and their supporters from the anti-fascist and other counter-protesters.

That, ladies and gentlemen, has to be considered a failure considering Joey DeLuca promised an event that would change the way Canada sees anti-Muslim protests. He promised live bands, international guest speakers, food, children's entertainment, a dancing pig mascot, and most importantly hundreds, if not thousands, of supporters many of whom were to have traveled to Canada from the United States.

Aside from Bill Finlay who was arrested upon landing and sent back to Florida within hours, it doesn't look like many (if any) Americans traveled north of the border to support the WCAI protest.

That's got to sting,

At this point the main organizers and spokespeople -- Joe DeLuca, Jesse Wielenga, and Ryan Dean -- have been silent. However our friends from the Cultural Action Party have commented on how wildly successful the protest was:

Yes, the Cultural Action Party did indeed come in full force.... all two of them.

Dude, I know that you're trying to polish a turd, but this really isn't helping.

Even an old Aryan Guard/Blood & Honour supporter who attended pretty much all of the "White Pride" marches organized by Kyle McKee and co. wasn't at all impressed:

"Alleged event."

Ouch.

Considering DeLuca has spent much of the last three months hyping June 24 25 by making fun of the efforts of other groups who could only manage 20 to 30 people, this has to sting:

Yeah, we're all laughing at you Joey.

I'll leave you with Tom of Community TV (check out his YouTube channel) who gave ARC permission to post his take on the event:

UPDATE:

Tom has uploaded a full length video detailing the events of the day:

Racists and Antisemites Attending June 3 Event in Calgary

Tomorrow the protests planned for Ottawa, Calgary, and other Canadian cities should all be under way by noon. Though billed as "million Canadian" marches (thereby attempting to co-opt past progressive events), this writer suspects the numbers will fall far, far, short of one million people. In Ottawa, I suspect there will be between 300 and 500 people, though that is perhaps a generous estimate. In Calgary, perhaps 50 to 100.

Then again, I've never been good at these kinds of estimates, so I may be surprised either way.

In Calgary, WCAI and the Canadian Combat Coalition have been whiny because their event has been referred to by ARC and others as racist and bigoted, a charge WCAI clumsily refutes:

Yeah.... you probably shouldn't do live videos while drunk because this alone undermines everything you just wrote:

Wow.

Rape jokes too.

Just.... wow.

Well, the WCAI videos MAY have been directed towards Trudeau (and based on the above video, homosexuals, the mentally challenged, and of course, Muslims), but the rhetoric coming from the participants and the possible guests tells another story.

For example, Karyn Draper, someone ARC has discussed in the past, will be attending the June 3 protest. In one post she says there will be another individual who will be attending but that she would like someone to accompany her to the event.

Let's see if you can spot the name I and others working with ARC noticed?

Actually, Merle is a name familiar to many, but let's let that slide for a bit.

It looks like Kyle McKee, founder of the Aryan Guard and current leader of the Calgary chapter of Blood & Honour may be attending the event. Kyle McKee, convicted of such crimes as possession of bomb making materials, possession of prohibited weapons, uttering threats, fleeing police, and assault. Kyle McKee, a man charged with attempted murder and other crimes. Kyle McKee, suspected of being involved in a violent home invasion, vandalism, and the firebombing (directly or having provided orders) of an anti-racist's residence.

Naw! It couldn't be THAT Kyle McKee, could it?

Yes, THAT Kyle McKee.

Red Deer Anti-Muslim Protest Update: A Look At Two Parents

If you haven't read the first article on the story concerning the Islamophobic protest that took place today outside a Red Deer high school, we invite our readers to first click on this link.

Also, for people who claim not to be racist, the Islamophobe protesters' supporters don't seem to like brown folk at their rallies:

But I digress....

Upon watching one of De Luca's videos in which he and others question school officials, I couldn't help noticing one figure (the original video has been edited, shortening it to the section readers should pay attention to):

Yes Joey, let's see how that looks on the news hour.

Since Ms. Lyle has provided her name to the media, she is now a public figure and as such her claims warrant some scrutiny.

Not too long after the protest, WCAI and CCC members started to comment on the media coverage:

There are three figures of interest here, including an old friend:

You all remember Thomas Trenerry right? Formerly a member of the Calgary-based Aryan Guard and later Blood & Honour?

However these two posts are perhaps more interesting for reasons that I hope will soon become apparent:

The readers may have noticed in the last article that I mentioned while I and others don't believe there is a mass of parents who fear their sons and daughters are being subjected to assaults and sexual abuse by Syrian students, we do know that WCAI and CCC have been in contact with at least one parent:

Ron Briggs is someone associated with the III% movement. He suggests that "Chad" is the father of one of the boys involved and was unjustly punished for trying to be a peacemaker while the "Syrian instigators" got off with no punishment.

Maybe, but as someone who was involved in the Alberta school system as recently as six years ago, I know how hard it is for a student to receive a five day school suspension for a first offense. That said, if the offense is serious enough, then perhaps five days could be warranted?

Both Briggs and Dean provided their direct messages with Chad in an effort to coordinate the protest:

I was able to find Chad Lyle on Facebook and while he is now using his own photo for his profile picture, he had been using this one as early as this weekend:

ARC's Response to Outing of "Nazi Mom"

We're sure that by this point, talk about ARC's communication with the woman referred to as the "Nazi Mom" has become fairly wide spread within the bonehead community in Canada and elsewhere as a result of poor security on her part. There is no indication that ARC email accounts have been compromised.

To address the elephant in the room, I will admit that ARC is guilty as charged.

"Nazi Mom" (and she will continue to be referred to as such given the legal issues related to the child custody issue that has been going on for close to 10 years now) contacted ARC in the middle of 2014. While still associated with the movement, she provided information about those individuals that she felt were not of moral rectitude. Eventually, and over the years, this writer began speaking to her on a more human level as I thought that perhaps I might be able to lead her out of the movement that she had been a part of for much of her adult life; those efforts may or may not have been naive on my part, but as I have found some success in the past, I figure that it was worth a try.

In any case, a former friend of the "Nazi Mom" who found himself with access to her email account sent information to myself and others concerning allegations of theft and prostitution, as well as evidence that she had been in contact with ARC for a number of years. One of the individuals who received the information was Bill Noble who promptly posted some of her contacts with ARC on the hate site Stormfront. Among those who replied was Kevin Goudreau who posted messages threatening the "Nazi Mom" and demanding that she reveal more of the identity of your's truly. That thread on Stormfront was either removed or moved to a members only part of the forum before I was able to get any screen shots, though I did manage to save part of the text of one of Noble's posts which will be discussed later.

In response to Bill Noble, I have the following question:

Do you really think that she is the only informant within your movement that ARC has?

A Closer Look At The WCAI Canada Chapter

Last week it was reported that a visiting Jordanian imam, Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr, conducted a sermon at the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque in Montreal in December 2016. Video of the sermon showed Musa Al Nasr calling for the death of Jews. Upon learning of the video, B'nai Brith Canada filed a complaint with the Montreal police's hate crime division.

The reaction to the video was swift. The sermon was condemned by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian organizations, municipal, provincial, and federal politicians, and most right-thinking Canadians.... the folks who post on Stormfront notwithstanding. The negative reaction to what seems to be a clear cut case of hate speech directed towards a religious minority is what we would expect in a civil society. In fact, it is what we would come to expect of a country who's political leaders, both in government and in opposition, unanimously passed a motion condemning antisemitism in 2015:

a) there has been, in the words of the Joint Statement issued following the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on January 22, 2015, “an alarming increase in Antisemitism worldwide,” including the firebombing of synagogues and community centres, the vandalizing of Jewish memorials and cemeteries, incendiary calls for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, and anti-Jewish terror; 

b) this global anti-Semitism constitutes not only a threat to Jews but an assault on our shared democratic values and our common humanity; 

Therefore the House: 

a) declares its categorical condemnation of anti-Semitism; 

b) reaffirms the importance of the Ottawa Protocol on Combating anti-Semitism as a model for domestic and international implementation; 

c) reaffirms, in the words of the Ottawa Protocol, that, “Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, and saying so is wrong. But singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium – let alone denying its right to exist or seeking its destruction – is discriminatory and hateful, and not saying so is dishonest;” 

And the House further calls upon the government to: 

a) continue advancing the combating of anti-Semitism as a domestic and international priority; 

b) expand engagement with civil society, community groups, educators, and other levels of government to combat anti-Semitism and to promote respect, tolerance, and mutual understanding.

There was nothing at all controversial about this motion. And yet, a similar motion regarding Islamophobia that passed last week, well....

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should:  

(a) recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear;  

(b) condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of Commons’ petition e-411 and the issues raised by it; and  

(c) request that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage undertake a study on how the government could  

(i) develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centered focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making,  

(ii) collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities, and that the Committee should present its findings and recommendations to the House no later than 240 calendar days from the adoption of this motion, provided that in its report, the Committee should make recommendations that the government may use to better reflect the enshrined rights and freedoms in the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

.... lot's of people have lost their shit:

Demagogues such as Ms. Leitch as well as Canada's baby Breitbart, Ezra Levant's, "The Rebel" have been stoking the fears their base that this non-binding motion is merely the first step towards introducing shariah law into Canada. Some of these people have started protesting at mosques and have already organized two national protests, the first of which was less successful than the second (at least in the cities of Toronto and Calgary). Our reporting of the event's have brought us to the attention of the organizers who have a rather interesting take on this nearly decade-old blog:

That's right, we formed Anti-Racist Canada in November 2007 in anticipation of M-103 in 2017. We are crafty mofos, ain't we? George Soros is very forward thinking.

Which allows me to segue into the topic of the day:

WCAI, or Worldwide Coalition Against Islam, is an anti-Muslim Facebook group with over 65,000 members in Canada and internationally. The Canadian chapter alone has nearly 10,000 members at this point. Now, while only a handful of people seem to be particularly active on either page, these aren't numbers that we should discount, especially when it seems that some members of WCAI have decided to take their bigotry off social media and apply it to the real world:

Paulie and Kyle McKee: Together Again

When Kyle McKee formed first the Aryan Guard, which morphed into Blood & Honour, Paul Fromm was a regular attendee at a number Calgary events organized by McKee and his fellow boneheads:

Paulie was a very vocal supporter of McKee for years, especially when the latter was facing his numerous criminal charges over the years, such as Paulie's commentary on the outcome of McKee's 2010 trial concerning his "alleged" involvement in the pipe bomb incident in 2009 (McKee was arrested in December at Bill Noble's residence after a month on the run):

But then something happened that caused a rift that lasted several years. We can speculate as to what the reasons were, but we might just let McKee and his supporters speak on that issue themselves:

Hmmmm, I wonder what the issue could have been?

It seemed that the rift wouldn't be healed any time soon, however the relationship between Paulie and McKee (and by extension Calgary B&H) has, as of now, at least achieved a state of détente:

What's Paulie's cut of the admissions fee going to be, Kyle?

That's right. For the first time in three (perhaps four) years, Paulie and McKee are back together again, though perhaps the real draw will be Ms. Chabloz.

Still, this happy reunion between Paulie and McKee is one I simply couldn't let pass without commemorating it in some way. And what better way than to utilize my newly learned video editing skills?

Be sure to turn on the closed captions for the pithy commentary.

I think I did quite well on this one.