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.

Former SOO Moose Jaw President Jody Issel Throws Some Subtle Shade on National Leaders

That's right, former Soldiers of Odin Moose Jaw president.

More on that later.

It seems that our article on Jody Issel, who at the time of it's publication WAS the president of the Moose Jaw chapter of the Soldiers of Odin, resulted in quite of bit of interest:

It also resulted in some SoO members and leaders deciding to offer their $0.02, though some were a little confused by standard English:

Kazimir is referring to our brief article on Kevin Goudreau that preceded the Issel article. He evidently doesn't understand that this part meant that BEFORE we publish our SoO article we would FIRST publish an (implied unrelated) article on another subject:

We're currently working on collecting information for an article on the Soldiers of Odin in Saskatchewan, specifically the leadership in Moose Jaw and the connection to the neo-Nazi movement in this country and abroad, however we thought we'd share something that came across our desk and caused us to collectively giggle.

But then perhaps we shouldn't be unkind as even the best of us can miss certain nuances of language when reading online article, though we aren't sure what language this person is trying to communicate to us is:

And then there was this person who denied that Issel was even associated with the SoO:

Yeah! How dare we believe our lying eyes!

In any case, when the subject turned to Issel's involvement with the SoO, Mr. Kazimir (who was still confused by the Goudreau post) offered the following excuse which sort of flew in the face of some of his earlier claims:

Well, the truth will out, won't it?

Jody Issel, Soldiers of Odin Moose Jaw President, Isn't Even Trying Anymore

You know, if there's one positive thing about Trump's election is that the racists we've been covering here for years have become refreshingly honest about their views. Take this guy for example:

Now this is admittedly an older photo of Jody Issel, but it does sort of capture a particular moment in time, specifically the time he tried to start up an unauthorized chapter of the Aryan Nations' in Saskatchewan. That effort didn't pan out so well, so he threw in his lot with Kyle McKee and the Aryan Guard in Calgary for a while, attending at least one of their "White Pride Day" marches.

A few months after we reported Issel's efforts to start an Aryan Nations' chapter, he contacted us to first beg, then threaten us, to remove his information. We didn't and we still haven't, but at that time he seems to have recognized that being associated with the racist movement wasn't good for his career prospects.

Over the years we kept an eye on him. He was careful, locking down his Facebook from our prying eyes, but there were still a number of times he forgot himself:

Then when the Soldiers of Odin movement found it's way across the Atlantic, Issel found himself in an interesting position in that he lived in Moose Jaw, the SoO were looking for a Moose Jaw city president, and the SoO doesn't actually seem to vet their members or individuals aspiring to positions of leadership. Thus:

Recently, Issel and his merry band of SoO members (four by all accounts) decided to take a stroll about Moose Jaw (at least long enough to snap some photos) to protect the fine folks of that particular prairie community:

The problem here is who will protect the fine folks of Moose Jaw from the people who claim to want to protect them?

Bill Daniels, SOO Provincial President in BC

It's funny, because although he claimed that he wasn't hiding, at the time Issel posted these messages on his other profile, it was locked up tighter than gnat's chuff.

But things have changed on both of his profiles, although this one is the more interesting of the two right now:

So why does Issel feel more comfortable openly expressing his racism?

Take a wild guess:

Andrew Benson Reappears With Interesting Friends

It seems that in addition to the Goudreau, who recently came to our attention after a lengthy absence, another character whom we had once been keeping close tabs on but whom we lost track of has reappeared on our radar:

Andrew Benson has been somewhat of a political chameleon over the years. He started out as a self-proclaimed Trotskyist....

.... followed by a lengthy stint as a bonehead:

The last time we heard from Benson, he had begun to style himself as a free market libertarian acolyte of Ayn Rand and Ron Paul, though his association with Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute certainly strongly suggested he retained his antisemitic and racist views:

“I am not a fan of political correctness,” said Andrew Benson, 28, who had traveled from Canada to attend. Wearing a black suit vest, red collared shirt and black cargo pants, he looked more like he’d come to his conclusions as part of a teenage rebellion. “I have always had an odd attraction to things that are taboo.”

No kidding?

It seems that Benson is still enamored with this particular brand of nationalism and like other members of the so-called "alt-right" (who are, at the core, neo-Nazis) is a supporter of Donald Trump:

Benson with Milo Yiannopoulos. Photo first posted on Benson's page July 2016.

We found Benson again quite by accident, but we immediately recognized him despite his Russified name as it now appears on Facebook:

Soldier of Odin Member Christopher Hayes Update 1

Last Friday we wrote about Christopher Hayes who was arrested for making threats towards Prime Minister Trudeau on social media. We also posted comments defending said threats as "freedom of speech." We also learned that Hayes was a supporter, if not a member, of the Saskatchewan chapter of Soldiers of Odin:

We didn't initially notice, but upon a second look we found that Chris Hayes' arrest had been discussed in a thread originally begun by an individual who claimed Chris as a brother:

The thread continued today:

This is interesting, in that another supporter (or member) of the Soldiers of Odin, David Rhinelander, has admitted to being investigated for threats made on social media.

Of additional interest is that Michael "Mjohn" Hayes is a leader within the Saskatchewan chapter of the Sons of Odin; he has been listed as the Oxbow chapter president: