I have to admit that keeping up with all the new ultra-nationalist groups that, while small in membership are springing up like weeds, has been challenging. In part this is because they are so incredibly fractious in nature; personality conflicts or the desire to "be in charge" results in one group splitting into two or more. Those groups eventually fracture begetting new groups. So while the actual number of individuals involved might not be increasing and there is a lot of cross pollination, it sometimes feels as if the movement (such as it is) is growing quickly.
For example, this group is one that I had been paying only peripheral attention to before Vice and the CBC ran stories about:
Meet the Northern Guard which, while claiming to be a "national club" seems confined mainly to the East Coast and parts of Quebec those there are individuals from all parts of the country who have joined the Facebook group:
Like many similar groups (Storm Alliance, Patriots of Unity, the defunct Guardians of Alberta, etc), the Northern Guard is essentially an offshoot of the Soldiers of Odin. The president and founder of the group Nick Gallant was once the president of the New Brunswick chapter of the SoO. The provincial head of the Quebec chapter of the Northern Guard was once in an SoO leadership position in Quebec and was in fact a
subject of an ARC article back in May:
I've also found that Bill Daniels and Michael Montague, the former (and rather short lived) national president and communications dude of the SoO are both members of the group. Daniels, Montague, Wallingford, and other Northern Guard members are also associated with the III% militia that has a small presence in Canada.
I was able to join their Facebook page a few months ago but I have to be honest in writing that I really didn't pay a hell of a lot of attention to them at the time. Truth be told I forgot I had access to the group until the Vice story was published, but after reading
the English version I thought I would give them the once over.
Suffice it to say, they weren't pleased by the Vice article:
So upset in fact that Nick Gallant posted not one, but two videos to respond to the coverage. I'll deal first with the video he posted on September 10 but be warned that should you choose to watch the whole thing, you will be subjected to nearly 20 minutes of claiming not to care but then engaging in relentless self-pity, whining about being prejudged (and holy hell is that ironic given the content of their closed Facebook group), and numerous retorts that are more akin to "I know you are but what am I?" than anything resembling a cogent argument:
If ARC readers decide not to watch the video, I'll helpfully provide a very brief synopsis. Basically, Gallant claims that the media has misrepresented them in order to be able to print more negative stories about the Northern Guard in the future. In fact, they are not racist, anti-Muslim, misogynists, but are in fact a charitable organization that helps people. lots of people. More people than any of the "keyboard warriors" who are critical of the Northern Guard.
Certainly those who responded to Gallant's video agree with him, though the presence of one individual may be somewhat problematic:
Uhm.... if they want to be perceived as not being racists, they might want to consider that the Goudreau isn't going to help their image one bit:
But then perhaps I'm not being fair? After all, they may not be as familiar with the Goudreau as ARC and ARC's readers may be and if they learned who he was he would perhaps be given the boot.
So let's instead look at posts by leaders and members of the Northern Guard who are in good standing to better discern the nature of the group and if they were misrepresented by the big, bad, msn.