The Heritage Front
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 and 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
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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The Heritage Front: A History of Hate