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Evan Balgord, A supporter from Ontario, Helmut-Harry Loewen, Maureen Hurley, "Uncooperative Palindrome", Yellow Vests Canada EXPOSED,

Friday, April 05, 2019

Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview: Yet ANOTHER UCP Candidate Linked To Extremists?

In October 2018, the United Conservative Party held a meet and greet at a pub in Edmonton. Among those who showed up for the event was the leader of an Alberta separatist party, the misogynistic head of Onward Christian Soldier, at least one member of the Clann (founded by Ryan Dean had been kicked out of the CCC about a year before and who I believe had just recently gotten off of house arrest after his conviction for assaulting his one-time girlfriend), and members of the Edmonton chapter of the Soldiers of Odin:


 
Not especially a good look for the United Conservative Party which quickly went onto damage control:



Two of the candidates disavowed the SoO and claimed they had no idea who they were or what the group was about. The third candidate however refused to go along with this narrative (though to be fair the two other candidates may have been genuine) and said he knew exactly who the SoO were. For his troubles, he was booted as a candidate by the party:


The Edmonton Nouns of Odin, because of the negative press, was ordered shut down by the original chapter in Finland and leader Tyson Hunt went on to rebrand as the Canadian Infidels/Wolves of Odin/Odin's Infidels.

Really, Hunt had a really hard time sticking with a name he liked:


Eventually Hunt and his gang merged with Ryan Dean's twosome as the Clann with Hunt apparently the public leader though Dean certainly maintains control of the group:


The most infamous of their recent activities, especially in light of the murders in Christchurch, New Zealand two months later, was the decision of Hunt, Dean, and two or three other to harass members of Al Rashid Mosque in Edmonton:












Now that the background information has been provided, on to the purpose for this article.

Ryan Dean likes to create social media pages -- Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram primarily -- to disseminate particular brand of noxious propaganda and to make it appear as if there is more support for the hatred he and other members of the Clann espouse. One of his recent efforts is on Instagram:


As of last night when I grabbed the screen shot, there were 44 followers; that number hadn't changed the last time I checked earlier today. Among the 44 who decided to give Dean a follow was this fella:


And who is David Egan you ask?

This guy:


As Dean has been posting on Instagram fairly frequently since creating the site a couple of days ago, Mr. Egan may be seeing images like these come up on his feed:





Of particular interest are the posts supporting Faith Goldy and Students For White Civilization who promote some variation of the identitarian "great replacement" conspiracy that in part motivated the Christchurch murderer:



Most concerning are the posts targeting anti-racist supporters in Calgary and Edmonton. On these posts there have been comments left by both Tyson Hunt and Joey Deluca of the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam who marched in Edmonton last week. In one post Deluca writes "they need to die" in reference to an activist and in a brief exchange with Hunt claims that they have addresses of anti-fascists:



Now if I'm to be fair, there is a chance that UCP candidate for Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview David Egan may have followed Dean's Instagram profile because Dean also followed him; I don't know whom followed whom first:


When I checked Mr. Egan's Facebook profile with my sock puppet, one in which I only add extremists who along with far-right groups I keep an eye on, I found that Mr. Egan and the sock had well over 100 "friends" in common including many such as Rick Boswick and Georges Massaad who have been frequently profiled here on the ARC blog:


This also raises more than a few alarms. As I would like to give Mr. Egan the benefit of the doubt it has become sort of clear that extremism within the UCP during this election appears to be a feature rather than a bug:

And so on....

Aside from Mr. Egan, a list of over 30 current and former UCP candidates raise the question of what kind of vetting the party does and what kind of government they would be should they win the Alberta election on April 16.
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Pegida Canada Hit With $11,000 Judgement

I have to admit I haven't paid a great deal to Pegida Canada of late; they had an event a couple of weeks ago that will be discussed peripherally in a future article, but other than that they haven't really been much of a concern considering their low numbers at events they have planned and the fact they are consistently overwhelmed by counter-protesters. As such I didn't know they had been sued until today as a result of an incident in 2017.

Evidently, it went poorly for Pegida:


So far the only information I've had time to find is from sources provided by Pegida Canada sympathetic to their plight including the post above and a rambling, angry, video by Mary Forrest (I might add it later but it is super late and I have to be up early for work). Not surprisingly Pegida Canada is looking to Go Fund Me to get them out of this jam:


If I might ask a favor of ARC's readers, it would be to let Go Fund Me know that a hate group is attempting to raise money on their platform after being hit with an $11,000 judgement for libeling a person based on his religion?

More later.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2019

The Media Enablers, Q1 2019 Edition

The discussion -- and by "discussion" I mean valid and harsh criticism -- of the Canadian media's treatment of white supremacist events, ideas and personalities has been heating up in the first few months of 2019. It is astonishing that in an era where we have access to more information on racist extremism than ever before we are experiencing such a deluge of ignorance and racist enabling from the mainstream press. In an effort to create a long-term record of the problem, and to call out those who think racism is either an unimportant or acceptable position, ARC is launching a new series to highlight some of the worst media blunders.

Let's get into the first quarter events and reports that make up the first entries on our Wall of Shame:

UNITED WE ROLL aka YELLOW VESTS CANADA CONVOY, February 2019

 The renaming of the convoy from Yellow Vests to United We Roll was an effort on the part of the far-right organisers to keep the focus on their opposition to Bill C-48 (the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act) and Bill C-69 (an Act to bring the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act into effect). Many in the media, including reporters at The Calgary Herald, The Toronto Star, and the CBC's The National bought into the idea that UWR was simply a pro-pipeline movement and nothing more. ARC already covered this mess in depth here. Even a cursory look at Convoy members' social media shows it's filled with assassination fantasies, extremist members, and over-the-top racism. At the protest in Ottawa, where Andrew Scheer spoke, Yellow Vests Canada Exposed reported seeing members of C3, Northern Guard, and possibly Proud Boys on scene. Faith Goldy delivered a speech, and yet it was still just about pipelines to many in the media. As Nosferatu asked at the time:
If I, Yellow Vests Canada Exposed, and the Canadian Anti-Hate Network find this with our limited resources, then why won't the major media do more than a cursory and shallow examination of this racist movement?
Research for this piece brought up many more exasperating articles, however, this one from the North Bay Nugget goes above and beyond in the worst possible ways. It is mostly unchecked quotes from Convoy participants, including these anti-immigrant and Islamophobic gems from Pat King, who was seen mocking Indigenous protesters in Ottawa:


Then the writer uses Snopes in a feeble effort to counter antisemitism and global banking conspiracies, but ends up somehow legitimizing them instead: 


The Convey is full of positive people and will make Canada great again:


And finally, no hiding the anti-globalist, anti-migrant agenda in this piece:


Lest anyone think it unfair that I'm picking on a small-town journalist, consider this: newspapers like the North Bay Nugget set the tone and voice for their communities in more intimate and direct ways than the CBC national news. They both dictate and reflect back the views and beliefs of their readers in ways that can have immediate influence over tensions between residents. A newspaper of any size has a responsibility to its readership and community to report racist extremism accurately and show residents that racism is not welcome. Local papers, like Sault Online and Soo Today have done a good job reporting on Dave Selvers, so we know it can be done. 


PEGIDA PROTEST, TORONTO, March 23rd

A couple of weeks ago, approximately 25-30 PEGIDA members and supporters were met by about 250 anti-racists in downtown Toronto. It was an impressive sight!


PEGIDA's views are well-known and this protest should not have caused any confusion or sympathetic misrepresentation in the press. It really, really, really should not have, but it did anyway. First up is Sue-Ann Levy from The Toronto Sun with her piece "Anti-hate rally? Could have fooled me." She paints the anti-racists as hysterical, screaming, unwelcoming professional protesters who were provoked by Mayor John Tory to counter-protest. Meanwhile, the poor marginalized PEGIDA members were slandered and misunderstood:


While many in Toronto are, unfortunately, used to Sue-Ann Levy's...er...perspective on things, it was nonetheless surprising that after intense criticism from this piece she would double down and accuse certain municipal politicians of being "anti-white supremacy," as if that was a bad thing:


It's sad and frustrating that The Toronto Sun is supporting a white supremacist sympathizer when, despite all its problems in the past, it used to support Bill Dunphy who was determined and unrelenting in exposing The Heritage Front and Grant Bristow in the '90s. It feels like this publication is following  dangerously close to Rebel Media's path into the arms of the so-called alt-right.

A dishonourable mention for poor PEGIDA coverage goes to CityTV's Pam Seatle who put her own unpleasant experience of the event as the lead and then posted this Tweet, which was later deleted (source, Twitter user @Liam_Tosh):


It took a week, but CityTV finally apologized, stating this coverage did not live up to their editorial standards and they are committed to doing better. Time will tell if this is indeed the case.


CAYLAN FORD INTERVIEW ON GLOBAL NEWS RADIO'S DANIELLE SMITH SHOW, March 30th

Last but certainly not least on this quarter's list is Danielle Smith's dumpster fire of an interview with former UCP candidate, Caylan Ford. She resigned after PressProgress published verified screenshots from a Facebook Messenger conversation where she expressed classic white supremacist views about population replacement and special treatment for Islamic terrorists:


She opted to step down, supposedly for the good of the party, and then shared her story on Smith's radio show. Danielle Smith herself has deep roots in Alberta politics and was the Leader of the Wild Rose Party from 2009-2014 and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2012-2014. I can't help but wonder if, beyond her own probable racism, seeing a young female candidate ruined by leaked private messages created a sympathetic blind-spot for Smith that greatly impacted her ability to do her job as a radio host.

When seeking out this interview, I was expecting a 5-10 minute piece and was surprised to find that  Smith devotes nearly 40 minutes to Ford! She frames Ford as a good person who has been stalked and defamed by the UCP member who leaked the messages and then gives her nearly a third of the air time to go into great detail about this supposed victimization. While ARC certainly does not excuse or condone the behaviour Ford claims she was subjected to, it also should not be used to deflect and re-frame her exceptionally problematic statements.

It was completely irresponsible that at no point during their 40-minute interview did Smith directly challenge Ford's racism and white supremacist sympathies. On the contrary, they agreed about the "demographic problem" Canada supposedly faces, and Smith allowed Ford's explanation as someone who has studied Mandarin and practices "Chinese Buddhism" as proof that she cannot possibly be racist. If she honestly thinks Buddhists can't be racist by default, we'd be happy to introduce her to the works of Brian Ruhe, which should change her mind in a hurry.

The interview continues in this fashion until, near the end, they both cry together as Ford recounts the numerous letters of support she's received from people in her riding of Calgary Mountainview. At the end she states that critics of her interview were warned that it would be controversial and that they were welcome to not listen. Calling on critics not to listen, and thereby blaming them for their objections, in no way excuses her from giving a racist an opportunity to gain sympathy, redeem herself, and tell "her side" unopposed. Enabling white supremacy is still a problem regardless of who listens.


A FINAL WORD...

While there is no excuse for lazy journalism, or worse, for allowing personal prejudices to get in the way of responsible reporting, I want to recognize the role newsroom downsizing plays in the general mess we are seeing this year. When good journalists are let go to boost profits, or saddled with such a heavy workload that they cut corners, we need to call out the corporations that are responsible for these changes. Reporters need the resources and support to do their job properly or we all suffer the consequences. As consumers of the media, it is up to us to demand quality over quantity and responsible reporting over reactionary clickbait. I wish this was the only cause of our media problems, because time and money would be far easier to solve than their ever-increasing flirtations with white supremacy. No doubt I will be back in three months with another instalment.


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Monday, April 01, 2019

More Information on Soldier of Odin Member Taken Into Custody After Assault Saturday; Member of Calgary Chapter With Overtly Racist Leader

It turns out that the rally that WCAI's Joey Deluca billed as a 72 hour extravaganza lasted perhaps a total of four hours over three days and except for the last rally when they purposely hid until most of the 250 - 300 counter-protesters had left were vastly outnumbered:



So.... I guess that happened:




In total the boneheads could muster 30 - 40 people from multiple cities and provinces which if one were to ask me was a rather sad display. Still, there was one incident when they did outnumber the counter-protesters that needs to be discussed:




One member of the Nouns of Odin was taken into custody for assaulting a counter-protester, however he wasn't the only one who had been involved:







Getting back to the SoO member taken into custody, our friends in Edmonton figured out who he was in short order:




Meet Steve Lane:







Lane was the fella in the video Dubois posted holding the Canadian and Finnish flag while proudly proclaiming the SoO chapter he was a member of was "Finland approved":


Now this is significant since as ARC has mentioned numerous times the original Finnish chapter of the SoO was founded by a neo-Nazi with numerous arrests for targeted racial assaults. The connection to this Finnish chapter is what ultimately resulted in the collapse of the SoO as a national gang despite a later effort to disassociate themselves from Finland with only regional or city chapters remaining, including the one that Lane is a member of.

And what chapter would that be?



Back in April 2018, ARC discussed the Calgary chapter, paying particular attention to Dale Caldwell who is second on the right in the photo below:


In the article, ARC provided proof that the Caldwell, chapter president of the Calgary SoO....


.... is a neo-Nazi:





Spoiler: Dale wasn't a fan of ARC's article:


Back to Lane, it seems that he is someone eager to engage in violence based on his posts on Facebook:


Truth be told though, it seems that Lane wasn't the only one who was itching for a fight:







Since the rally, Edmonton Against Fascism has been doing a fantastic job of identifying the members of the hate groups, primarily SoO and Northern Guard, who participated in the rally in general and the assault specifically:




I think it appropriate end this article by sharing their hard work with ARC readers:

Read more »
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