Old Haunts of the Heritage Front

We're currently waiting for some information regarding a couple of upcoming articles, but we thought that we would revisit our project concerning documenting the history of the Canadian racist movement. The primary focus of our research has been on the years 1989 to 1994 under the leadership of Wolfgang Droege which coincided with the rise and decline of the Heritage Front, though there was a brief mini-resurgence in 2001 under the watch of Marc Lemire.

Two weeks ago a couple of ARC members began documenting some of key locations in the early history of the Heritage Front in Toronto. There are rumors that some of the locations, such as the, "Zündel Haus" may be torn down to make way for condos so we decided to record them while they still exist.

Don Andrews: Nothing If Not Persistent

Summertime and the livin' is easy!

We have to admit that the blog has not be a primary focus for our members. Life has gotten in the way in the best possible way and we've been just having way too much fun. As such we really haven't been interested in allowing the miserable excuses for humanity that we cover here to harsh our mellow.

Then, this evening, one of our members doing a pretty routine check of bonehead websites noticed this on the Nationalist Party of Canada's website:

And, as is clear by the following article, we weren't the first to catch this brainfart by the city of Regina:

Regina duped by white supremacy group 

The city agreed to a request by the Nationalist Party of Canada to proclaim a week in Oct. "European Heritage Week"CBC News  Posted: Aug 20, 2013 6:47 PM CST 

The mayor of Regina has cancelled a proclamation to declare a week in October "European Heritage Week" after he says he was fooled by a white supremacy group. 

The group called Nationalist Party of Canada put in a request in July.

Blast from The Past: Nationalist Party of Canada and the Western Guard

UPDATE 3 (replacing UPDATE 1): Never mind. :)

A little while ago we spoke of our interest in documenting the rise and fall of the Heritage Front (and yes, Grant Bristow and CSIS play a significant role in that history, "Narrow Back"). We have received some information and photos, but we thought we would take this opportunity to remind our readers that we would still like your help.

Some of the information we have received actually goes WAY back. Those who know the history of the Heritage Front are aware that it was created by disaffected members of Don Andrews' Nationalist Party of Canada. Nationalist Party members Droege, Bristow, and Lincoln founded the Heritage Front soon after they returned from Libya after attending the the twentieth anniversary celebration of the invitation of the Gaddafi regime, as they felt that the Nationalist Party was no longer an effective means of pursuing their goals. In that sense, the Nationalist Party (according to their own family tree) might be thought of as the Heritage Front's daddy:

Hmmm, we guess then that the Western Guard would be the grand daddy and Paul Fromm's Edmund Burke Society would be the great grand daddy.

Heritage Front Project

As we're in a bit of a lull right now (and that is decidedly a very good thing) we thought we would start some work on a project that we had considered long ago but had put on the back burner. However we will need the help of our readers.

In 1989, perhaps the most "successful" hate group in Canadian history, the Heritage Front, was formed. It's heyday was between 1989 and early 1994, though it did continue in a much weakened state until 2005 when it finally ceased to exist.

We would like to document, as much as we can, the history of this group.

We are looking for examples of Heritage Front propaganda, newspaper clippings, and photos of the group (individual members, meetings/rallies held, encounters with antifa, informal gatherings, etc) between 1989 and 2005, with a special focus on the years between 1989 and 1999 (though the period between 2001 and 2005 is also of particular interest).

If you have any items that could be scanned and emailed to us, our address is as follows:

arc.collective200 (at) gmail.com

Since the Heritage Front was founded almost a generation ago now, we'd sort of like to collect this information before much more of it is lost to time.We know that there are antifa and former HF members (who have rejected racism since they left the hate group) who have items that have not yet found their way into the public realm as yet and, from an historical point of view, these items would be of great interest to not only ourselves, but academia.

To those who are willing to help us out, we thank you.

An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part VIII

NOTE: First, because of its relevance, we would suggest our readers take a look at the latest post on BCL's blog.

The folks at Free Dominion really aren't fans of BCL's "Daily Nazi" series. There are two recent posts specifically that our faithful reader "Maikeru" particularly takes umbrage with which have relevance to our project:

BCLSB author Michael J. Murphy's online repition [sic] (likely repeated to MP Chisu) of a 'Wikipedia' comment that "Lemire was the last president of the often violent Heritage Front organization", is calumny. 

The two posts that Maikeru is referring to are here and here. To sum up, Maikeru states that:

Under-handed methods to diminish Mr. Lemire's public reputation include a concerted effort to paint him as 'Heritage Front Fuhrer', as illustrated by the 'BigCityLib Strikes Back' posting referenced above, and a series of ongoing articles mounted on 'Anti-Racist Canada', and disseminated to associated online websites, entitled 'Examinations of Marc Lemire'. 

The effectiveness of the methods employed to blackball Mr. Lemire are amply illustrated in the immediate reply from MP Corneliu Chisu on the same day Michael J. Murphy contacted his office to share, presumably, similar tainted information to that which he earlier posted online.

The crux of Maikeru's complaint is that Lemire is there is no evidence that Marc Lemire was ever the leader of the Heritage Front. Concerning BCL's use of Wikipedia:

An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part VII

This extension of the Lemire articles is in direct response to the statement made by Lemire in August (repeated in December) when asked by Ezra Levant about his involvement in the Heritage Front:

Uh, the Heritage Front uh, was active back in, uh, the the 90s and I was a young kid at the time. I had some, uh, interest in some of the things that they were doing in particularly thing like uh opposition to employment equity, things like reducing immigration. So I uh, listened to some of what they were about, and uh, I went away from it. I mean I was involved with them peripherally in my teenage years.

Now, for someone who claims to have only been peripherally involved with the Heritage Front in his teenage years, it is interesting that he has surrounded himself with people who were members of the Heritage Front.

In the last post on the subject, we included a newpaper article from July 21, 1998 which provides information concerning Heritage Front activities in Kingston, ON.  At this point the Heritage Front was still active, but it is pretty clear that the Bristow affair had resulted in a precipitous decline in the fortunes of hate group (there would be a brief resurgence in 2001, though this too would be short lived), but it is clear that Droege and the remaining chapters across Canada were still trying to make conversions.

When we looked at the article again, one name (other than Droege) jumped out at us:

An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part II

Gee, we let our resident conservative Sparky write an article for the blog and he gets all polite and crap. Bad Sparky! We're known in part for our dry wit and sarcasm! We can't disappoint our readers! Back to the spice mines for you!

In our last posts we discussed some of Lemire's posts that were, shall we say, not necessarily fit for the dinner table. But that isn't all to the Fournier challenge. They also want proof that Lemire was a member of the Heritage Front (other than when he was in his teens or early 20s) of if he was ever the leader:

Marc Lemire and the Heritage Front: Was He Ever the Leader?

We’ve been following the Marc Lemire (pictured) saga play out for some time. As a result of a complaint being brought against him by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, his constitutional challenge to Canadian hate crime laws, and his, shall we say, acrimonious relationship with Richard Warman, Lemire has become a cause célèbre for those opposed to the CHRC and CHRT. In fact, some have referred to Lemire as no less than a persecuted martyr and a free speech hero. A common cause makes for strange bedfellows; Ezra Levant, who is Jewish, has found common cause with a man who’s links to holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis is unquestioned.

Well, that’s not entirely true. In fact, those ties do appear to be questioned. Not just questioned, but outright dismissed as libelous.

One of the groups supporting Marc Lemire is Free Dominion. Free Dominion, an Internet political webforum, is the Canadian sister site of the American-based Free Republic, both of which are known for being particularly partisan. The members of their web forums don’t view political discourse as a competition of different viewpoints so much as a war of black and white where conservatives represent everything good and pure while liberals are communistic, atheistic, barbarians at the gate trying to destroy everything patriotic Canadians know and love. In short, they view politics as a struggle between good and evil and those who don’t fall into step with conservative positions are evil and must be destroyed.

Sound a little melodramatic? Take a look at the webforum of Free Dominion and form your own opinion (you might also wish to join and try to express a leftist or socialist view; you’ll learn quickly how their views regarding freedom of speech and expression don’t apply to anyone who’s speech or expression differ markedly from their own).