Marc Lemire Out in Hamilton

Former neo-Nazi hate group leader Marc Lemire is no longer working for Hamilton by mutual agreement. We provided evidence to investigators that he continued to host hate materials on his now-defunct blog after the story broke.https://t.co/y9SMd23ktn

— Canadian Anti-Hate Network (@antihateca) August 16, 2019

Marc Lemire will not return to work for the city following investigation: sources. https://t.co/ULDqCSeJs1 #HamOnt pic.twitter.com/pPgYJwP7SP

— CBC Hamilton (@CBCHamilton) August 16, 2019

Sources say Lemire won’t be coming back, but for lots of us questions remain about how a known Neo-nazi got hired and may have been deliberately hidden at the City for years. It’s possible that other employees should face discipline. https://t.co/onIVxxtNxJ #CanLab #HamOnt #OnLab

— Sarah Molyneaux (@Sarah_Molyneaux) August 16, 2019

Right to the end, Lemire continued to deny his long-time involvement with the Heritage Front, involvement that ranged from simple membership early on, work on the hate group's website and later hosting it and numerous other hate sites, and finally the leadership of the hate group. This is all outlined in "Marc Lemire: A Summary of Information" that includes links to article written about Lemire's involvement in organized hate.

While the removal of Lemire is positive, there are still a lot of questions regarding his employment and why he appears to have been protected by Hamilton government officials. We also still have questions about his access to sensitive information and whether that information could have been shared with his fellow travelers.

May 2019 Bits and Bites: Michele Tittler, the III%ers, Northern Guard and Robert Jones, and More

This is going to be long and disjointed. I'm also going to miss a lot of stories others are covering. Still, I thought it appropriate to provide a brief summary of what is happening on the far-right during the latter month of May. For starters, this happened:

Marc Lemire, the former head of a white supremacist group, works in IT with the city of #HamOnt https://t.co/3g6zHCgyuW

— Samantha Craggs 🦉 (@SamCraggsCBC) May 24, 2019

I'm not holding my breath that anything will actually happen, but I may very well be surprised.

Anyways....

Anything happen while I was away?

After writing the last post on August 6, I decided to forgo using the Internet for a few more days. Being exposed to negativity and hatred daily will take a mental and emotional toll on anyone and I've learned that it is important to get away from it to recharge. As such, I had been out of the loop for almost a month, but I wasn't too concerned because really, how much could possibly occur during the time I was away?

Well, quite a lot it seems.

Looking first at the mainstream media, there were a few national and international stories that I'm sure ARC's readers have been aware of for much longer than I have been.

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.

Ezra Levant Not Entirely Certain Soldiers of Odin Are A "Thing"

While we were working on our commentary yesterday on Mack Lamoureux's CBC story covering the  activities of the Soldiers of Odin in Edmonton, we were also following an interesting exchange between Mr. Lamoureux and Ezra Levant on Twitter. Sadly, as Ezra isn't a fan of ours....

.... we may have been only able to see one side of the discussion.

Unless we had a second Twitter account. Which, of course, we do.

Now, from this part of the exchange, Ezra seems to be suggesting that the Soldiers of Odin are actually a figment of Mr. Lamoureux's imagination. However, Ezra does clarify his position that he believes the SoO are exist, but only as a vehicle to entrap poor, dumb, disenfranchised, "old stock" Canadians:

Michelle Erstikaitis In The News Again

It's been a while since we heard anything about Michelle Erstikaitis. Last we heard she was still in detention from a previous run-in with the judicial system and Paul Fromm was diligently visiting her behind bars (really, though he claims her as a White Nationalist P.O.W. Paulie's relationship with Erstikaitis remains inexplicable to us.... unless.... yuck!).

We'll, it looks like she is out of prison.

Or, perhaps we should say, WAS out of prison:

Former Paul Bernardo fan charged in U.S. Consulate attack

Oh.

Well.

Paulie might have a hard time explaining this away.

Michelle Erstikaitis, 36, who was deemed a dangerous offender five years ago, appeared in a College Park courtroom Tuesday looking dishevelled and ranting about wanting “a refugee lawyer” to handle her case.

She is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon.

“I’m a Canadian citizen and I want to leave this country,” Erstikaitis said in open court.

Okay, so, what did she do exactly?

Toronto Sun sources alleged the woman initially asked for asylum but soon began shouting “ISIS is coming to kill you” and other odd things.
....
Officers arrived and found a guard suffering from multiple stab wounds.

“It’s alleged the woman tried to force her way into the consulate while armed with a three-inch box cutter,” said Sidhu, who added she rushed through the body scanner at the front entrance prompting a guard to react.

As the guard grabbed the woman, she allegedly slashed his throat with the razor-sharp box-cutter narrowly missing a major artery, sources say.

“He managed to avoid serious injury,” Sidhu said, adding the guard’s arm was also sliced before the woman was subdued.

Yeah, that would do it.

The article goes on to detail Erstikaitis' long and sordid history of legal problems, arrests, and her dangerous offender designation which Paulie suggested was COMPLETELY unjustifiable.

Sure.

Paulie might be pleased though (or saddened) to learn that her association with him and White Nationalists was not included in her biography

Last we actually saw Erstikaitis was at the Doug Christie Memorial in Toronto where she was photographed between Malcolm Ross and Marc Lemire....

August 2015 Bits and Bites: Horribly Belated Edition

I know, I know.

This writer just got out of the bush a few days ago after several weeks of camping. Unfortunately, I forgot to let our friend who fills in when I'm (a) on vacation, (b) sick, (c) burnt out, or (d) hung over. But as he was gone as well as it turns out, it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

Soooo, what's happened since our last update?

First, we are working on gathering details for an upcoming article. Won't tip our hand too much yet, but I will mention that it involves a person based in Toronto we've discussed with some frequency in the past and some rather interesting associations that individual turns out to have. Stay tuned.

Second, we have two good news stories and one not-so-good story we would like to share, though even the latter doesn't put it's subject in a particularly positive light.

We start with the good news.

At the beginning of July, the New Brunswick Court of Appeals reserved judgement in the case of Robert McCorkill, who's will leaving his estate to the American-based hate group the National Alliance was challenged by his estranged sister, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the government of New Brunswick. Paulie suggested that, "experienced court observers predicted a six month wait for the decision."

In the end, it didn't even take a single month:

Don't @#$% With Richard Warman: Part VII (UPDATED)

At least we think we're on to Part VII. Really, after a few years one does lose track.

In any case, a few years back a number of bloggers and others accused Richard Warman of posting incredibly racist comments about Caribbean-Canadian senator Anne Cools. It seems the accusation may have originated as a result of Warman's Se. 13 case against Marc Lemire. It was suggested that Warman had posted the statements on Lemire's Freedom-Site based on what was then alleged to have been an ip address Lemire and Klatt had linked to Warman. Warman denied this and there was absolutely no evidence to support the claim, but conservative Internet personalities like Kathy Shaidle and her husband Arnie, Kate McMillan of "Small Dead Animals", the good folks at Free Dominion, Ezra Levant, and a few others ran with the claim.

Mr. Warman insisted that they remove the defamatory claims from their respective websites. They doubled down. He sued.

At first they were all pretty confident that they would be able to prove that Warman had written the incredibly vile comments in question. They were especially smug when Levant was able to convince the courts to have Warman's hard drive subjected to a forensic examination:

Long story short, the forensic examination found absolutely nothing that would link Warman to the racist comments made about Ms. Cools. The other "evidence" also turned out to be a heaping load of nothing as "Bouquets of Gray" pointed out:

1. the IP address used by the author of the Cools post (which had later been used by Warman) was a load-balancing proxy usable by any of Rogers' close to a million customers;
2. the browser and setup used by author of the Cools Post was different from Warman's in several key ways (here and here);
3. the 'expert' opinion presented by Bernard Klatt arguing that Warman was the author of the Cools post was deeply substandard in several ways (here)

Ya, that's got to sting.

The first shoe to drop was Arnie of "BlazingCatFur" back in January 2013. Today, Kate "Small Dead Animals" McMillan and Kathy "Five Feet of Fury"Shaidle joined Arnie in apologizing to Warman for the unfounded and defamatory allegations made against him:

March 2015 Bits and Bites: Warman, Dr. Dawg, Zundel, and Daniel Gallant

We've learned that Richard Warman has won another one. David Icke has paid Warman $90,000 to settle a rather long running libel action:

DAVID ICKE SETTLES LIBEL ACTION
5 March 2015

British conspiracy writer David Icke and co-defendants have paid Canadian human rights lawyer Richard Warman $210,000 CDN (117,000 GBP) in damages and legal costs to settle a libel action against them.

In 1999-2000, Warman had worked with various Jewish and anti-racism groups to notify public venues in Canada of discriminatory elements within Icke’s mishmash of conspiracy theories. After being provided with material from Icke’s own writings, a number of these venues withdrew permission for Icke to use their facilities in his tours.

In retaliation, Icke included false allegations in his 2001 book Children of the Matrix that Warman was seeking to suppress Icke’s purported exposure of Satanic child abuse and murder.

David Icke made an out-of-court settlement on January 8th paying $90,000 CDN (50,000 GBP) on the eve of a long-delayed trial that was scheduled to begin in Toronto on February 2nd, 2015. The Court order formally discontinuing the claim was issued on 4 March 2015 thus paving the way for this announcement. Insurers for three Canadian bookstores that had refused to stop selling the book after being served with libel notices had previously settled out for $120,000 CDN (67,000 GBP). Information obtained from litigation by Icke against his former US business partner demonstrated that at least 55,000 copies of Children of the Matrix had been sold worldwide.

The settlement includes the requirement that Icke immediately cease any further distribution of Children of the Matrix and remove the defamatory material from any future editions. Warman thanked his lawyers Christine Lonsdale and Elder Marques of law firm McCarthy Tétrault – “They were absolute professionals and I couldn’t have done it without them.”...

Sec. 13 Dead.... For Now

NOTE: This is a little screen shot heavy. Be forewarned.

On June 26, Sec. 13 of the Human Rights Act cease to exist. As our friend BCL noted however there is no reason why Sec. 13, which was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, can not be brought back by a more enlightened government in the future. In the meantime the good folks at the now moribund Free Dominion have decided to post (a now rare) comment to celebrate the demise of Sec. 13:

It it isn't surprising that Connie would give props to Marc Lemire as Free Dominion had been on the forefront of the effort to rehabilitate Lemire's reputation, characterizing him as a free speech martyr. In fact, they went beyond this and engaged in a little bit of historical revisionism. Not only did they deny his role in the leadership of the Heritage Front from 2001 to 2005, they have all but denied that he had any significant history with the hate group. We have attempted to show them the error of their ways, but it seems they have decided to believe him rather than us. But then they aren't the only ones who have tried to help Lemire cover up a very shady past. Ezra Levant, in two interviews with Lemire, asked about the Heritage Front and did not challenge this response:

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.

Well, that is partially true, as these articles indicate he was active with the Heritage Front in his teen years (he would have been 18 at the time of the 1993 photo and 19 when they were published):

SOS and Fromm Associate Arrested

We first heard the name Chris Edmunds in relation to the April 2013 march held in London by the Southern Ontario "Skinheads" as well as his attendance at a memorial for the late Doug Christie.

Chris Edmunds, Malcolm Ross, Michele Erstikaitis, Marc Lemire

It's been a while, but you had to know a guy walking around with SS on his shirt would cross our radar again:

Man charged with criminally harassing elderly couple

By Standard Staff

Thursday, June 19, 2014 4:50:05 EDT PM

An 18-year-old St. Catharines man has been arrested for allegedly harassing an elderly couple in what police are calling racially motivated conduct.

Niagara Regional Police said an elderly couple who are long-time residents of an east St. Catharines neighbourhood were being threatened and intimidated. Police said the conduct occurred recently over a period of one month.

Christian Edmunds, 18, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with criminal harassment.

Harassing old people. That's the courage we have come to expect from boneheads.

April Legal Notes

This really isn't in any way intended to be a comprehensive article. We just thought we would share some information on the legal front.

First, the deadline for Marc Lemire to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court (re: the Federal Court of Appeal's decision) was on April 1. However, word is that he hasn't filed anything and that it appears that he has given up. We suppose he may have forgotten as he has been busy live blogging the most recent Free Dominion defamation suit. On that case we also see that Paulie is shilling but he received a response from one of his Facebook friends who we have discussed in previous posts which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement:

On the same day, Toronto nutter Eric Brazau was convicted for wilfully promoting hatred and for harassing a Muslim family. He was sentenced to 9 months, however as he spent 9 months in pre-trial custody he was ultimately sentenced to time served. In order to protect Brazau's right to free expression the judge refused to ban him from distributing flyers, so we might not be too surprised if we find that him in the news again for similar reasons. We perhaps shouldn't be surprised either that when Brazau was arrested, Ron Banerjee was his wingman.

We also received notice concerning another appeal that is going ahead. Terry Tremaine's appeal is to be heard on May 28 in Regina at the Court House on Victoria Avenue. We actually haven't heard much from Tremaine in a while, and we can't say that we are all that disappointed by this fact.

Finally, two quick updates on Arthur Topham from the horse's mouth.... so to speak:

Topham followed his post on April 8 with the one below posted yesterday:

So we guess we'll find out in 5 days or so?

Ezra Levant and the Fine Art of Astroturfing....

.... allegedly.

We've written posts about Ezra Levant sporadically throughout the history of this blog, most recently concerning his racist stereotyping of the Roma people for which he eventually apologized (though only because Sun News was trying to get mandatory carriage at the time). He has championed bigots such as Geert Wilders and Anne Coulter. He has tried to help former Heritage Front leader Marc Lemire whitewash his past on his program not once but twice. He has engaged in character assassination of people he has decided he doesn't like for whatever reason.

Really, what we've written about Levant on the blog really doesn't begin to cover what a nasty piece of work the man is.

Oh, and he gets sued. Quite a lot actually. And many of those suits are successful.

We were reminded on the most recent lawsuit against Ezra Levant when we visited BCL's blog yesterday. In this case, Levant is accused of libelling a then law student (Khurrum Awan) who, along with three law students (all Muslim men), filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in both Ontario regarding an article in "Maclean's" regarding an article they believed was Islamophobic. The Commission in decided that the article did not constitute hate speech and thus the case went no further. However, Levant himself jumped into the fray calling Awan a "liar" and an "anti-Semite."

One can imagine given the number of defamation suits against Levant that it must be getting pretty expensive. But Levant, who does have a following of like-minded individuals, can be thankful that there has been a groundswell of grassroots support for him:

"Stand With Ezra" claims the following:

Well that's lovely. It's important to have friends and allies who will support your cause, especially when they are willing to set up a slick looking website to solicit contributions to fight the good fight.

That being said, we became curious about just how "grassroots" his support is, at least with regard to the website.

So we decided to do a WHOIS search.

It's All Over But the Crying: Lemire Loses Appeal

We at ARC believe in serendipity.

Earlier today, a new friend who's interest in the history of the far right perhaps surpasses out own sent us a link to this document:

The above Masters thesis, published in December of 1997, focuses on the Canadian racist right's use of the Internet in the 1990s. And featured prominently within the text is Marc Lemire, the Freedom-Site, and some earlier projects of Lemire's (such as The Canadian Patriots Network):

 

 

 

 

Even as early as 1997, those who were studying the racist movement in Canada noted some disturbing documents on the Freedom-Site:

One of those documents was written by Kevin Strom, a leader in the virulently racist National Alliance:

 

Nearly eight years later, this particular document resulted in a protracted legal struggle before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the Federal Court, and most recently the Federal Court of Appeals lasting an additional nine (roughly) years.

Today, it would appear that it is now all over.

(Aryan) United Front Führer Responds to ARC Article

On January 24, we posted an article on Luke Northmore's efforts to convince his fellow travellers that he is a player on the racist scene in Canada. We MAY have made light of his efforts.

It looks like he wasn't particularity pleased with our characterization of him and his "group" because he decided to respond to us in a video:

Does that seem a little whiny? It seems a little whiny to us.

Yeah, we do make a lot of funny comments. And no Luke, we aren't scared. Not in the least.

Lemire Appeal: Federal Court Fallout

We've been watching how some of folks our readers are familiar with are dealing with the failed Marc Lemire appeal. Take Lemire's former Heritage Front compatriot Louis Morin:

 

 

However it didn't take too long for Marc Lemire himself, the subject of Morin's concern, to comment on the Federal Court's ruling on his appeal himself.

Suffice it to say, he isn't dealing with it well:

Marc Lemire Goes Down in Flames and Paulie Comments on Free Dominion Suit

Back in November, our favorite misanthrope announced former Heritage Front leader Marc Lemire's appeal of his Sec. 13 conviction:

Today the Federal Court of Canada made a decision regarding Marc Lemire's appeal of the Sec 13 ruling against him (he had previously had another related appeal dismissed).

Lemire not only lost his appeal, but the Federal Court also reinstated the constitutionality of the penalty clause of Sec 13.

To see the complete ruling, we suggest our dear readers click here.

We'll await the crying and gnashing of teeth from the usual suspects. Fromm himself is a little behind as he has only started to complain about the costs awarded to Mr. Warman in his libel case against Free Dominion:

Free Dominion Silenced -- Richard Warman Cannot Be Criticized on their Site

Richard Warman seems to do very well in Ottawa with defamation suits. The courts there seem to like him and he pockets fat awards, plus costs. He's a hometown boy. His wife too works in the legal system. It's tough for outsiders like the Fourniers or CAFE/Fromm or others who have not had the home town advantage. On January 23, a provincial superior judge, Robert Smith, slapped the Fourniers with a crushing Singapore-style $127,000 judgement -- damages and costs for Richard Warman in a six-year long defamation suit. The Fourniers are shutting down their website Free Dominion, at least as a discussion board.

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.

Another Bonehead Protest Goes Bust

Ever hear of the Renaissance Party of North America? No? Not a surprise. It's yet another fringe white supremacist group with intellectual pretensions. The following are excerpts from their mission statement:

We do not call for the overthrow of the American and Canadian governments. We do call for the perception and recognition of the innate and entropic collapse of these states. We encounter an inverted and fractured Manifest Destiny. Globalization is dead; it has encountered the maximum perimeter of energy utilization. The collateral of cheap and abundant energy resources to kick-start the Globalist economy is no longer. We enter an historical era of socio-economic collapse, implosion, fragmentation and devolution. Ethno-racial demographics will be called upon to identify, carve out and, preferably to negotiate, new homelands and polities. If one drop of blood can be spared, the effort at negotiated geographical re-inventions is justified.
....
We call for an abrupt end to Globalist-endorsed mass immigration from non-Occidental countries to North America with the quest for cheap labour, the offsetting of the White European birth rate, and the political displacement of the White European demographic. We are in full and unconditional solidarity with our White European brothers and sisters to halt and reverse the Islamization of the European Continent and Great Britain. We endorse unconditionally on our shores the elimination of the anti-Occidental, state-sanctioned and traitorous ideologies of institutionalized, legally enshrined and enforced Political Correctness, Multiculturalism and Feminism.
....
We acknowledge as true that history is not linear, that it is cyclical.

We own unconditionally the spiritual and moral responsibilities that are bestowed upon a Warrior-Amazon political elite to assertively, yet humbly, agitate and educate with clarity, integrity and common sense. We offer a new perception of social, cultural and economic phenomena. This is a great challenge and an even greater calling. At all times, each RV member should take into consideration: I am responsible.

Yeah. They sound like they would be fun guests at a party.

In any case, the leadership of the Renaissance Party of North America decided yesterday they would make themselves known as a force in Canadian politics by staging a massive protest outside the South African consulate in Toronto while referring to their event as "Occupy South African Embassies." One might wonder why then they did not protest at the actual embassy in Ottawa given the name they chose for it, but who are we to judge? They created a Facebook group to promote the event and invited hundreds of people:

Lemire Cries Uncle

We figure we'll go right to the source in this one:

Marc Lemire throws in the towel

It was only a matter of time after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld civil law controls on hate speech as constitutional in the Whatcott case, but Marc Lemire has finally admitted that his parallel attack on the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibition on Internet hate-speech (s. 13) has been gutted (‘please ignore my legal arguments found at paragraphs 84-115 of my previous Federal Court of Appeal factum’).

The background to this is that even before the SCC’s decision in Whatcott, Justice Mosley of the Federal Court reached the same conclusion in October 2012 and upheld both the finding that Marc Lemire had violated the Human Rights Act by posting online hate and that section 13 was constitutional as per the Supreme Court’s previous findings in their 1990 Taylor decision. Lemire’s appeal of that decision is ongoing and both Lemire and the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) filed supplementary legal briefs following the Whatcott decision.

Mr. Lemire caves on the now legally (even more) entrenched facts that civil controls on hate speech are reasonable limits on freedom of expression, are justifiable in a free and democratic society, and are a pressing and substantial objective to avoid the serious damage caused as history has shown. Reading bumps on people’s heads to know what their intent was is still out. Hatred and contempt as narrowly defined by the Supreme Court in Taylor have been properly interpreted by human rights tribunals.

What’s left? Not much. Weak arguments that the Tribunal was right and the Federal Court wrong that severance of the financial penalty provisions was the appropriate remedy to any concerns about them. This, despite the fact that the SCC in Whatcott specifically engages in severance of an obsolete and unused descriptive portion of the hate law to bring the Saskatchewan legislation into constitutional compliance (and modern parlance). Scrambling for a twig to latch onto after that but it’s clear the jig is up. 

Lemire’s factum is here. The Canadian Human Rights Commission’s factum in response is here. 

Lemire’s appeal was always frivolous and now following the unanimous Supreme Court decision in Whatcott, I believe it’s just vexatious. The shame is that by not seeking their costs against Lemire for continuing his appeal after the SCC has put the issue to bed, the CHRC is de facto enabling this waste of taxpayer money. All this, because Mr. Lemire wouldn’t mediate a settlement if a cease and desist order was on the table.

In the end, I think it’s safe to say that despite sharing an interest in disseminating homophobic hate propaganda, Bill Whatcott is waaay off Marc Lemire’s Christmas card list. This one, for instance though, would be quite funny.

Thanks Bill Whatcott for making this all happen. You sir are a superstar!

Mr. Warman seems more whimsical than we are in his choice of "funky music."

We're more inclined to gloat: