Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: [02/18] Right-Wing Extremism in Canada
Summary: The League for Human Rights (B'nai Brith Canada) 1994
         report on the extremist organization The Heritage
         Front

Archive/File:
pub/orgs/canadian/league-for-human-rights/heritage-front/right-wing-extremism
Last-Modified: 1995/11/29


              Right-Wing Extremism In Canada

While racism has always existed in Canada, the last hundred 
years have seen the proliferation of organized and coordinated 
efforts to promote hatred against minorities in this country.  

Virtually all ethnic and religious communities have been the 
targets of White supremacist racism. The subjugation and 
degradation of Canada's First Nations was only the first in a 
long line of racist bigotry and violence in this country. In the 
first half of the twentieth century, Quebec was home to the 
strongly anti-Semitic Nationalist Movement, which was dominated 
by extremist elements in the Roman Catholic Church. Following the 
Second World War, the Nationalist Quebec government actively 
helped French Nazis immigrate to Canada.
  
The Ku Klux Klan came to this country in the early 1900s, and has 
been a major player in Canada's racist scene ever since. Like its 
American counterpart, the Canadian Klan directs its hate against 
Blacks, Catholics and Native Canadians. In the last 95 years, 
numerous hate groups have gained a foothold in this country. These 
groups, which are intimately interconnected, include Citizens for 
Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR), the Western Guard, the Hammerskins, 
the Heritage Front, and the Nationalist Party of Canada. 
Homosexuals, Jews, South Asians, and African-Canadians have been 
the targets of the violence and hate propaganda of these and other 
groups. The Nation of Islam, a militant Black organization based 
in Chicago, actively promotes hatred of Asians, Jews, homosexuals, 
Catholics, Arabs and Europeans on both sides of the border. 
Furthermore, individuals including Ernst Zundel, Paul Fromm, 
Malcolm Ross and Jim Keegstra have attained prominence for 
their active promotion of hate against identifiable ethnic groups.

Canadian hate groups are closely linked with those in the United 
States and overseas. Ties between Canadian racists and Aryan Nations, 
White Aryan Resistance (WAR), the Church of the Creator (COTC), and 
the KKK are well-documented. Furthermore,  British Holocaust denier 
David Irving, until he was deported, was quite prominent in Canadian 
racist circles for his frequent lecture tours.  

Nevertheless, the White supremacist movement in this country, while 
strongly tied to American hate groups, does have an identity distinct 
from its southern neighbours. Canadian hatemongers tend to be less 
violent, instead relying primarily on hate propaganda, racist rock 
concerts, and rallies. Hate groups in this country tend to promote 
themselves as legitimate political and academic movements, usually 
under the guise of free-speech, European or White Pride and 
Holocaust revisionism. In addition, several members of hate groups 
have joined mainstream political movements, most notably the Reform 
and Social Credit pal-ties, although party leaders have expelled 
them when overtly racist members were exposed.  

The Canadian far-right is gaining in popularity as it actively 
recruits new members in high schools and universities. While the 
balance of power between individual hate groups fluctuates, the 
total force of the movement is growing, especially among younger 
\Canadians. The far-right in Canada is not a loose amalgamation of 
like-minded malevolents. Rather, it is an organized network of 
groups and individuals dedicated to the promotion of hate against 
virtually all of the ethnic groups that form the multicultural 
fabric that is Canada.
  
~
The League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada, 15 Hove
Street, Downsview, Ontario M3H 4Y8. 416-633-6224.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor