The Heritage Front
Far from being an isolated organization, the
Heritage Front has
links with a number of notorious far-right organizations and
individuals in North America. The December 1990 'Martyrs Day Rally'
revealed the extent of the co-operation between groups. The rally
was sponsored by Heritage Front in conjunction with Aryan
Resistance Movement (ARM), which is linked to
Tom Metzger's
White Aryan Resistance,
Paul Fromm's
Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform, the
Church of the Creator (COTC), History Buff Books (a Hamilton-based
store run by Jerry Neumann, a supporter of
Ernst Zundel), and by
Women's Aryan Unity (WAU). Veteran White supremacist
John Ross
Taylor, one-time leader of the
Western Guard, also attended. Such
connections are not surprising, considering the similarities in
platforms and
Droege's personal connections.
Racist "Skinhead" Movement
As well as co-operating with established organizations, the
Heritage Front's supporters also include many skinheads. The
connection between racist skinheads in Canada and far-right
groups is well-documented in another publication of the League
for Human Rights, Skinheads in Canada and their Link to the
Far Right. At a June 1992
Heritage Front meeting held in Toronto,
skinheads from Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Niagara Falls, New York
and Boston made up the majority of the audience, as they do at
most
Heritage Front events.
Nationalist Party of Canada (NPOC)
Among its membership ranks, the Heritage Front counts many former
associates of the White supremacist Nationalist Party of Canada;
in fact, it is believed that the Heritage Front has taken most of
its membership from the ranks of the Nationalist Party. This has
led to tensions between
Droege, a past member of the Party, and
NPOC leader
Don Andrews, tensions which are augmented by personal
friction between the two men. This animosity goes back to the mid-
1970s, when Andrews spent two years in jail for a plot to kill
Israeli athletes in Toronto. Droege, who knew about the plan,
declined to participate in the scheme, which was foiled.
The
Nationalist Party emerged from the ashes of the
Western Guard,
which itself was a renamed version of the Edmund Burke society.
This latter group was founded in 1967, and included as members
Paul Fromm,
Don Andrews,
J. Ross Taylor,
Wolfgang Droege, and Jacob
Prins, the Grand Dragon of the Invisible Empire Knights of the KKK.
Early members of the Nationalist Party were
Wolfgang Droege and Alexander McQuirter of the Ku Klux Klan. The
Heritage Front is in
many ways an offshoot of this party, which received thousands of
dollars from Muammar Qadhafi starting in 1987. The Canadians
present on the 1989 trip to Libya were all affiliated with the
NPOC, although several split otf to form the Front later that year.
The
Nationalist Party was relatively quiet for a time until the
summer of 1994, when Toronto's CITY-TV revealed that
Don Andrews
and others had secured royal support for European Heritage Day
celebrations in three provinces. The group had mailed letters to
municipalities across Canada trying to get support from mayors;
they never mentionecl their White supremacist agenda. Upon
receiving letters of support from the cities of Halifax and
Victoria, the
NPOC wrote to the Queen to receive a royal
endorsement. In fact, someone on her staff approved the request.
When they received the letter from Buckingham Palace, the
Nationalist Party again sent letters to Canadian municipalities
to get their support. However, Toronto Mayor June Rowlands alerted
the provincial government to the situation. Once the story broke
in the media, all of the governments that had endorsed European
Heritage Day quickly repudiated their support.
Church of the
Creator
The
Heritage Front has connections with the Canadian branch of the
Church of the Creator. The American Church of the Creator is
considered by the FBI to be one of the most violent White
supremacist organizations in the United States, although the
Canadian branch currently keeps a lower profile. A letter appeared
in the August 1991 issue of Racial Loyalty, the COTC newspaper,
from a Heritage Front member outlining Heritage Front activities.
The Canadian leader of the
COTC is
George Burdi, a.k.a. Eric
Hawthorne, who has spoken at many of the same events as
Wolfgang
Droege.
Burdi is also the singer for the neo-Nazi band RaHoWa,
and is a regular columnist for Racial Loyalty. It is interesting
to note that the Church rejects the traditional Christianity which
many other racist groups claim to support. The co-operation of the
COTC with other White supremacist groups, despite the religious
dissimilarities, suggests that the 'positive' tenets (e.g. pro-
Christian values, pro-White ideologies) of the groups are simply
fronts for the negative beliefs (e.g. anti-Semitic, anti-Native,
anti-Black). The Church of the Creator co-sponsored the
Metzgers' visit with the Heritage Front. As well, the COTC's literature is
often distributed in conjunction with
Heritage Front pamphlets.
The
COTC provides security at
Heritage Front activities, and in
fact many members of the Church are also affiliated with the
Front. In addition, it is alleged that the
American COTC
established a legal defence fund for
George Burdi following his
arrest. However, Burdi has remained silent for more than a year
since the Ottawa incident.
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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The Heritage Front and the Canadian Far Right