The
Heritage Front AffairA report to the Solicitor General of Canada
The
Heritage Front Affair
At the beginning of 1990, discussions were underway in both the Nationalist
Party of Canada and Wolfgang Droege's Heritage Front to "garner
more American support". With neither Andrews nor Droege welcome
in the United States, the Source thought that Grant Bristow might have
had to be their emissary, but he actually travelled little on their behalf
during that year.
We
learned that, on March 18, 1990, Droege, Bristow, Lincoln, 
Donna
Elliot and others were responsible for disrupting a television
broadcast. The program was aired on TV Ontario and dealt with racism issues.
During the telephone-in portion of the program, the Heritage Front group
was able to partially tie up the telephone lines, and they "were
also able to start a number of arguments with the guest panel and state
their white supremacist views."
From time to time, Droege wanted action, and the Source would have to manoeuvre
to maintain credibility, and yet not divulge information. He created a
series of imaginary events to demonstrate that he was active, fictitious
events he would recount to Ken Barker, Elisse Hategan, Wolfgang Droege
and other Heritage Front member. Wolfgang Droege would allege to the Review
Committee, on the other hand, that it was Grant Bristow who got a kick
out of harassing people, and keeping track of them, but no laws were broken
and it did not concern him.[1] Our assessment
of Wolfgang Droege's testimony is described in chapter XIII.
Both the Heritage Front and the anti-racist groups sought out disaffected
youth in Toronto. In June 1990, Droege told Bristow about plans to distribute
leaflets at schools. They also discussed "spray
painting (anti-white slogans) and vandalism operations" to discredit
anti-racists, but we saw no information to show that the latter activities
were carried out by the Front.
In November 1990, Ernst Zundel asked Droege to provide security for David
Irving's visit to Ottawa. Irving is a British writer and Nazi sympathizer
who denies the Holocaust took place and is a favoured speaker for anti-Semitic
and white supremacist groups. Droege, in turn, directed Grant Bristow to
accompany him.
On December 8, 1990, a secret Heritage Front rally was attended by Edmund
Burke Society founder, Paul Fromm. The meeting, a "Martyr's Day"
rally, was held to honour the memory of Robert J. Matthews, leader of the
violently racist extremist group, "The Order" who was
killed in a shootout with US officials in 1984. Wolfgang Droege had been
on the periphery of that group, known to its members as the "Bruders
Schweigen", or the "silent brotherhood."[2]
In 1990, Stephen Andrew Hammond was arrested on a Canada wide Immigration
Warrant for which the Source provided the information. Hammond, a white
supremacist from the United Kingdom, had been deported twice before from
Canada and the USA. He was associated with the Ku Klux Klan and had been
jailed in Dominica for threatening to kill a cabinet minister, and after
attempting, with Wolfgang Droege, to overthrow that island's government.
In January 1991 Droege tasked Grant Bristow to meet Al Hooper
in British Columbia and Terry Long in Alberta to solicit support in an
attempt to unify the white supremacist movement in Canada. Droege wanted
Hooper's list of 180 names of persons who supported the movement. Droege
also wanted an assessment of the split in the Aryan Resistance Movement
(ARM); its leader, Al Hooper had pledged his support to Droege.
When Bristow visited Terry Long in Alberta at the request of Wolfgang Droege,
Long spoke of setting up a Canadian Aryan Computer Network. Long was the
head of Canada's Aryan Nations white supremacist group and told Bristow
that he was developing a list of targets (see Chapter V, 5.2).
Droege instructed Grant Bristow to accompany him on a trip to Munich on
March 20, 1991 to a neo-Nazi conference sponsored by Ernst Zundel.
Zundel had asked the two to accompany him to the conference which he promoted.
The rally was broken up by German police and Zundel was arrested.
April
1991 saw two events. Droege established a "computer link"
with Terry Long, although this means of communications was short-lived.
Of greater significance that month, Wolfgang Droege and Ernst Zundel, the
Holocaust Denier and prolific publisher of hate literature,[3]
appeared together publicly at a Heritage Front meeting.[4]
In
May 1991, Terry Long, Wolfgang Droege and Grant Bristow met to discuss,
among other issues, the establishment of a bulletin board (BBS) hate line
similar to one in the United States.
On May 27, 1991, Alan Overfield's security group, including several
people from the Heritage Front, provided perimeter security at a Reform
Party information meeting in Toronto. Bristow was part of the team that
waited outside the church, presumably to repel members of CARP - Coalition
Against the Reform Party. The role of the CSIS Source is described in chapter
VII concerning the Reform Party (7.1).
Also in May, Alan Overfield associated with the Heritage Front, was involved
with the interim board of the Beaches-Woodbine riding association of the
Reform Party.
The next month, on June 12, 1991, the Reform Party of Canada held
a massive rally in Mississauga, Ontario. The event, which drew some 6,000
people to hear Preston Manning, marked the first high profile event for
the security group directed by Droege's employer, Alan Overfield. During
the June Mississauga rally, Grant Bristow served as an escort/bodyguard
for Preston Manning,
at the direction of Al Overfield and Wolfgang Droege.
The security group impressed some local Reform organizers who attended
the event and they drew upon the group's free services to protect other
meetings until January 1992. Details about the security group and the Reform
Party of Canada are provided in chapter VII (7.5).
On June 13, 1991, several Heritage Front members attended a meeting
of Paul Fromm's Canadians for Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR) where Overfield
from the Reform Party set up a table to sign people up for the Party. The
dates on the membership forms for Droege, Polinuk, Dawson and Mitrevski,
however, show that they had joined the Party before that meeting.
On June 19, 1991, Droege's racist agenda was profiled in a "Toronto
Star" article. He stated then that "Preston Manning has
given us some hope."[5] In that month,
violent United States white supremacist,
Tom Metzger came to Canada at the invitation of Droege to attend a Heritage
Front rally.
Wolfgang Droege and Terry Long requested that Bristow attend the Aryan
Nations Headquarters annual meeting at Hayden Lake Idaho in mid-July. He
also received a verbal invitation from USA white supremacist Louis Beam
to attend the function. Droege wanted Bristow to make contact with other
white supremacists and, possibly, to deliver correspondence to Louis Beam.
Bristow stayed with Sean Maguire at a hotel near the campground.
In July 1991, the Source intercepted and provided to CSIS a listing
of personal information which the Front received from Terry Long. The list
was presented as an intelligence file in which the recipients were to contribute
material when required.
In early July, the Overfield security group provided security for the founding
meeting of the Beaches-Woodbine Reform constituency association. Bristow
was outside the meeting with the Overfield team and, with Wolfgang Droege,
paced the street in front of the Legion hall. Overfield was elected to
the executive at the end of the month.
The fact that Droege was an avowed racist was revealed to some Ontario
Reform Party officials in July and August 1991 (see chapter VII,
7.3.4).
The
Heritage Front's telephone Hate Line was established by the Fall of
1991. It was to be the target of legal actions by the Jewish and Native
communities, and was to be stopped, and then restarted seven times over
the next three years.[6] Eventually, the hotline
was mainly Gary Schipper's project, see chapter V (5.3).
In the autumn, Nicola Polinuk and James Dawson became associated with the
Beaches Woodbine riding executive.
September
1991 saw the first public meeting of the Heritage Front to which the
media had been invited. Bristow, according to the Heritage Front, had set
up a media room to facilitate interviews with those who spoke at the meeting.
Grant Bristow was among those who spoke there.
That month, Toronto police, in a coordinated operation with several other
agencies, arrested American racist Sean Maguire in Bristow's car. Maguire
was arrested and deported on an Immigration warrant. Details of the case
are provided in chapter IX (9.1).
On September 24, 1991, Heritage Front members attended the Toronto
Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations. At the meeting, Paul
Fromm yelled out "scalp them" at an anti-racist leader,
when the latter said that halls should not be rented to racists. Fromm
and 15 supporters were ejected.
In
December 1991, American racist Dennis Mahon entered Canada to speak
at a Heritage Front meeting. The month also marked the first appearance
of the Heritage Front newsletter "Up Front" prepared by
Gerald Lincoln.
In
1992, the Front branched out. In January of that year, Bristow was
sent to Montreal by Droege "for the purpose of feeling out the
White Supremacist movement there". The CSIS Source would later
learn the outcome of this trip and advised the Service. CSIS, in turn,
forwarded this information to the police and to several federal government
agencies.
Also in January, the Reform Party held its second biggest Ontario
rally, this time in Pickering. As with the previous massive rally, the
Overfield team provided security. Grant Bristow was once again the bodyguard
for Preston Manning in the hall. We describe the situation in chapter VII
(7.5).
On February 28, 1992, the "Toronto Sun" published
an exposÈ which showed that the Heritage Front had infiltrated the
Reform Party of Canada in Ontario. The article resulted in a decision by
the Reform Party to form a Special Committee of the Executive Council to
investigate the problem. Through the Spring of 1992, the Special Committee
contacted the 22 people that Al Overfield had signed up for Reform and
expelled five persons: Wolfgang Droege, James Dawson, Nicola Polinuk, Peter
Mitrevski and then Alan Overfield. Later that year, others would follow.
Five days before the Pickering rally, according to a magazine article,
the militant anti-racist group, Anti-Racist Action appeared in Toronto.[7]
While the Heritage Front held a meeting in Toronto's Ristorante Roma Restaurant,
Anti-Racist Action demonstrators tried to confront the estimated 40 skinheads
inside. The issue is described in chapter V (5.4).
On April 13, 1992, the "Canadian Press" revealed
that high school English teacher, Paul Fromm, spoke at a secret Heritage
Front rally in December 1990. He also, said the article, addressed another
Heritage Front meeting in September 1991.[8]
On May 18, 1992, the Morgentaler abortion clinic in Toronto was
firebombed. Graffiti identifying the Heritage Front was found on a nearby
wall and the police received unsubstantiated allegations that the Heritage
Front had knowledge about the incident.
Recruiting
at high schools led the Heritage Front into direct conflict with the ARA,
and the two groups collected information on one another. The ARA started
holding their meetings at high schools, and putting their position forward.
The first discussions took place at this time in the Heritage Front on
whether to monitor or infiltrate the anti-racist groups.
In 1992, the "Klanbusters" group was established.
They had discovered a method of gaining access to Droege's answering machine.
As a result, they could change the message he left on his machine, and
they could learn who had called him. The practice, Droege would later tell
the Review Committee, was adopted by a number of Heritage Front opponents
and, ultimately, the Heritage Front itself.[9]
The
Heritage Front and its opponents in the ARA adopted similar techniques
of breaking into each others' hotlines in order to disrupt each others'
activities.[10] To CSIS' Toronto Region, the
information indicated that the potential for confrontations between the
racists and the anti-racists would likely increase. We discuss the issue
in chapter V (5.4).
In July 1992, Tom and John Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance
were arrested after they left a Heritage Front meeting. They were deported
several days later (see chapter IX, 9.2). This was also the year that David
Irving, a British author and Nazi sympathizer, was arrested and deported
from Canada.
The allegation was made in 1992 that Front members circulated the unlisted
telephone number and address of a prominent Vancouver Canadian Jewish Congress
leader, Dr. Michael Elterman. The charge proved to be unsubstantiated.
Details are provided in chapter V (5.10).
By the winter of 1992, Heritage Front efforts to recruit students
at Toronto's East End high schools were well underway.[11]
In early 1993, the Heritage Front attended an anti-racist demonstration
held by the students at Riverdale Collegiate. No violence took place.
Two persons from the Church of the Creator helped Grant Bristow perform
security duties for the Heritage Front. On December 15, 1992, Bristow was
asked to show the Fischer brothers how to trace telephone numbers using
the reference books available in the public library. The result is described
in chapter V (5.8).
In
1992, the Heritage Front members, on the instructions of Droege, were using
the telephone numbers they had acquired to make increasingly violent threats
against anti-racists. To reduce the threatening nature of the program,
an information collection campaign, the "IT" campaign,
began at the end of 1992 and continued through 1993. The campaign drew
on the information which the Heritage Front obtained by breaking into answering
machines.[12] Chapter V (5.7) in this report
describes the campaign.
In November 1992, Heritage Front activities were described in the media
and Grant Bristow was mentioned incidentally. Some time later he set up
a course in security training.
Tom Metzger, the avowed American racist, would state in 1994, on "The
Fifth Estate", that Grant Bristow visited him in California in
December 1992, bringing lists of Jewish leaders and a considerable amount
of money. His statements were fabricated; we describe the issue in chapter
IX (9.2).
On January 22, 1993, American white supremacist Dennis Mahon,
of the White Aryan Resistance movement was arrested on his arrival at Toronto's
Pearson International Airport and then deported.
On January 25, 1993, as police escorted 30 Heritage Front members
into a courthouse for a Human Rights Tribunal hearing, a protest organized
by the Anti-Racist Action group, which attracted 500 demonstrators, turned
violent with two protestors being arrested on assault charges.[13]
In February 1993, Wolfgang Droege was told that the Klanbusters
and the International Socialists were going to hold meetings. Eric Fischer
sent two Church of the Creator members to find out what was going on.[14]
In the Spring of 1993, the Native Canadian Centre filed a complaint
against the Heritage Front's hate line. Droege and others would later receive
prison time for contempt of a Court Order in this connection.
In March 1993, the Source reported that the Church of the Creator
had been successful in attending anti-racist meetings. CSIS files showed
that the Source obtained information from members of the Church of the
Creator who had penetrated the anti-racist meetings. This information indicated
the degree to which anti-racists were preparing to confront the white supremacists;
the file information indicated that Klanbusters organizer Rodney Bobiwash
encouraged direct confrontation as the best way to defeat the neo-Nazi
groups.
Bristow
provided some names to Alan Overfield, under instruction from Droege. These
were names obtained from numbers which had appeared on Droege's answering
machine. The Source consulted with the Toronto Region Investigator, who
said to go ahead if the information received from the answering machine
was specific and well-known.
In
March 1993, racist posters were produced which listed the names
and addresses of anti-racists.[15] In October
1993, Elisse Hategan was charged with disseminating defamatory libel
and wilful promotion of hatred for her involvement with the posters. She
would later affirm that she was informed that Al Overfield produced the
flyers that she was arrested for distributing (see chapter V, 5.9.4).
From April through June 1993, Grant Bristow was involved in several
incidents with members of the Jewish community. In April, Bristow was said
to have intimidated a B'nai Brith lawyer at the Toronto Mayor's Committee
on Community and Race Relations.[16] The next
month, he approached the President of the Jewish Students Network at a
demonstration outside the Ontario Attorney General's office in Toronto.
These and other events which took place in June 1993, are described in
chapter V (5.10).
On May 29, 1993, an estimated five hundred anti-racist supporters
demonstrated outside a Heritage Front recruitment concert in Ottawa. The
racist band, RaHoWa [17], was playing to a
crowd of about 60 skinheads. After a near-riot, four Heritage Front members
were charged with
assault. The Heritage Front then became more militant as Droege wished
to
increase the confrontations with his opponents. CSIS routinely provided
threat assessments to the police on the potential for violence arising
from the confrontations between the racists and the anti-racists.
In May 1993, John Gamble, former Conservative and Reform Party nominee
in Don Valley West riding, was expelled from the Reform Party. Also expelled
were several officials who supported him from various riding associations.
Wolfgang Droege had attended Gamble's March 31, 1993 nomination meeting.
Later that month, Droege received $500 to embarrass Reform Party leader
Preston Manning by attending a meeting in Oshawa. The events are described
in chapter VII (7.6.7, 7.6.8).
Droege and Ernst Zundel wanted the telephone numbers and the addresses
of both anti-racist and Jewish community leaders. Had the Source wished
to do so, the numbers and the addresses could have been provided quite
easily; but the Source did not do so.[18]
Bristow,
in his position with the Heritage Front, carried out Droege's instructions
in regard to a harassment campaign and also informed the anti-racists that
a Heritage Front event was planned (see chapter V, 5.7, the "IT"
campaign). When the Source could not avoid this type of task, he informed
the Toronto Region Investigator who said that he then notified the police.
The harassment calls made by the Heritage Front started abating in June
1993, and finally stopped in November 1993. The campaign was
viewed as a major victory by the Heritage Front. The Source stated that
most of the harassment calls ended in the Summer, and that no physical
harm resulted from the program.[19] CSIS believes
that its work with the Source during this period was very successful in
that a potentially explosive situation, with a great deal of anger on all
sides, was defused without any physical violence occurring. We analyze
the situation in chapter V (5.7).
On
June 11, 1993, an estimated 200 ARA members headed from downtown
into the East End of Toronto by street car. By the end of the day, Gary
Schipper's house had been vandalized and Droege and others had been arrested
and charged for various offenses. We describe the issues in chapter V (5.9.6).
After the media allegations which started in August 1994, Droege
and his associates would blame Bristow for instigating the battle.[20]
The Source, however, said that Bristow was not involved in the incident
and the Source had, in fact, passed information to the police on where
some of the attackers had fled to.[21]
Also in June, three members of George Burdi's Church of the Creator (Drew
Maynard, Eric and Elkar Fischer) were charged with kidnapping, forcible
confinement and assault in an attack on 
Heritage
Front member, Tyrone Alexander Mason. They believed that he had stolen
a COTC computer. Eric Fischer was a former corporal in the Canadian Airborne
Regiment. That month, a Tamil refugee was viciously beaten and partially
paralysed in an attack by a racist skinhead, considered by Droege to be
a low level "hanger on" of the Heritage Front.
In late October 1993, the CSIS Source learned about a threat of
serious physical violence against leaders in the Jewish community by a
Heritage Front member. The threat was evaluated by CSIS, and the police
were notified. Ernst Zundel wanted information on the Jewish community's
leaders during this time and was provided with publicly available information
(see chapter V, 5.10.6).[22]
In March of 1994, the Source decided that he could no longer
abide the stress of living two separate lives, or of continuing his association
with the Heritage Front. CSIS and the Source created a story which allowed
him to leave the Heritage Front on good terms. CSIS wanted to be able to
re-introduce the Source at a later date if the situation required it.
In June of 1994, Wolfgang Droege and two other Front members were
convicted of defying a Court Order to close the racist hotlines.
In August 1994, the "Toronto Sun" alleged that
Grant Bristow was a CSIS informant. Jewish groups and anti-racists expressed
their concern. Heritage Front leaders, members, and their American associates
were provided with unparalleled media coverage. They used their unprecedented
access to the media to allege that CSIS, through Grant Bristow, was responsible
for everything that had taken place during the previous five years; including,
as Wolfgang Droege put it, some "unethical or immoral"
behaviour.
SIRC began its investigation of the "Heritage Front Affair"
the day after the article appeared.
1 SIRC interview of Droege.
2 "The Order" was an American terrorist organization which espoused
a white supremacist ideology and was affiliated with the Aryan Nations.
It was active during the early 1980's.
3 Zundel said that he produces "truth" not "hate" literture.
4 The Heritage Front Report: 1994, pp. 5-6, prepared by the League
of Human Rights of B'nai Brith, Canada.
5 Rosie DiManno, "Ex-mercenary aims for country uniquely white",
Toronto Star, June 19, 1991.
6 The Heritage Front Report: 1994, pp. 5-6, prepared by the League
of Human Rights of B'nai Brith, Canada.
7 This Magazine, February 23, 1992.
8 Canadian Press, "Teacher fingered at rally of racists",
April 13, 1992.
9 SIRC Hearing, Wolfgang Droege.
10 SIRC interview with Wolfgang Droege.
11 SIRC interview with Riverdale Collegiate teacher.
12 SIRC interview with Source.
13 Moira Welsh, "2 arrested as racism protest turns ugly",
Toronto Star, January 26, 1993.
14 SIRC interview with Source.
15 Toronto Sun, October 4, 1994.
16 SIRC interview with Marvin Kurz.
17 Racial Holy War.
18 SIRC interview with Source.
19 SIRC interview with Source.
20 SIRC interview with Wolfgang Droege.
21 SIRC interview with Source.
22 SIRC interview with Source.