v***@aol.com
2006-01-06 08:10:46 UTC
Stephen Harper likes to pretend that the new Conservative Party of
Canada was born out
of a mutually beneficial merger between the former Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance and the
former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He would have you
believe that the new Conservative Party of Canada is an equal mix of
ideologies, principals, convictions, and values held by the rank and
file grassroots memberships of both former federal political
parties. In reality, the new Conservative Party of Canada is largely
still the former
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance which has been very carefully repackaged
and re-branded.
Stephen Harper who at the time was still the leader of the former
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance conveyed as much to Joe Clark who at the
time was still the leader of the former
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada; when he reportedly informed
Joe Clark that
the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance was "stronger" and that Joe Clark
should accept defeat, abandon the century long ideals of the moderate
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada,
and simply join the racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, intolerant,
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. Joe Clark had the common sense to
decline the offer (ultimatum?)
Since Stephen Harper assumed the leadership of the new Conservative
Party of Canada,
all of the progressive, centrist, practical, reasonable, pluralistic
policies held by the former
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada have been almost completely
abolished from
the new Conservative Party of Canada. Furthermore, all socially
moderate conservatives
such as Red Tories and Libertarians have been either silenced or purged
from positions of
power within the new Conservative Party of Canada; and replaced with
American style
Conservatives who harbour racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted,
recklessly populist,
rigidly social conformist ideals. Among those who have been card
carrying members
of the former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance in the past and who are
ethier themselves
still members and/or have influential supporters currently within the
new Conservative Party
of Canada are none other than Neo-Nazis.
Back in 1992, there were wide spread reports in the Canadian media that
at least four members of the rabidly Neo-Nazi Heritage Front, and
possibly up to twenty neo-Nazis, were involved with Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance riding associations in Toronto. On March 11,
1992, well known Canadian Neo-Nazis Wolfgang Droege, Nicola Polinuk,
James Dawson, and Peter Mitrevski, and other Heritage Front members
were apparently actively involved with the Beaches-Woodbine Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance riding association in Toronto.
Nicola Polinuk and James Dawson were slated to have become formal board
members of the Beaches-Woodbine Reform Party/Canadian Alliance on April
2, 1992. Another person named Al Overfield, the man who had recruited
them, who has associated with Neo-Nazis
for twenty years. Al Overfield was responsible for Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance security, and had twice hired Wolfgang Droege
to help with security at Toronto area appearances of none other than
former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance leader Preston Manning!!!. In
1971 Al Overfield, along with Neo-Nazis Paul Fromm and Don Andrews, was
involved in a short-lived takeover of the Ontario wing of the Social
Credit Party. (Another former federal political party who's members
have since joined the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance/Conservative Party
of Canada en mass, especially in Alberta).
Wolfgang Droege has denied that the Heritage Front had a plan to
infiltrate the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. However, observers at
Heritage Front meetings have reported speakers' recommendations for
Neo-Nazi White Supremacist activists to get involved in
more mainstream groups. Past allegations involving CSIS have suggested
that the Heritage Front had a vested interest in joining the Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance.
Wolfgang Droege has even been quoted in the past as saying, "Obviously
there are a lot of similarities between the Heritage Front and the
Reform Party... but we take some things a few steps farther." The
League for Human Rights has called on Manning, the Reform Party, and
all political parties to re-examine their policies and criteria for
membership.
It is tempting to dismiss the interest of the Heritage Front in the
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance as isolated. However, Zvonimir Lelas,
who was sentenced to jail for desecrating Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue in
1988, was dismissed from the Reform Party in March 1992, and a young
member named Mark Kreuzer was expelled from the Calgary West riding in
July of that year for distributing Holocaust denial literature. Kreuzer
retained lawyer Doug Christie, notorious for defending White
supremacists, to fight the expulsion. These incidents point to a
tendency within some far-right groups to see the Reform Party/Canadian
Alliance as their natural political vehicle. The question is have the
intentions of these same Neo-Nazis changed at all just because the now
former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance has simply been renamed the
Conservative Party of Canada?.
In June of 1992, Michael Lublin, an Orthodox Jew who was the director
of community relations in Ontario for the Reform Party, resigned,
alleging widespread racism and anti-Semitism within the Party. He also
claimed that he had alerted the Party leaders of the Heritage Front
infiltrators in August 1991, and that these claims were not
investigated until the story broke in the press in February of the
following year.
The former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance's stance against 'hyphenated
Canadianism', federal funding of multiculturalism, and changes to the
RCMP dress code (e.g. allowing turbans), in part explains the
attraction of groups like the Heritage Front to the Party.
The same sort of intolerance of multiculturalism, bilingualism,
immigration, ect.; has been carried over to the new Conservative Party
of Canada lead by Stephen Harper. Although Wolfgang Droege apparently
condemned American Neo-Nazi David Duke's attempts to be accepted in
mainstream politics, his involvement with the Reform Party/Canadian
Alliance in the past points to a similar search for credibility, one
which has led him from radical groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the
Western Guard to the Heritage Front. Wolfgang Droege's attempt to make
a space for the Heritage Front in the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance
was a bid to make his views more acceptable through their exposure in a
mainstream arena. While Wolfgang Droege is no deceased, the question
remains how
many of his followers and other racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes,
and Neo-Nazis
remain in the ranks of the new Conservative Party of Canada under the
leadership of
Stephen Harper?. Don't forget that the new Conservative Party of Canada
is less than
2 years old. Several Reform Party/Canadian Alliance officials and
candidates have been forced to leave the party in the past for
offenses, including quoting Adolf Hitler in a public forum.
Another well known Neo-Nazi who has held membership in the former
Reform Party/
Canadian Alliance (all while Stephen Harper was a Reform Party MP) is
Paul Fromm.
Paul Fromm, a high-school English teacher in the Peel Board of
Education just west of Toronto, is a longtime Canadian White
supremacist. He was a strong supporter of Professor Philippe Rushton,
whose theories on race and intelligence caused a great deal of
controversy at the University of Western Ontario. Before his link to
the Heritage Front, Fromm was associated with the Edmund Burke Society
(an anti-communist, anti- immigration University of Toronto student
group which he co-founded in the 1960s); the Western Guard (a White
supremacist group which evolved from the Edmund Burke Society);
Countdown (a publication started by Fromm in 1972 to promote his
racist, anti-immigration, anti-communist stance); Citizens for Foreign
Aid Reform (C-FAR), an organization founded by Fromm criticizing
Canada's foreign aid and immigration policies); and the Canadian
Association for Free Expression (CAFE, directed by Fromm and Ron
Gostick, a Canadian distributor of extreme right-wing propaganda).
Fromm has held a formal position in the Social Credit party, has been a
Metro Toronto Separate School Board trustee, and in 1981 was elected as
treasurer of the federal Progressive Conservatives in Toronto. In a
newspaper interview after his election to that position, it was
reported that Fromm "'believes in restricted immigration, thinks the
boat people should have been sent to inhabit desert islands, and
expresses the belief that a supreme race of intelligent people 'is a
good idea." There was a public outcry, and Fromm was forced to resign
from his PC-Metro post. Since then, Fromm appears to have devoted most
of his time to C-FAR and to the Heritage Front.
Fromm's earliest association with the Heritage Front was C-FAR's
co-sponsorship of the Front's December 8, 1990 Martyr's Day Rally for
Robert Matthews, a member of the violent neo-Nazi group, The Order, who
died in a shoot-out with the FBI in 1984. In a videotape of the rally,
Fromm was shown saying, "We're all on the same side. But we must know
who the enemy is... We are quite right to honour heroes here tonight."
In later media interviews, Fromm denied awareness of the Heritage
Front's views.
On September 24, 1991, in the Toronto City Hall, Fromm and 12 other
White supremacists including Wolfgang Droege and a member of the Aryan
Nations disrupted a meeting of the Mayor's Committee on Race Relations
as Native leader Rodney Bobiwash was lodging a complaint with the
Committee about the activities of the Heritage Front. As Bobiwash was
speaking, Fromm yelled "Scalp 'em!", and refused to apologize. He and
the other White supremacists were removed from the meeting by police.
The Peel Board of Education conducted an investigation of Fromm as a
result of this incident, and recommended that the Ontario Ministry of
Education review his teaching certificate.
Is this the sort of political party we want running Canada?. Do we
really want to see the
new Conservative Party of Canada with its past and most likely present
association with
Neo-Nazis, racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes having any say in
the lives of
Canadians?.
Canada was born out
of a mutually beneficial merger between the former Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance and the
former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He would have you
believe that the new Conservative Party of Canada is an equal mix of
ideologies, principals, convictions, and values held by the rank and
file grassroots memberships of both former federal political
parties. In reality, the new Conservative Party of Canada is largely
still the former
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance which has been very carefully repackaged
and re-branded.
Stephen Harper who at the time was still the leader of the former
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance conveyed as much to Joe Clark who at the
time was still the leader of the former
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada; when he reportedly informed
Joe Clark that
the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance was "stronger" and that Joe Clark
should accept defeat, abandon the century long ideals of the moderate
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada,
and simply join the racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, intolerant,
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. Joe Clark had the common sense to
decline the offer (ultimatum?)
Since Stephen Harper assumed the leadership of the new Conservative
Party of Canada,
all of the progressive, centrist, practical, reasonable, pluralistic
policies held by the former
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada have been almost completely
abolished from
the new Conservative Party of Canada. Furthermore, all socially
moderate conservatives
such as Red Tories and Libertarians have been either silenced or purged
from positions of
power within the new Conservative Party of Canada; and replaced with
American style
Conservatives who harbour racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted,
recklessly populist,
rigidly social conformist ideals. Among those who have been card
carrying members
of the former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance in the past and who are
ethier themselves
still members and/or have influential supporters currently within the
new Conservative Party
of Canada are none other than Neo-Nazis.
Back in 1992, there were wide spread reports in the Canadian media that
at least four members of the rabidly Neo-Nazi Heritage Front, and
possibly up to twenty neo-Nazis, were involved with Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance riding associations in Toronto. On March 11,
1992, well known Canadian Neo-Nazis Wolfgang Droege, Nicola Polinuk,
James Dawson, and Peter Mitrevski, and other Heritage Front members
were apparently actively involved with the Beaches-Woodbine Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance riding association in Toronto.
Nicola Polinuk and James Dawson were slated to have become formal board
members of the Beaches-Woodbine Reform Party/Canadian Alliance on April
2, 1992. Another person named Al Overfield, the man who had recruited
them, who has associated with Neo-Nazis
for twenty years. Al Overfield was responsible for Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance security, and had twice hired Wolfgang Droege
to help with security at Toronto area appearances of none other than
former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance leader Preston Manning!!!. In
1971 Al Overfield, along with Neo-Nazis Paul Fromm and Don Andrews, was
involved in a short-lived takeover of the Ontario wing of the Social
Credit Party. (Another former federal political party who's members
have since joined the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance/Conservative Party
of Canada en mass, especially in Alberta).
Wolfgang Droege has denied that the Heritage Front had a plan to
infiltrate the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. However, observers at
Heritage Front meetings have reported speakers' recommendations for
Neo-Nazi White Supremacist activists to get involved in
more mainstream groups. Past allegations involving CSIS have suggested
that the Heritage Front had a vested interest in joining the Reform
Party/Canadian Alliance.
Wolfgang Droege has even been quoted in the past as saying, "Obviously
there are a lot of similarities between the Heritage Front and the
Reform Party... but we take some things a few steps farther." The
League for Human Rights has called on Manning, the Reform Party, and
all political parties to re-examine their policies and criteria for
membership.
It is tempting to dismiss the interest of the Heritage Front in the
Reform Party/Canadian Alliance as isolated. However, Zvonimir Lelas,
who was sentenced to jail for desecrating Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue in
1988, was dismissed from the Reform Party in March 1992, and a young
member named Mark Kreuzer was expelled from the Calgary West riding in
July of that year for distributing Holocaust denial literature. Kreuzer
retained lawyer Doug Christie, notorious for defending White
supremacists, to fight the expulsion. These incidents point to a
tendency within some far-right groups to see the Reform Party/Canadian
Alliance as their natural political vehicle. The question is have the
intentions of these same Neo-Nazis changed at all just because the now
former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance has simply been renamed the
Conservative Party of Canada?.
In June of 1992, Michael Lublin, an Orthodox Jew who was the director
of community relations in Ontario for the Reform Party, resigned,
alleging widespread racism and anti-Semitism within the Party. He also
claimed that he had alerted the Party leaders of the Heritage Front
infiltrators in August 1991, and that these claims were not
investigated until the story broke in the press in February of the
following year.
The former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance's stance against 'hyphenated
Canadianism', federal funding of multiculturalism, and changes to the
RCMP dress code (e.g. allowing turbans), in part explains the
attraction of groups like the Heritage Front to the Party.
The same sort of intolerance of multiculturalism, bilingualism,
immigration, ect.; has been carried over to the new Conservative Party
of Canada lead by Stephen Harper. Although Wolfgang Droege apparently
condemned American Neo-Nazi David Duke's attempts to be accepted in
mainstream politics, his involvement with the Reform Party/Canadian
Alliance in the past points to a similar search for credibility, one
which has led him from radical groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the
Western Guard to the Heritage Front. Wolfgang Droege's attempt to make
a space for the Heritage Front in the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance
was a bid to make his views more acceptable through their exposure in a
mainstream arena. While Wolfgang Droege is no deceased, the question
remains how
many of his followers and other racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes,
and Neo-Nazis
remain in the ranks of the new Conservative Party of Canada under the
leadership of
Stephen Harper?. Don't forget that the new Conservative Party of Canada
is less than
2 years old. Several Reform Party/Canadian Alliance officials and
candidates have been forced to leave the party in the past for
offenses, including quoting Adolf Hitler in a public forum.
Another well known Neo-Nazi who has held membership in the former
Reform Party/
Canadian Alliance (all while Stephen Harper was a Reform Party MP) is
Paul Fromm.
Paul Fromm, a high-school English teacher in the Peel Board of
Education just west of Toronto, is a longtime Canadian White
supremacist. He was a strong supporter of Professor Philippe Rushton,
whose theories on race and intelligence caused a great deal of
controversy at the University of Western Ontario. Before his link to
the Heritage Front, Fromm was associated with the Edmund Burke Society
(an anti-communist, anti- immigration University of Toronto student
group which he co-founded in the 1960s); the Western Guard (a White
supremacist group which evolved from the Edmund Burke Society);
Countdown (a publication started by Fromm in 1972 to promote his
racist, anti-immigration, anti-communist stance); Citizens for Foreign
Aid Reform (C-FAR), an organization founded by Fromm criticizing
Canada's foreign aid and immigration policies); and the Canadian
Association for Free Expression (CAFE, directed by Fromm and Ron
Gostick, a Canadian distributor of extreme right-wing propaganda).
Fromm has held a formal position in the Social Credit party, has been a
Metro Toronto Separate School Board trustee, and in 1981 was elected as
treasurer of the federal Progressive Conservatives in Toronto. In a
newspaper interview after his election to that position, it was
reported that Fromm "'believes in restricted immigration, thinks the
boat people should have been sent to inhabit desert islands, and
expresses the belief that a supreme race of intelligent people 'is a
good idea." There was a public outcry, and Fromm was forced to resign
from his PC-Metro post. Since then, Fromm appears to have devoted most
of his time to C-FAR and to the Heritage Front.
Fromm's earliest association with the Heritage Front was C-FAR's
co-sponsorship of the Front's December 8, 1990 Martyr's Day Rally for
Robert Matthews, a member of the violent neo-Nazi group, The Order, who
died in a shoot-out with the FBI in 1984. In a videotape of the rally,
Fromm was shown saying, "We're all on the same side. But we must know
who the enemy is... We are quite right to honour heroes here tonight."
In later media interviews, Fromm denied awareness of the Heritage
Front's views.
On September 24, 1991, in the Toronto City Hall, Fromm and 12 other
White supremacists including Wolfgang Droege and a member of the Aryan
Nations disrupted a meeting of the Mayor's Committee on Race Relations
as Native leader Rodney Bobiwash was lodging a complaint with the
Committee about the activities of the Heritage Front. As Bobiwash was
speaking, Fromm yelled "Scalp 'em!", and refused to apologize. He and
the other White supremacists were removed from the meeting by police.
The Peel Board of Education conducted an investigation of Fromm as a
result of this incident, and recommended that the Ontario Ministry of
Education review his teaching certificate.
Is this the sort of political party we want running Canada?. Do we
really want to see the
new Conservative Party of Canada with its past and most likely present
association with
Neo-Nazis, racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes having any say in
the lives of
Canadians?.