Tag: Canadians United 4 Canada

Anti-Racist Canada: The ARC Collective: Soldiers of Odin: Canadian Media Paying Attention Part 2

Before we begin and for any new reader here as a result of the latest article abut the Soldiers of Odin published by the CBC, we thought we would provide you with the links to our coverage of the group before jumping into our commentary on Mr. Lamoureux’s article:

For a while, we at ARC seemed to be one of the few groups who were keeping an eye on the Soldiers of Odin, the vigilante group that began in Finland that was founded by a number of overt neo-Nazis. The movement eventually sprang up in other countries, including Canada. As of this date, there’s a branch or support group in almost every province in Canada.

Now we’ve always been pretty realistic about our own limited media impact, so we were very pleased when Mack Lamoureux published his expose on the SOO in Alberta for “Vice” in April. This was followed by a story by Samantha Craggs of CBC News in Hamilton who spotlighted the growth of the movement in her own city; we commented on the story a few days later. If you haven’t read these articles, we would urge you to do so.
Today, Mack Lamoureux again, this time writing for the CBC, has highlighted the group’s activities in Edmonton:
Canadian president says local chapters ‘not affiliated’ with white supremacy
By Mack Lamoureux, CBC News Posted: Sep 03, 2016 6:00 AM MT           Last Updated: Sep 03, 2016 7:25 PM MT
A few interesting points:

“At this stage, we have a group of people that have associated [themselves] with a group that are internationally extremely negative,” Jones said. “In the city of Edmonton context that we have right now, we have seen no violence, no complaints, no threats, nothing criminal.” 

Jones said police have spoken to the group. 

“They are reporting they are not the same type of group, that they are not anti-immigration or radical right.”

Well, that might be a hard case to make when, in order to be recognized as an official branch of the international Soldiers of Odin movement, a new national branch needs the approval of the original Finish branch:
And it’s tough to convince us that the Canadian SOO isn’t anti-immigration or radical right when you associate with overt racists and neo-Nazis:

“People think we’re some sort of white power group,” Joel Agnott, the SOO national president, told CBC News in early August. “We’re not affiliated with any of that. We have had a few of those members, and we’ve kicked them out.”

Yeah, we’re still able to find a lot of “those members.” For just one example, a quick look at the SOO Edmonton support page brings this guy to our attention:
“Jay Cam” has been profiled on the blog briefly before. He at one time was an administrator for the Canadians United 4 Canada Facebook group. Oh, and he’s associated with Kyle McKee’s Blood & Honour chapter.
Perhaps our readers would like to take a closer look at his profile photo
If you were able to identify the photo as that of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, give yourself a pat on the back.
Also Joel Agnott has some interesting ties to people we’re able to link to McKee’s Blood & Honour faction (we’ll be addressing this in a future article) as well as to Ernst Zundel’s wife and fellow Holocaust denier Ingrid Rimland which in and of itself cause our spidey senses to start tingling: 

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Anti-Racist Canada: The ARC Collective: Soldier of Odin Member Christopher Hayes Update 2

It’s been a few days, however it looks as if Soldier of Odin member Chrisopher Hayes as released around August 8 pending a court appearance on September 12:

Hayes’ release order included the statutory conditions and numerous others including: not attempting to directly or indirectly communicate with the prime minister; surrending all firearms and any possession and acquisition licences to the RCMP within 24 hours; not possessing any electronic devices capable of duplicating, creating or generating social media posts (except for work purposes); reporting monthly to the RCMP; remaining in Saskatchewan; and relinquishing his passport. 

In the meantime, Chris Hayes’ brother Michael “Mjohn” Hayes who is the leader of the Oxbow, Saskatchewan chapter of the Soldiers of Odin still seems to believe that threatening Prime Minister Trudeau is a perfectly acceptable exercising of one’s freedom of expression and is not particularily pleased with the RCMP:

Yeah. Your brother didn’t simply criticize Mr. Trudeau, but we suppose that the truth is still a hard pill to swallow particularly if you surround yourself with people who believe uttering casual death threats to be reasonable political discourse:

The Trump reference reminds us that something else interesting popped up in our examination of Michael Hayes’ Facebook profile. For someone who is a leader of a group that claims to to be patriotic….

….Michael doesn’t actually seem to like his own country all that much:

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Anti-Racist Canada: The ARC Collective: Soldiers of Odin: Canadian Media Paying Attention

We don’t usually refer to ourselves as “media” though in the absolute sense, we suppose we are. We run a niche blog who’s members have a realistic understanding concerning our national exposure. Still, we like to think that at least on occasion we’ve been able to punch above our weight by breaking a few stories before the msm have.

As far as we know, we were amongst the first, if not the first, “media” source that began covering the entry of the Soldiers of Odin onto the Canadian scene. However since we began, there has been some really good journalism focused on the SOO. Not too long after our first exposé, Vice published a story by Mack Lamoureux who was able to infiltrate a meeting by the Alberta chapter of Soldiers of Odin. And last week, CBC’s Samantha Craggs wrote what we would regard as a pretty hard hitting profile of the SOO and the group’s efforts to organize in the city of Hamilton.

Some members of the SOO took notice, including co-leader of the Saskatchewan chapter of the Soldiers of Odin:

In the article, the national president of the Canadian Soldiers of Odin, Joel Angott, claims that the group is opposed to racism:

The presence in Hamilton is informal right now, with about eight or nine members getting organized, said SOO national president Joel Angott. There’s a lot of interest, but potential Hamilton members are being carefully vetted. 

SOO members do neighbourhood patrols, Angott told CBC Hamilton in a phone interview from Winnipeg. Right now, its Hamilton plans focus on cleaning up local parks. 

He denies that the group is anti-immigration, or anti-Muslim, although the group’s bylaws lament the government “accepting refugees from countries that hate us” and “letting illegal aliens into this country and giving them the ability to vote and drive.”

Denying that the SOO is not anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim sort of flies in the face of what is routinely posted on the various provincial Soldiers of Odin chapters’ Facebook pages however. For example, here are a few from the British Columbia chapter group page:

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Anti-Racist Canada: The ARC Collective: Soldier of Odin Member Christopher Hayes Update 1

Last Friday we wrote about Christopher Hayes who was arrested for making threats towards Prime Minister Trudeau on social media. We also posted comments defending said threats as “freedom of speech.” We also learned that Hayes was a supporter, if not a member, of the Saskatchewan chapter of Soldiers of Odin:

We didn’t initially notice, but upon a second look we found that Chris Hayes’ arrest had been discussed in a thread originally begun by an individual who claimed Chris as a brother:

The thread continued today:

This is interesting, in that another supporter (or member) of the Soldiers of Odin, David Rhinelander, has admitted to being investigated for threats made on social media.

Of additional interest is that Michael “Mjohn” Hayes is a leader within the Saskatchewan chapter of the Sons of Odin; he has been listed as the Oxbow chapter president:

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