Edson, AB Hate Crime Suspect Identified; Linked to Blood & Honour in Alberta

Earlier this week someone drove a stolen vehicle into a provincial building/court house scrawled antisemitic vandalism on the walls in Edson, Alberta. Police said at the time the case would be investigated as a hate crime.

At the time I was trying to remember if I knew anyone in Edson who could have been a suspect but I drew blank.... as it turns out mostly because I'm growing older and my memory sucks these days because it turns out that it WAS someone who I was aware of and who has made an appearance on the blog:

The man accused of driving a stolen vehicle through the Edson courthouse on Saturday and vandalizing the property with anti-Semitic slurs is a part-time rapper who appears to hold a dark fascination with Hitler. 

Kelvin Zawadiuk, who lives in Edson, is a part-time musician who performs under the moniker La Haine, French for The Hatred. 

"He's very clearly, a fairly traditional neo-Nazi," according to Barbara Perry, a criminologist specializing in hate crime at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

Kelvin Zawadiuk was associated with Blood & Honour when the group was especially active in Alberta. Back in 2011, three members of the hate group were charged with committing a series of assaults in Edmonton as they were engaged in flyering. One of those individuals, James Brooks, was also the "star" of a film being directed and produced by Zawadiuk:

Brooks plays the lead role in a forthcoming low-budget film, Blue Eyed Devil, directed by Edson-based filmmaker kelvin Zawadiuk, about a violent neo-Nazi. 

"James is a really intelligent guy, really charismatic," Zawadiuk said. "He has a real screen presence and he was perfect for this, a skinhead character. It's an ode to the 1970s and 1980s exploitation movies, a character study, a man descending into madness. It's just meant to terrify you."

But Zawadiuk wasn't just interested in the far-right for "artistic" reasons. He also very much shared the ideology of Brooks and the other members of Blood & Honour and was supportive of Robert Reitmeir when the latter was accused (and later convicted along with Tyler Sturrup) of murder:

Despite supporting two members of WEB that had broken with the then Aryan Guard, Zawadiuk also appears to have been close to Aryan Guard founder/leader (later rebranded as Blood & Honour) Kyle McKee and other members of the group:

Finally, Zawadiuk was invited to B&H events in Calgary as recently as 2015, though it isn't certain if he attended:

Now while Blood & Honour in Alberta seems to have declined since McKee and his partner Chelsea moved to New Brunswick to become one of the go-to tattooists for the Northern Guard, the hate group is still a going in the country even as they attempt to remain under ground.

Alberta Has Declared Dean "Sovereign" Clifford To Be A Vexatious Litigant

I've occasionally wondered what the self-proclaimed Wolverdean has been up to since he was released from prison after having received a three years sentence on drugs and weapons charges related to his "freeman-on-the-land" pseudo-legal woo. Upon his release Dean was relatively quiet and wasn't the tax avoiding go-to guru he had been prior to his incarceration, so much so that I stopped paying attention to him and as a result missed this update from November:

Dean Clifford, a Freeman on the Land previously involved with the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum, has been declared a vexatious litigant in Alberta. Freeman on the Land is a sovereign citizen movement that believes laws don't apply to them (they do). https://t.co/Ot9i4mdcdj

— Canadian Anti-Hate Network (@antihateca) December 2, 2018

Costs have been awarded against Clifford's 'client' and himself. See the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Decision here: https://t.co/lHIhW7bby8. CC @R_Scrivens

— Canadian Anti-Hate Network (@antihateca) December 2, 2018

Dean Clifford started promoting himself as a freeman-on-the-land guru in earnest back in 2012. At the time we (when I could still say "we") at ARC teased an upcoming article focused on Dean which resulted in this reply:

Bring it on you communist mother fuckers. I have room for one more target, and my organization is MUCH larger and world-wide. Every freedom loving man and woman on this planet despises groups like you who try to stifle societies and individual freedoms with communist oppression and a police state of government control and laws. 

There's 10 of you in a room on welfare somewhere on Canada. This will backfire worse than the smear sHit Piece "The National" did. Of course, I'll be shocked if you actually allow this comment to be posted. Bring on the poo flinging, and violence, because that is all you people are capable of. 

Your smears are pathetic, your followers are so intellectually stagnant that it is terrifying, and you're all worse 'dead-beats' than the people you claim to hate. You're motto could not be more perfect to explain your organization, "We are against hate, and we hate anyone who doesn't go along with that." You must be the dumbest fuckers alive, a literal living oxymoron. 

I notice every single one of your staunch supporters hides and even posts as anonymous. Yeah, you must all truly believe in what you do, and most certainly are willing to assume liability for your statements and claims. Attach a face to your smear, you gutless shitheads. 

Every one of your front page stories is published by a fag who thinks he's a vampire. IS there more than one person even on this site? Oh man, this is going to be EPIC, I cannot wait! 

Talk soon ass-clowns. 

P.S. "intellectually on par with that of the Occupy Movement." Now that was just plain insulting, they're about as intelligent as you people, you are all a celebration of underachievers.

Suffice it to say we never did actually "talk soon" and Dean's attempt to intimidate ARC failed spectacularly. What Dean was trying to stop ARC from publishing (my own laziness resulted in not publishing much sooner) was his long history of posting on the American hate-site Stormfront:

• Canadian Freeman Movement: Ties to Extremism

Here are a few relevant posts:

We also learned that Dean was in continual correspondence with former Aryan Guard member (and man who spent time in prison on hate crime charges) Bill Noble:

• Dean Clifford and Bill Noble: Emails

Some of the exchanges indicate that Dean was aware that Aryan Guard leader Kyle McKee, then a suspect in an attempted murder targeting a member of a breakaway hate group (who would later be convicted on murder charges himself), was apprehended in Winnipeg while hiding out at Noble's residence.

Jody Issel, Soldiers of Odin Moose Jaw President, Isn't Even Trying Anymore

You know, if there's one positive thing about Trump's election is that the racists we've been covering here for years have become refreshingly honest about their views. Take this guy for example:

Now this is admittedly an older photo of Jody Issel, but it does sort of capture a particular moment in time, specifically the time he tried to start up an unauthorized chapter of the Aryan Nations' in Saskatchewan. That effort didn't pan out so well, so he threw in his lot with Kyle McKee and the Aryan Guard in Calgary for a while, attending at least one of their "White Pride Day" marches.

A few months after we reported Issel's efforts to start an Aryan Nations' chapter, he contacted us to first beg, then threaten us, to remove his information. We didn't and we still haven't, but at that time he seems to have recognized that being associated with the racist movement wasn't good for his career prospects.

Over the years we kept an eye on him. He was careful, locking down his Facebook from our prying eyes, but there were still a number of times he forgot himself:

Then when the Soldiers of Odin movement found it's way across the Atlantic, Issel found himself in an interesting position in that he lived in Moose Jaw, the SoO were looking for a Moose Jaw city president, and the SoO doesn't actually seem to vet their members or individuals aspiring to positions of leadership. Thus:

Recently, Issel and his merry band of SoO members (four by all accounts) decided to take a stroll about Moose Jaw (at least long enough to snap some photos) to protect the fine folks of that particular prairie community:

The problem here is who will protect the fine folks of Moose Jaw from the people who claim to want to protect them?

Bill Daniels, SOO Provincial President in BC

It's funny, because although he claimed that he wasn't hiding, at the time Issel posted these messages on his other profile, it was locked up tighter than gnat's chuff.

But things have changed on both of his profiles, although this one is the more interesting of the two right now:

So why does Issel feel more comfortable openly expressing his racism?

Take a wild guess:

Andrew Benson Reappears With Interesting Friends

It seems that in addition to the Goudreau, who recently came to our attention after a lengthy absence, another character whom we had once been keeping close tabs on but whom we lost track of has reappeared on our radar:

Andrew Benson has been somewhat of a political chameleon over the years. He started out as a self-proclaimed Trotskyist....

.... followed by a lengthy stint as a bonehead:

The last time we heard from Benson, he had begun to style himself as a free market libertarian acolyte of Ayn Rand and Ron Paul, though his association with Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute certainly strongly suggested he retained his antisemitic and racist views:

“I am not a fan of political correctness,” said Andrew Benson, 28, who had traveled from Canada to attend. Wearing a black suit vest, red collared shirt and black cargo pants, he looked more like he’d come to his conclusions as part of a teenage rebellion. “I have always had an odd attraction to things that are taboo.”

No kidding?

It seems that Benson is still enamored with this particular brand of nationalism and like other members of the so-called "alt-right" (who are, at the core, neo-Nazis) is a supporter of Donald Trump:

Benson with Milo Yiannopoulos. Photo first posted on Benson's page July 2016.

We found Benson again quite by accident, but we immediately recognized him despite his Russified name as it now appears on Facebook:

Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean Photographed with Aryan Guard/Blood & Honour Associate

Okay, the title of this article could rightfully be accused of being click bait and of being  unfair to Brian Jean, but it is also an accurate title.

Much like the late Rob Ford was photographed a an event with an individual well known to those familiar with the racist movement in Canada, so too was Brian Jean, leader of the Wildrose Party of Alberta who posed for this photo with Jonathan Besler we presume at the Calgary Stampede:

Given Besler's attitude toward the current NDP government in Alberta, perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that he would gravitate towards the Wildrose Part as an alternative....

June 2016 Bits and Bites: Paul Fromm, Robert Reitmeier, Tyler Sturrup, Canadians United 4 Canada, and Assault on Muslim Woman

A few things have occurred over the past few days that we figure warrant some discussion, though not necessarily stand alone posts.

First on the agenda is another example of Paulie having a bad day, which is generally a good day for most people. He was scheduled to give a speech in Victoria, however the manager contacted him to let Paulie know he was't welcome. Paulie accepted the news with the quiet dignity he is well known for:

Or he whined and claimed his free speech rights have been curtailed while presenting the event as an epic struggle for freedom of expression. I mean, either way, right?

Article in Calgary Sun Regarding Murder of Mark Mariani

The article published on Saturday lays out much of the evidence (in addition to the released audio transcript that was released a two years ago) used to ultimately convict Tyler Sturrup and Robert Reitmeier, founding members of Western European Bloodlines (WEB) which was, if one can believe it, a more violent offshoot of the Aryan Guard.

We found this line to sufficiently describe the "bravery" of the Master Race once one model example realized he had been caught:

Reitmeier’s last act as a free man is to throw up in front of two cops and a camera....

Looks good on you.