TheHeritage Front was a Canadianneo-Naziwhite supremacist organization founded in 1989 and disbanded around 2005.[1][2]
The Heritage Front maintained a telephone message line with a different editorial each day. The voice on the hotline wasGary Schipper. The line resulted in complaints to theCanadian Human Rights Commission and hearings into allegations that the group violated Canada'shate crime laws.[3] The group organized a series ofwhite power rock concerts inToronto and elsewhere. Immediately after one of these concerts, aTamil man, Sivarajah Vinasithamby, 41, returning home from work was beaten and partially paralyzed by severalwhite power skinheads who had just left the concert.[4]
The Heritage Front was founded in 1989 by formerNationalist Party of Canada membersWolfgang Droege,Gerry Lincoln,Grant Bristow (a plant working for theCanadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)) andJames Scott Dawson. They were joined byAl Overfield and other former members of the Nationalist Party who had become disenchanted withDon Andrews's leadership and felt that a new organization and tactics were necessary. The idea for the new group was developed in early September 1989 when a delegation of 18 Canadianfar right activists were visitingLibya at the invitation ofMuammar al-Gaddafi, who was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of his regime. The Heritage Front formed an alliance with theChurch of the Creator and its Canadian leaderGeorge Burdi. Other prominent figures in the Canadian far right, such asPaul Fromm andErnst Zündel, worked with the Heritage Front but did not join the organization.[citation needed]
In 1992, the Heritage Front illegally brought prominent Americanneo-NazisTom Metzger and his son John Metzger to Canada to speak, and provided security at a speech byHolocaust denierDavid Irving. Droege retired in 1995, following legal troubles, and handed leadership over toMarc Lemire. Under Lemire's leadership, the membership of the group declined rapidly, and by 2005 it existed in name only. Now it is defunct.[2]
The activities of the Heritage Front led to the formation of anAnti-Racist Action (ARA) branch in Toronto, which engaged in a series of demonstrations and confrontations with the Heritage Front, culminating in 1993 with a riot onParliament Hill between members of ARA and the Heritage Front after a concert byGeorge Burdi's rock bandRaHoWa. Four Heritage Front members, including Burdi, were arrested and charged with assault. Burdi was sentenced to a year in prison for aggravated assault, and later dropped out of the movement and renounced racism. A month after the clash in Ottawa, ARA held a militant demonstration outside the Toronto home of Gary Schipper, which resulted in damage to the property.[5] Droege and other members of the Heritage Front responded that evening by attacking members of ARA outside ofSneaky Dee's, a known ARA hangout, resulting in Droege and other Heritage Front members being charged with assault. In 1995, Droege was convicted of the assault and sentenced to five months in prison. He also spent time in jail forcontempt of court and other violations relating to the Canadian Human Rights Commission tribunal.[6]
Grant Bristow, amole for theCanadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), infiltrated the group and became one of its leaders. According to the CSIS and Bristow, their aim was to gather intelligence on the far right and to suppress its violent activity. Bristow's role in the group was made public in 1994 by theToronto Sun, and became the subject of an inquiry by theSecurity Intelligence Review Committee, which published a report on the matter in that same year.[7]
Mr. Warman traces his activism to a human-rights tribunal he happened to attend in 1991 that targeted the neo-Nazi Heritage Front.