Heritage Front founder Droege shot dead
Thu, 14 Apr 2005
CBC News
TORONTO - A white supremacist who once led the neo-Nazi Heritage Front has reportedly been shot dead in a suburban Toronto apartment. Reports say Wolfgang Droege was found dead after police responded to complaints of gunshots at a Scarborough apartment building Wednesday afternoon.
When they arrived, they found a man with gunshot wounds in the hall of the building and a suspect barricaded inside an apartment. Police negotiated with the man for an hour before arresting him. They say no hostages were involved in the standoff but a school nearby was locked down for safety during the standoff. Police gave no information about the victim or the shooter or the relationship between them.
Born in Germany
Droege, 55, was born in Germany and moved to Canada in the early 1970s.He joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1976 and tried to start a branch of the group in Toronto. In 1981, he helped organize a failed attempt to invade the Caribbean country of Dominica and overthrow its government. He was given a three-year prison sentence. Droege was arrested in Alabama in 1985 and charged with cocaine possession and a weapons offence. The U.S. deported him to Canada in April 1989 after he served a U.S. prison sentence for those charges. In October of that year he set up the now-defunct Heritage Front.
Far from being 'defunct' the Heritage Front still exists . It was set up by Droege and Grant Bristow.
It is interesting to note in today's news story about Droege's death, Droege is credited with founding the Heritage Front, when they know full well it was a CSIS front setup by Bristow. The media are promoting the fiction that the exposure of the Heritage Front destroyed it, which is not true, nor did it reduce the Fascist movement in Canada except to drive it further underground.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS had funded and set up the right wing Heritage Front with their agent inside the White Power Movement; Grant Bristow, while Droege was the front man. Grant Bristow was the real 'source' behind the founding of the Heritage Front according to Droege and he was the CSIS 'source' inside HF.
After Bristow was outed in a Toronto Sun article in 1994, he and his family were moved from Toronto to St. Albert just outside of Edmonton, he was given a new identity and given a new house, worth over $150,000 at the time, new car, and a monthly salary from CSIS. Today he lives in Calgary, allegedly under the assumed name of Nathan Black.
No longer on the CSIS payroll he came out in public last summer as being the CSIS agent in HF, apparently being broke is a big incentive to speaking out for Bristow.
Far from being a move to a safe house Edmonton and the rural region of Central Alberta was a hotbed of fascist activity with the Aryan Nations and white power skin heads under the leadership of Terry Long. Long was well known to the HF and was the focus of fascist activity in Western Canada.
Long's Aryan Skinhead Thugs were on trial here for attacking a former Journalist who was Jewish.
"Keith Rutherford, a retired radio broadcaster, was confronted at his suburban Edmonton home in April 1990 by two Skinheads angry over a 30-year-old broadcast in which he had exposed an alleged Nazi war criminal. Rutherford was kicked in the groin and struck in the face with a club, causing serious damage to his eye. Charged in the attack were Daniel Sims and Mark Swanson, both 19 at the time. Sims, who appeared in court in an Aryan Nations T-shirt, received a 60-day sentence after pleading guilty to assault; Swanson got eight months for aggravated assault. The Crown Attorney later appealed Sims' sentence, and it was augmented to 18 months." The Skinhead International: Canada
The failure of the Organized Crime unit of the RCMP to take Long's Aryan Nations seriously eventually led to a mass Aryan Nations rally in Provost, Alberta. The RCMP would later say they had infiltrated with a double agent, an Aryan Nations member who was willing to sell them information. Their inside agent later turned out to be responsible for murdering an aboriginal trapper whom he claimed was trying to rob his Gun Store in Saskatchewan.
Leo LaChance was shot to death last Jan. 28 as he left the Northern Gun & Pawn Shop, owned by Carney Milton Nerland, the 25-year-oldleader of the Saskatchewan chapter of the white supremacist Church of Jesus Christ Christian -- Aryan Nation. Globe and Mail. July 11, 1991, Leo LaChance murder,
Instead of reducing the growth of the fascist movement in Canada, Bristow and CSIS were instrumental in its growth and should take the blame for the injuries and deaths that followed in their wake.
Several Canadian cities have witnessed the establishment of racist skinhead groups and in these communities, the consequences have been tragic. Individuals linked to groups such as the Northern Hammerskins, the Final Solution Skins, the Aryan Resistance Movement (ARM) have been responsible for
assaults, gay-bashing and murder.
In 1990, Edmonton Final Solution Skins and Aryan Nations associate Dan Sims was convicted for attacking and blinding retired radio broadcaster Keith Rutherford.
In June 1990, Kevin Dyer Lake, an ARM skinhead was found guilty of murdering Vietnamese student Tony Le in Toronto.
In 1993, Sivarajah Vinasithamby, a Sri Lankan immigrant was beaten and left paralyzed after awhite power concert in Toronto.
In 1998, skinheads were charged in the death of Nirmal Singh Gill, a Sikh caretaker in a temple in Surrey, BC. Also in 1998, Montreal skinheads injured 30 people in Montreal bars. They now face 240 various criminal charges. Facing Hate in Canada
Bristow publicly came out last August. He claimed an interview published in the September 2004 Walrus Magazine interview, below, and in his public coming out as an Anti-Fascist last summer, to single handedly be CSIS's James Bond in the White Supremacist movement.
Originally he had infiltrated the left and the anti-apartheid movement for the South African Intelligence Service in Canada, which is how he got approached by CSIS.
He underplays his and CSIS role in actually creating the Heritage Front. Much as he did when he was their secret source in the HF and reported to the Security Intelligence Review Committee, about how CSIS was involved in the HF.
Today he makes out that all along he was an anti-fascist infiltrating the big bad White Power movement because he hated Anti-Semitism. In reality CSIS and Bristow created the HF to infiltrate the White Power movement. In this they were successful; they actually created an organization that popularized the White Power movement.
The scandals that plague CSIS always come down to its internal operations within Canada. This is another reason for having a public inquiry into the Air India Case.
Was this also how CSIS infiltrated the radical nationalists in the Canadian Sikh community and why they destroyed their files and tapes? Because they were less successful in that early operation then they were later in creating a White Supremacist grouplet?
And why is CSIS allowed to infiltrate Canadian labour organizations and the labour movement on behalf of Employers? Not once but twice in the past decade they have infiltrated CUPW following in the estimable footsteps of their predecessors the RCMP. Bristow infiltrated the Post Office for CSIS and the Employer.
And what was CSIS reason to infiltrate the Reform Party of Canada? Were they considered a right wing threat, apparently.
Our Security Service is out of control and has been since it was founded. We need to eliminate CSIS as an internal security service.
Parliament can claim the need to put the agency under full parliamentary oversight, and while this would be an improvement over the 'lap dog' SIRC, it belabors the question, why do we need an Internal Security agency. CSIS focus is not on enemies abroad, but at home. And they are a funnel for intelligence on Canadians to the CIA and other international intelligence agencies.
Since post 9/11 we have been living under a security state that denies Canadian citizens their basic common law rights let alone their constitutional and human rights. The beneficiaries have been the spooks at CSIS who now don't have to answer any questions since they can cover themselves in the cloak of secrecy; National Security.
Is this the fear that the Liberals have about an Air India Inquiry? That it will not dismiss the antics of CSIS but rather show that the agency acted as a provocateur within the radical nationalist Sikh community as it would later in founding the Heritage Front.
The SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, that looked into the CSIS Heritage Front connection is an interesting read, they maintain a schizophrenic approach to information. In order not to out Bristow as the 'CSIS source' within the Heritage Front, they refer to Bristow as member of the HF leadership. Their source Bristow himself of course provides boni-fides for Bristow the Fascist.
Excerpts are published below, regarding Bristow, CSIS, and the infiltration of HF, CUPW, the Reform Party, Ever the opportunist he attempted to blame the 'left' for fire bombing the Morgentaler clinic in Toronto to throw the anti-abortion movement into a bad light.
It was only last August that Bristow finally outed himself as the CSIS source within the HF. How much the Walrus paid him for his interview has not been disclosed? But knowing Bristow he made money off this as he did setting up the HF.
Is it coincidental that Bristow came out as CSIS and the Government was preparing to extradite fascist Ernst Zundel under the new National Security Act?
Zundel’s extradition case began in January 2004 and CSIS and Bristow’s role in the Heritage Front was raised by the defense but the Judge disallowed any reference to this due to 'national security.' Even then CSIS refused to admit Bristow was 'their source' in the HF.
Ever the opportunist Bristow has also managed to wheel and deal his coming out as a secret agent in the HF as a rubber chicken dinner speaker in the Jewish community. How much he charges to speak as the spy who loves you, is not known.
A warning to readers, some sources linked here will lead you to racist/fascist sites. It is the fascist movement themselves that provide details on their infiltration by CSIS. They wear it as a badge of honour that CSIS found them important enough to infiltrate.
And of course they are all peaceful law abiding citizens who did not even conceive of any violent acts until prompted by Grant Bristow.
"Almost from the beginning, the non-violent Heritage Front, in contravention of the definition of "threat to national security" in the CSIS Act, was targetted by Canada's spooks. CSIS infiltrated a well paid agent, Grant Bristow into the Heritage Front. He funneled money to the HF and constantly urged violence and confrontational tactics, gradually leading the HF in a direction which destroyed it."
Paul Fromm, Wolfgang Droege - Rest In Peace
Of course they are only kidding, themselves the rest of us know that fascist's are thugs.
THE GRANT BRISTOW FILE
'I WAS A SPY FOR CSIS'
September 2004:
Front Man
Grant Bristow kept silent for almost ten years about his controversial role as a CSIS spy in Canada's neo-Nazi movement. Now, finally, he's ready to tell his side of the story. by Andrew Mitrovica
Grant Bristow Speaking in Front of Swastika
JIM BRONSKILL
Canadian Press
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
OTTAWA (CP) - Grant Bristow, who infiltrated the white supremacist movement as a paid informant for Canada's spy service, has broken his long silence, saying he took on the unsavoury task because it was "the right thing to do."
Bristow's comments mark the first time he has publicly discussed his controversial role as an undercover operative for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service since being exposed in the media 10 years ago. He tells his side of the spy saga in the September issue of The Walrus magazine, to be published Thursday.
The 46-year-old Bristow, who has long lived in relative quiet under a new name, sat down with journalist Andrew Mitrovica in a drab Edmonton motel room to try to dispel his lingering public image as a hatemonger.
"Now is the time," he told Mitrovica, "that I can say, 'Not guilty."'
Bristow insists that far from being a racist, he was determined to make the world "a less hateful place."
His mother, Janet, had imbued the young Bristow with a devotion to civil rights and a respect for all races, the article says. And the harrowing recollections of a family friend who had survived the Holocaust left "an indelible mark" on Bristow.
His relationship with CSIS began in 1986 when he was working as a private security consultant and a South African diplomat tried to persuade him to spy on Canadian anti-apartheid activists.
On the advice of a friend, he approached the intelligence agency.
"In the nomenclature of spies, Bristow had become an 'asset."' the article says.
His chance meeting with a member of the extreme right eventually led to Bristow's central role in Operation Governor, a CSIS investigation of the white supremacist movement.
The racist right had been invigorated by the April 1989 deportation to Canada of white supremacist Wolfgang Droege, fresh from a U.S. prison sentence for cocaine trafficking and weapon possession.
In October of that year, Droege set up The Heritage Front, a continental network of racists.
Bristow lived a schizophrenic existence, working by day as an investigator for a shipping firm and spending evenings and weekends nurturing his ties to the racist right, the article says.
"I was keeping watch over violent hate groups," he said. "It was the right thing to do."
The operation grew troubling when tensions erupted between the supremacists and anti-racist groups.
Bristow insists he faced an unenviable dilemma. As Droege's deputy, he couldn't be seen to ignore provocations of the Heritage Front's enemies, the article says. At the same time, as a government-paid agent, he could not promote or countenance a violent response.
"I was walking a very thin tightrope," Bristow said.
His solution was to co-ordinate and take part in a campaign, with the knowledge and approval of his CSIS handler, to harass key anti-racist activists at home and work.
"I was trying to find a response that didn't include out-of-control, escalating violence," he told the magazine. "If I was wrong in the actions that I took, I must take responsibility for that."
Bristow's attempts to keep a lid on the violence fell apart in May 1993 when police, anti-racist activists and about 60 Heritage Front members clashed in a wild melee in downtown Ottawa.
During Bristow's time inside the racist organization, information he supplied to CSIS led to the arrest and deportation of some supremacists, the article says.
In early 1994, convinced the Heritage Front was imploding, Bristow planned to bow out of Operation Governor.
A short time later, his involvement was exposed by the Toronto Sun, prompting the operative and his family to go underground.
A 1995 report by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the watchdog over CSIS, concluded Bristow (not identified by name in the report) played only a small role in the Heritage Front's development despite being part of its inner circle.
The review committee admonished Bristow for tactics that "tested the limits" of acceptable and appropriate behaviour, but ultimately found Canadians owed him a debt for doing valuable work.
At the time, Elisse Hategan, a prominent defector from the Heritage Front, slammed the report as a whitewash. She told a Commons committee the front would never have been so effective without Bristow's work.
Bristow now says it was all business, arguing he never suffered from what he calls "target love."
Following his exposure in the press, CSIS set Bristow and his family up in a new city. But the media soon found him.
The article says the stress and uncertainty of life in the aftermath of his covert work led to the collapse of his marriage four years ago.
Bristow took the first step toward openly discussing his role last year in a speech to a private gathering of the Canadian Jewish Congress in Toronto.
His story was greeted with applause, muffled weeping and a standing ovation, the article says.
Irving Abella, a historian and former president of the congress, effusively praised Bristow at the invitation-only gathering. "I think what was most important about this evening was how heroic this man was."
Still, the article notes Bristow's long public silence has deepened the mystery that surrounded his clandestine work for CSIS.
"To his foes, he is a Judas who betrayed loyal friends. To others, he remains an unrepentant agent-provocateur on the public payroll," Mitrovica writes.
"Still others consider him a hero who risked his life for his beliefs, and is now living with the consequences - a dissolved marriage, an uncertain future, and an occasional brush with fear."
“Frontman” Bristow an exceptional story
August 12, 2004
TORONTO – Calling him a hero, Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region credits former CSIS informant Grant Bristow with bringing down the Heritage Front, a white supremacist group he infiltrated in the early 1990s.
Bristow’s story is told in “Frontman,” an article in today’s issue of The Walrus written by investigative reporter Andrew Mitrovica. This is the first time Bristow has publicly discussed his role as an undercover operative for Canada’s spy agency since being exposed publicly 10 years ago.
“We’re very glad that Grant Bristow’s side of the story will now be told,” said Ed Morgan, CJC national president. “His private address to our CJCONT Executive last year told the story of a man who risked his life to battle hatemongers,” he added.
“The Heritage Front, a virulently racist white supremacist group, no longer exists, thanks to Bristow,” said Bernie Farber, executive director of CJC Ontario Region and a one-time target of the group. “Despite what some may see as questionable tactics, Bristow’s actions led directly to a major breakdown in Canada’s white supremacist movement,” he added.
“One of CJC’s key roles is to fight racism and antisemitism in our country,” noted Ed Morgan. “Bristow’s courage and willingness to help in that fight, at great personal cost, has made Canada a better place.”
For more information contact: Wendy Lampert, Communications and Public Affairs Director, CJC Ontario Region, 416-631-5844 or 416-575-4675 (cell)
AS IT HAPPENS THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2004
Ten years ago today, Grant Bristow thought he'd successfully performed an important public service. He'd spent 6 months working undercover among Canada's leading white supremacists, before returning to his life as a family man. Then a Toronto journalist blew his cover, and observers began to question Bristow's actions. We reached Grant Bristow in Calgary.
The Article that Exposed CSIS
Wednesday, August 17, 1994
Spying Slammed
Activist Considers Suing CSIS Mole
Bill Dunphy
Toronto Sun
A harassment campaign organized by a CSIS spy in the neo-Nazi movement was so intense one victim received police protection.
Rodney Bobiwash, an anti-racist activist, told a news conference yesterday that after death threats by local racists he was given police protection for a period of time.
Bobiwash - who until recently rarely appeared in public without two bodyguards - said yesterday he's considering suing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and their paid informant in the Heritage Front, Grant Bristow.
"The actions of CSIS and Bristow are nothing less than reprehensible and I'm seeking legal advice," he said.
The Sunday Sun revealed that Bristow, who helped to conceive and build the Heritage Front into the biggest group in the racist right wing, was a CSIS spy for more than five years.
An unlicensed private investigator, Bristow ran the Front's intelligence and security wing, using it to mount a harassment campaign against anti-racists.
That campaign, the activists charged yesterday, included assaults, fire bombings and even the murder of a Tamil man.
They acknowledged they had no evidence linking Bristow to any of those acts.
'WREAKED HAVOC'
"The Heritage Front has wreaked havoc on the relations in the community," said Nigela McLean of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.
"We are outraged," McLean said, calling for a full and independent investigation into the spy agency's activities.
Martin Theriault, of the Canadian Centre on Racism and Prejudice said a criminal investigation of CSIS, Bristow and# Metro Police was required to get to the bottom of things.
THE FALLOUT
Reform Pary infiltrated by CSIS
From the Western Canada Concept by Keltie Zubko
In the midst of the Grant Bristow affair, comes a small article originating from CP/Ottawa, titled "Manning vows to purge Reform of supremacists", dated September 17, 1994:
"The Reform party will revoke the membership of anyone who belongs to a white supremacist group such as the Heritage Front, leader Preston Manning said Friday. "If they are, we'll throw them out," Manning said. "There is no compatibility between Reform and the Heritage Front."
"Manning said the party executive Friday terminated the membership of Max French, a member of the Heritage Front and Reform party who registered this week as a candidate for mayor of Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto.
"The party didn't know he was a Reform member "until he started bragging about it," Manning said."
Juxtaposed with this small article are larger ones in which Preston Manning tells of having Grant Bristow, CSIS operative, inadvertently as his body guard, and alleges that he spied on the Reformers, and then claims that such activities have seriously damaged the success of the Reform party, costing them votes, even, in the federal election.
THE McINNIS-BRISTOW AFFAIR
On 14 August 1994, the Toronto Sun announced that Grant Bristow, a supposedly well-paid CSIS informer, had not only infiltrated Canada's extreme right but had helped found with the taxpayer's money, a white racist organization called the Heritage Front. Within a matter of days the accusations against CSIS had broadened to include using Bristow to spy on reporters investigating racism in the Canadian Forces in Somalia, infiltrating the Reform Party with a view to undermining that party by fostering links to racist groups, as well as spying on the Postal Workers Union and the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Equally quickly, there were demands for inquiries and promises to conduct them. According to the Executive Director of SIRC, the Review Committee was eager to prove itself equal to the challenge. It announced that it would be conducting an investigation and submitting a report to the minister. Likewise, the Sub-committee on National Security noted that it would also be conducting an investigation but did not plan to call witnesses from CSIS. Significantly, it said that it planned to discuss SIRC's investigation with them.
Less than two weeks later Brian McInnis, a former political advisor to Douglas Lewis when he was Solicitor General, acknowledged that he had "leaked" a confidential CSIS memorandum to a newspaper reporter on which the story had been based. McInnis had blown the whistle because he found it "reprehensible and wrong" that CSIS had an informant in the white -supremacist group. 24 Apparently, McInnis had chosen to release the information to the media because he wanted to ensure that his message got out. While he could have gone to SIRC with his complaint, McInnis denigrated the committee by describing it as "more of a lapdog than a watchdog" that "doesn't seem to have teeth." 25 McInnis was subsequently arrested, his house searched, and some twenty boxes of papers seized by the police.
Question Period April 24, 1995
CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier-Montcalm, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.
Last September, Michel Robert, spokesperson for the Security Intelligence Review Committee told the Sub-committee on National Security that he did not know what had become of Grant Bristow. The Toronto Star has uncovered him in Edmonton, complete with a new identity, a new house, two cars and an income of $3,000 a month, compliments of the Government of Canada and Canadian taxpayers.
Before providing Mr. Bristow with a new identity and sending him into hiding once again, would the Solicitor General acknowledge that Mr. Bristow must appear before the Sub-committee on National Security in order to fully clarify his role in the racist group Heritage Front and his infiltration into the entourage of the leader of the Reform Party.
[English]
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it has never been confirmed that Grant Bristow is a CSIS source or was a CSIS source. As a result I do not think there is anything further I can add in reply to the hon. member's question.
[Translation]
Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier-Montcalm, BQ): Mr. Speaker, how can the Solicitor General abdicate his responsibilities with regard to Grant Bristow's role as a CSIS source, when a report by the review committee considers that Mr. Bristow exceeded the mandate of a CSIS source.
Why is the Solicitor General making such an effort to hide Grant Bristow?
[English]
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend is mistaken. The report of the SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, did not confirm that Grant Bristow was a source of CSIS. It did however confirm that CSIS did a good job, a proper job and a necessary job investigating the Heritage Front.
THE DOPE SHEET
Criminal Lawyers Association of Canada
Newsletter December 1996
by Paul Copeland
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs also reviewed Bristow's role in the Heritage Front. The Committee report was released in June 1996 and is entitled The Heritage Front Affair: Our View.
The majority of the Committee was not prepared to follow SIRC's lead in attempting to rehabilitate the reputation of CSIS. The majority of the Committee commented on Bristow's revelations to police sources that he was involved in a long term CSIS operation. On one occasion CSIS stopped using Bristow as an informant because of Bristow's revelations to police sources.
The Committee was concerned that at least five different activities carried out by Bristow breached the ministerial direction that human sources are not to engage in illegal activities or to do things that will bring discredit on the service or the Government of Canada. The following paragraph appears in the majority report of the Committee:
There remains, to even the casual observer, an over-riding question as to whether the presence of the Source and/or Bristow (if he was a source) helped the Heritage Front to grow and develop. We feel compelled to ask whether the presence of a CSIS source or sources was a positive factor in the growth of the Heritage Front - SIRC could have more effectively pursued this issue.
There are dissenting opinions to the Committee report. An unlikely alliance of the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party was critical of CSIS and of the SIRC investigation of the Heritage Front Affair. In the dissenting report the following paragraphs appear:
However, there came a time, as indicated in the preceding section of this Report, when it was concluded in a 1990-91 submission to TARC (Target Approval and Review Committee of CSIS) that extreme right organizations and their related activities were petty criminal in nature and did not constitute a threat to the security of Canada. It is not clear to the opposition members of the Sub-Committee why the Service did not simply refer these matters to law enforcement agencies, rather that redirecting the investigation and the Source (Bristow) for more than an initial period to the leadership of the extreme right wing. The key question is what was the justification for the continued targeting and the presence of the Source (Bristow) after 1990. SIRC did not clearly address this issue in either in its report on the Heritage Front affair or in its 1994-95 annual report.
Despite his failure to exercise discretion by revealing his activities on behalf of CSIS, the Source (Bristow is the Source, but the Sub-Committee did not name him) was kept on and allowed to continue in place until March 1994, when he had his leave-taking. The Sub-Committee has misgivings about the Service's decision to leave this Source in place for another five years despite failings in the early days of his contact with CSIS. This concern is buttressed by the nature of some of the questionable activities engaged in by the Source in the heyday of the Heritage Front between 1991 and 1993. Although it is impossible to determine what the Heritage Front would have become without the presence of the Source as part of its leadership group, it is possible to know what it did when he was there....
The Party Quebecois released their own dissenting opinion. Concerning SIRC they wrote as follows:
The attitude of the members of SIRC when they appeared before the Sub-Committee was quite simply contemptuous. The members of the Sub-Committee cannot take personal offence, but the parliamentary institution from which the Sub-Committee derives its authority cannot tolerate such behaviour. SIRC members consistently refuse to cooperate with the Sub-Committee. Through their answers to some questions, by their refusal to answer others and by the mental evasion that characterized their evidence, SIRC members have demonstrated contempt of Parliament and should therefore be relieved of their duties.
This comment does not apply to Ms. Paule Gauthier.
It is equally disturbing to note that the Ministry of the Solicitor General and even the Privy Council Office appear to have lost control of the Service.
The Reform Party dissent from the Sub-Committee report contains the following paragraphs:
While SIRC made all efforts to down play Bristow's role in the creation and operation of the Heritage Front, clearly he was responsible for much of the success of the organization. The best indication of Bristow's role in the Heritage Front was the video that the Front put out with excerpts of Bristow's speeches, that had been edited out of previously released videos.
The excerpts from this video show that Bristow was the main administrator of the Heritage Front. He is responsible for the raising of money, for selling memberships, literature and paraphernalia and for getting people out to Heritage Front rallies and demonstrations. His questionable contributions can be best summarized from the one video where he bragged that the Heritage Front in Toronto raised more money to assist incarcerated members of the white supremacist terrorist organization, the Order, than any other group in North America.
I do not know the manner in which the Metropolitan Toronto Police approached Grant Bristow to interview him in regard to testifying against Droege and Overfield. Bristow clearly refused to provide the police with any statements concerning the role of Droege and Overfield in preparing the "Animal Life Series - No.1" flyer. The conclusion I draw from that is that Bristow has no interest in assisting the authorities in prosecuting those two men for promoting racial hatred in Canada. If CSIS is still providing funding to Bristow and providing for his security and relocation, in my view the funding should stop.
SIRC report on CSIS and the Heritage Front
AFFIDAVIT OF WOLFGANG DROEGE
Bristow and I spent a large amount of time together tracking cars during which time the ideas were discussed of forming an organization fighting for white rights. Bristow was instrumental in urging me to seek an alternative to Don Andrews' Nationalist Party. He said that Andrews wasn't even white and never seemed to get anywhere with his white racialist message. He said that an organization needed to be founded which would take the racialist movement into the 1990s by using videotapes, seminars to upgrade people's speaking skills, use of computers, and techniques that are used by major political parties in attracting the masses to our cause. The goal of the new organization was to be an advocacy group for white rights. Bristow and I felt that present immigration was detrimental to the interests of the country because it would eventually turn Canada into a non-white nation. And with it, our institutions would be altered in such a way as to become unrecognizable to the founding people. This would lower the quality of life as we know it. We opposed equity hiring as we viewed it as disadvantaging whites who are essentially the founding people of this nation. (In fact, one of the chief election promises of the Ontario Conservative Party in 1995 was the repeal of these laws and they have in fact now been repealed. The Heritage Front may have played a part in raising public consciousness about these issues by the large amount of publicity we generated.)
BRISTOW AND CSIS VS. CUPW
On October 3, 1994, the CBC broadcast new information:
"Now new evidence places Bristow inside Canada Post while he was on the CSIS payroll. Now CBC News has learned that five years ago it (Gateways postal plant) was also a target for Grant Bristow. Sources say Bristow spent about three weeks in 1989 in and around the plant, around postal workers, almost every day for at least six hours. At the time Bristow was a security officer for this Toronto shipping firm tracking missing packages. It was also the period he was working for CSIS as a paid informant...sources say at the plant Bristow would walk the mail sorting lines, weigh packages, watch workers handling them."
Darryl Tingely, President of CUPW was quoted in the television newscast as saying there would have been a lot of information of use to Canada Post as the Union was absorbing another one at the time, and a "nasty reorganization was going on." The CUPW President stated that the CBC report would place Bristow in the plant at about the time they were preparing for a strike and for amalgamation with another union. He accused Bristow of spying on postal workers for the Tory government.
BRISTOW INFILTRATES THE REFORM PARTY
An issue was whether Grant Bristow signed up Heritage Front members and other undesirables for the Reform Party. Those persons who are closely associated with the fringe right or the extreme right have stated that Bristow actively encouraged Heritage Front people to join the Reform Party. Private information exchanged between Droege and his trusted cohorts clearly shows that Droege and Overfield wanted their associates to join the Reform Party as a means to encourage white supremacist policies (Overfield) or to effectively discredit the Party (Droege).
As regards Grant Bristow and the Conservative Party, he did work for David Crombie in the mid-1980s. As a favour to his supervisor, Bristow worked for several hours in the 1988 election campaign for Otto Jelinek. His activities on behalf of Jelinek were marginal at best, according to people who worked on Jelinek's campaign.
We examined the reasons why CSIS did not inform the Minister that Heritage Front members had infiltrated the Reform Party. We took into account the fact that the period in which the decision was made was one of transition for the executive level of the Service, and that the Deputy Director of Operations was the Acting Director for most of the Summer and Fall of 1991.
The Acting Director at the time believed that there was no obvious threat to the security of Canada. However, our view is that the decision was of major importance, and should have been taken by the Director himself, not his second-in-command. We are not prepared to second guess what the Director's decision should have been; he may well have come to the same conclusion as his Deputy Director Operations and Analysis.
In any event, the Solicitor General of the day was not informed about the infiltration issue.
BRISTOW AND THE ATTACK ON THE MORGENTALER CLINIC
Alberta Report January 09, 1995
A blast from Morgentaler's past.
The CSIS probe unearths more speculation that the Toronto fire-bombing wasn't by pro-lifers
There was a federal report last month on the shadowy activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The published conclusions of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, which is still dominated by Tory appointees, was excoriated by critics in the Reform Party as a blatantly partisan cover-up (see accompanying story).
One detail of interest to pro-lifers, however, received scant attention from anyone, including the RPC. A CSIS source, widely presumed to be out-of-control agent Grant Bristow, had told CSIS that the person who fire-bombed Henry Morgentaler's Toronto abortuary in 1992 was not a pro-lifer. Although media like Maclean's (November 21, 1994) have cited the explosion as a "confirmed" example of "anti-abortion violence," police still haven't said who they think did it, and Mr. Bristow linked the crime to an unnamed "left-wing activist" seeking to goad the Ontario government into suppressing pro-life activity.
Although the suspicions of a substance-abusing former strip club bouncer like Mr. Bristow are not conclusive, many pro-lifers have suspected a frame-up. Says Torontonian Jim Hughes, national president of the Campaign Life Coalition, "At the time, Dr. Morgentaler wanted to move to larger quarters--information he passed on to police and news media."
ZUNDEL AND BRISTOW
Can't Tell You -- National Security
TORONTO. January 26, 2004. For the second day in a row, defence lead counsel Peter Lindsay questioned a representative of the Canadian Intelligence Service (CSIS) on the witness stand in the Zundel hearing in Toronto. Mr. Lindsay got CSIS spokesman Dave Stewart to explain that a summary prepared for the then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Denis Coderre) and the Solicitor General Wayne Easter) last spring was a balanced document.
In questioning that was frequently interrupted by CSIS counsel Murray Rodych, lead Crown Attorney Donald MacIntosh and the judge Mr. Pierre Blais, all of whom seemed to run interference for witness Dave Stewart, Mr. Lindsay slowly revealed a picture of a skewed document which suppressed material favourable to Mr. Zundel. This was the information on which the ministers based their May 1, 2003 certificate declaring Ernst Zundel a "terrorist" and a threat to the security of Canada.
Eventually, Mr. Stewart revealed that CSIS began to consider Mr. Zundel a threat to national security in 1990.
Entering on the explosive ground that lies at the heart of this case -- the animposity of CSIS to Mr. Zundel and the whole right wing -- Mr. Lindsay inquired: "Did CSIS play any role in the creation of the Heritage Front?"
"Not to my knowledge," the CSIS spokesman said.
"Didn't a gentleman named Grant Bristow play a major role in the developm,ent of the Heritage Front?" Mr. Lindsay asked.
"I recall the name, but I would say no," the witness replied.
"Was Grant Bristow an agent of CSIS," Mr. Lindsay continued.
Justice Department lawyer Donald MacIntosh was on his feet. "It's irrelevant. It's not connected to whether the certificate is reasonabvle, not whether it's true, but reasonable," he said, re-stating the incredible low threshold the Crown has to meet the triumph in this case.
"The question about Bristow's being an agent is not allowed," the judge ruled.
"Whether Bristow is an agent of CSIS goes to the fairness of CSIS.the Service makes a big production of the role and dominance of the White Supremacist Movement and Mr. Zundel's influence in it. If CSIS played a role in it, it would be significant."
Doug Christie Defender of Fascists and Rascists on Bristow.
From: "C-FAR" <paul@paulfromm.com>
To: <cafe@canadafirst.net>
Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 11:00 AM
Subject: CROWN'S ARGUMENT DESTROYED IN ZUNDEL CASE
Mr. Zundel's current lead counsel Peter Lindsay took Mr. Christie back
over nearly two decades of observations of Mr. Zundel and his team at the
old Zundelhaus at 206 Carlton Street in Toronto. Mr. Christie indicated
that he'd had numerous conversations with former Heritage Front leader
Wolfgang Droege over a period of years. "I had numerous discussions with
Mr. Droege in the presence of [CSIS agent and infiltrator] Grant Bristow."
The Battling Barrister from Victoria recalled one particular conversation
alone with Mr. Droege. "We took a long walk along the shore in the Beaches.
Wolfgang bought an ice-cream cone. It was after Bristow was revealed as a
CSIS agent. It was a wide-ranging conversation that dealt with Mr. Zundel,
Mr. Droege and what he thought of Grant Bristow," Mr. Christie related.
At the mention of CSIS agent Bristow, CSIS lawyer Murray Rodych began a
series of objections that Mr. Justice Blais brushed off. "I'm doing a lot
better than the ministers," a feisty Peter Lindsay shot back, "in that I'm
providing live witnesses."
"Mr. Droege told me he wasn't particularly interested in Mr. Zundel. He
was an old man," he said. "He was unable to relate to young people. He
didn't like their music or the way they lived. He was for the old people,
the old Germans. He was out of touch. I asked: 'Do you keep in touch with
Mr. Zundel?' He said: 'Occasionally. He's a nice old guy.'"
Mr. Lindsay questioned Mr. Christie about the "Sneaky Dees" incident. In
the spring of 2003, an ARA mob trashed the house Heritage Front Hotline
broadcaster Gary Schipper had rented. Later that night, a number of members
of the Heritage Front gathered to consider what to do. CSIS agent Bristow
would advocate violence and a revenge attack on the ARA's favourite sleazy
watering hole, a College Street grog shop called "Sneaky Dees."
"I was very concerned,' Mr.Christie testified. "I was always anxious to be
certain who I was representing. I specifically asked Wolfgang to tell me
what had happened at Sneaky Dees. I had heard about it in the media that a
skinhead had gotten into a fight with some so-called anti-racists. It was
the only time the Heritage Front had been involved in violence. There was a
desire for revenge [after the attack on Schipper's.] I was curious as to
who had motivated them, A dozen skinheads and Droege met at Allan Gardens
to discuss action. At Allen Gardens, Mr. Droege told me, 'Grant Bristow was
foaming at the mouth and spitting. He was saying we had to take the war to
the enemy and show them we could fight.' Wolfgang then went to see Mr.
Zundel. He told them not to do it. It was a trap and they'd be prosecuted.
They didn't follow Mr. Zundel's advice. A fight ensured and Mr. Droege was
charged."
Despite objections from lead Crown counsel Donald MacIntosh, Mr. Lindsay
next questioned Mr. Christie about a list of prominent Jewish individuals
developed by CSIS agent Grant Bristow. Mr. Christie recalled a meeting with
Bristow and Droege in Victoria. "The place was then known as Johnnie's
Restaurant at Fort and Quadra Street. It was after the Supreme Court
decision regarding Mr. Zundel [in 1992]. Bristwo sat two feet in front of
me. Droege sat to his left across the table. Droege said: 'Grant had a list
of prominent Jews, their addresses and phone numbers and he thinks it's
time to take the war to the Jews. Grant is a security advisor and private
detective and he got the list.' I told them they were nuts," Mr. Christie
concluded.
