W8_Reading_The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism in Late Twentieth-Century Canada

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ASA McKERCHER The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism in Late Twentieth-Century Canada Abstract: Emerging in Toronto in the late 1960s, the Edmund Burke Society (ebs) became a leading far-right outlet. From picketing Model United Nations meetings and gatherings of left-wing groups to staging pro-Vietnam War protests and engaging in racially motivated vandalism, the ebs became a bellwether of what journalists and social scientists identified as a “virtual explosion” of Canadian right-wing extremism. The far right has a long history in Canada, and, in this regard, ebs members’ views reflected long-standing strains of extreme nationalism, racism, anti-statism, and anti-communism. However, the ebs and its successor organizations were very much concerned with issues that were current in late twentieth-century Canada: the expanding welfare state; changes in Canadian immigration policy; multiculturalism and a more civic-based nationalism; and the entrenchment of the rights revolution. Furthermore, the group was also a response to 1960s counterculture, a counter- counterculture in that it offered a radical challenge from the right, not only to the status quo but also to the New Left. While much of the history of Canada in the 1960s is focused on the left, the emergence of the ebs highlights the growth of activism at the other end of the political spectrum. Providing an important look at Canadian far- right extremism, this examination of the ebs serves as a reminder that the 1960s were not all Trudeaumania and flower power and that societal changes in the later decades of the century did not go uncontested. Keywords: political history, conservatism, far right, extremism, racism Résumé : Apparue à Toronto à la fin des années 1960, l’Edmund Burke Society (EBS) est devenue une organisation d’extrême droite de premier plan. S’agissait-il de faire du piquetage aux réunions de modélisation des Nations Unies ou aux rassemblements de groupes de gauche, d’organiser des manifestations en faveur de la guerre du Vietnam ou de se livrer à des actes de vandalisme à caractère raciste? L’EBS se révélait le baromètre de ce que les journalistes et les spécialistes des sciences sociales ont appelé une « explosion virtuelle » de l’extrémisme de droite au Canada. L’extrême droite existe depuis longtemps dans ce pays et, à cet égard, les opinions des membres de l’EBS reflétaient les tendances bien ancrées du nationalisme extrême, du racisme, de l’antiétatisme et de l’anticommunisme. L’EBS et les organisations qui lui ont succédé étaient cependant très préoccupées par les questions d’actualité au Canada à la fin du xx e siècle : l’expansion de l’État-providence; The Canadian Historical Review 103 , 1, March 2022 © University of Toronto Press doi: 10.3138/chr-2020-0028

as “the belief that an in-group’s success or survival can never be separated from the need for hostile action against an out-group.” J.M. Berger, Extremism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018), 44. 4 Julie F. Gilmour, Trouble on Main Street: Mackenzie King, Reason, Race and the 1907 Vancouver Riots (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2014); Tyler Cline, “‘A Dragon, Bog-Spawned, Is Now Stretched O’er This Land’: The Ku Klux Klan’s Patriotic- Protestantism in the Northeastern Borderlands during the 1920s and 1930s,” Social History 52, no. 106 (2019): 305–29; James M. Pitsula, Keeping Canada British: The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013); Julian Sher, White Hoods: Canada’s Ku Klux Klan (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1983); Allan Bartley, “A Public Nuisance: The Ku Klux Klan in Ontario, 1923–7,” Journal of Canadian Studies 30 (1995): 156–74; Martin Robin, Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920–1940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); Mary Vipond, “Nationalism and Nativism: The Native Sons of Canada in the 1920s,” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 9 (1982): 81–95; Tom Henson, “Ku Klux Klan in Western Canada,” Alberta History 25 (1977): 1–8. 5 Hugues Théorêt, The Blue Shirts: Adrien Arcand and Fascist Anti-Semitism in Canada (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2017); Pierre Anctil, Le Rendez-vous manqué: les juifs de Montréal face au Québec de l’entre-deux-guerres (Quebec City: Institut Québécois de Recherche sur la Culture, 1988); Robert Comeau, “Le tentation fasciste du nationalisme canadien-français avant la guerre, 1936–9,” Bulletin d’histoire politique 3 (1995): 159–67; Cyril Levitt and William Shaffir, The Christie Pits Riot (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Denys, 1987). 6 Jennifer Tunnicliffe, “Legislating Hate: Canada, the UN, and the Push to Ban Hate Propaganda, 1960–70,” in Undiplomatic History: The New Study of Canada and the World , ed. Asa McKercher and Philip Van Huizen (Montreal and Kingston: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2019), 335–7. exclusionary in nature, it is the extreme opposition to this particular mix of issues that defines far-right ideology in contemporary Canada. Yet, historically, Canadians are no strangers to right-wing extremism, and one can trace con- cerns about similar movements back more than a century. The twentieth century saw successive waves of far-right extremism in Canada. Infamously, in 1907, a racist mob tore through Vancouver’s Chinatown and Japantown. Following the First World War, a variety of nativist groups emerged, most prominently Canadian branches of the Ku Klux Klan (kkk), which expanded north during that organization’s revival in the 1920s. 4 Sharing simi- lar concerns with their American counterparts, members of the Canadian kkk were driven by opposition to first-wave feminism, anger at non-British immi- gration, and fear of communism and of Catholicism. Alongside anti-Semitism, similar issues spurred right-wing extremism during the 1930s, when the Great Depression and the transnational impact of events in Europe made fascism appealing in Canada. This wave of far-right activism was embodied by Adrien Arcand, who led one of several Nazi-inspired organizations. 5 With the Second World War and revelations of the horrors of Nazism, right-wing extremism receded for a period, which came to an end in the early 1960s amid the so-called “Swastika epidemic,” wherein Jewish Canadians were targeted by vandals, and a wave of cross burnings inspired by the latest kkk revival in the United States. 6 There soon followed what journalists and social scientists identified as a “vir- tual explosion” of Canadian right-wing extremism between the 1970s and the The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism 77

7 Stanley Barrett, Is God a Racist? The Right Wing in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 26; Warren Kinsella, Web of Hate: Inside Canada’s Far Right Network (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1994); Margaret Cannon, The Invisible Empire: Racism in Canada (Toronto: Random House, 1995); Stephen Scheinberg, “Canada: Right-Wing Extremism in the Peaceable Kingdom,” in The Extreme Right: Freedom and Security and Risk , ed. Aurel Braun and Stephen Scheinberg (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997). On the transnational right, see Joseph Fronczak, “The Fascist Game: Transnational Political Transmission and the Genesis of the US Modern Right,” Journal of American History 105 (2018): 563–88; Anna von der Goltz and Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson, Inventing the Silent Majority in Western Europe and the United States: Conservatism in the 1960s and 1970s (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Paul Jackson and Anton Shekhovtsov, The Post-War Anglo- American Far Right: A Special Relationship of Hate (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2014). 8 Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States (New York: Guilford Press, 1995); Clive Webb, Rabble Rousers: The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010); D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014); D.J. Mulloy, Enemies of the State: The Radical Right in America from FDR to Trump (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). 9 Dimitry Anastakis, The Sixties: Passion, Politics, and Style (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008); Bryan Palmer, Canada’s 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009); M. Athena Palaeologu, The Sixties in Canada: A Turbulent and Creative Decade (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2009); Lara Campbell, Dominique Clément, and Greg Kealey, Debating Dissent: Canada and the 1960s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012); Ian Milligan, Rebel Youth: 1960s Labour Unrest, Young Workers, and New Leftists in English Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014). On Toronto’s New Left, see Peter Graham and Ian McKay, Radical Ambition: The New Left in Toronto (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2019). 1990s, which was itself part of a wider global trend. 7 This latter era has received comparatively little attention from historians, and so, in an effort to address this oversight, I examine the Edmund Burke Society (ebs), a group that was active in Toronto in the late 1960s and early 1970s and whose members went on to play an important part in far-right politics for many decades. From picketing Model United Nations (un) meetings and gatherings of left-wing groups to stag- ing pro-Vietnam War demonstrations, the ebs became a leading outlet of late twentieth-century far-right activism. Originally founded to champion anti-communism and free market ortho- doxy and to appeal to young conservatives alarmed by the New Leftism taking hold among Canada’s youth, ebs members rapidly developed an obsession with immigration and white supremacy. This potent mix of racism, nationalism, anti-communism, and anti-statism drove a similar and contemporaneous wave of right-wing extremism in the United States. 8 While ebs members took inspi- ration from American extremists, they were largely motivated by issues at both the local and national levels in Canada. First, the ebs presented themselves as a response to the counterculture of the 1960s, a counter-counterculture offering a radical challenge from the right not only to the status quo but also to the New Left, especially in Toronto, the group’s home. While much of the historical work about Canada in the 1960s is focused on the left, the activities of the ebs highlight the growth of activism at the other end of the political spectrum. 9 78 The Canadian Historical Review

13 Jeff Goodall, “Ethnic, Ethnic, Who’s Got the Ethnic?” Straight Talk! , March 1970. 14 “Destroy China’s Nuclear Power: Fromm,” The Varsity , 2 October 1967. 15 Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1967); Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (Chicago: Regnery, 1953). On Burke more broadly, see Emily Jones, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914: An Intellectual History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 16 Donald Newman, “Don’t Confuse Us with Birch Society, Edmund Burke Group Asks,” Globe and Mail , 7 August 1968; Peter Sypnowich, “The Edmund Burke Society: New Blood for Canada’s Far Right,” Star Weekly Magazine , 27 June 1968. Maintaining a bookstore near Ryerson Polytechnic Institute as a base of op- erations, the ebs soon claimed over 1,000 members in Toronto, plus more in chapters in Vancouver, Regina, Waterloo, Guelph, and London (although actual evidence of active branches outside of Toronto is slim). The group held weekly meetings, at which members reviewed local left-wing activities and planned di- rect action in response. As journalists found, membership lists were carefully guarded, contact with the group was possible only via a post office box, and there was a careful vetting of would-be members to weed out opponents and reporters. Styling themselves as genuine voices of anti-communism, ebs drew heavily on support from the Toronto region’s Eastern European communities where this sentiment had considerable appeal. While they did not bar older members, ebs membership was comprised mainly of university-aged individ- uals and twenty-somethings. Like many far-right groups, active members were largely male, though there were some female “Burkers.” 13 Although it would become synonymous with extremist violence, the ebs’ founders, or Fromm at least, had hoped at the outset to create an organization promoting traditional conservative principles. The society’s goal, Fromm told The Varsity , the University of Toronto’s student newspaper, was to fulfill the mission of Edmund Burke, who had stood “for order, individual rights and a religious as opposed to a secular society” and who had opposed “creeping socialism.” 14 An English politician famous for penning an attack on the French Revolution, Burke had long been an inspiration for many on the right and had been the sub- ject of a 1967 biography by influential American conservative thinker Russell Kirk. 15 The fact that the group was named for Burke, whose conservatism reified tradition, was a sign of Fromm’s effort to give it a sense of intellectual gravi- tas. Some early reporting focused on this conservative message. “The society’s attraction is simple,” wrote Globe and Mail reporter Donald Newman, “a belief that the world is getting out of hand, a sense that the old order was both bet- ter – and safer.” Newman described the ebs as offering “stability” in an era of “swift change,” adding that, with many politicians happy to grow the welfare state, the organization “preaches the rugged individualism of an earlier era.” 16 Likewise, a Toronto Star profile presented the group as a growing fixture among Toronto youth, with its leadership keen to tap into the vibrant conservatism that was then taking hold in the United States. Citing the popularity of Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and Barry Goldwater, Andrews explained that their goal was to “bring out more conservative thinking. Ideally, we’d like to see the 80 The Canadian Historical Review

17 Dan Proudfoot, “A Right-wing Party Emerges from Toronto’s Underground,” Toronto Star , 21 April 1967. 18 Basil Dean, “We on the Right Have No Vote,” Maclean’s , 30 June 1962. 19 On the birth of progressive conservatism in Canada, see J.L. Granatstein, The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967). On Social Credit, see Michael Stein, The Dynamics of Right-Wing Protest: A Political Analysis of Social Credit in Quebec (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973); Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989); Clark Banack, God’s Province: Evangelical Christianity, Political Thought, and Conservatism in Alberta (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016). See also P.E. Bryden’s work on the Progressive Conservative government of Ontario: “ A Justifiable Obsession”: Conservative Ontario’s Relations with Ottawa, 1943–1985 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013). 20 “An Election Prediction,” Straight Talk! , March 1971. 21 Proudfoot, “Right-wing Party.” 22 Desmond Bill, “Edmund Burke Society Joins the Political Fray and Takes the Punishment,” Toronto Star , 27 June 1970. 23 “Where We Stand,” EBS handbill, n.d., folder 2, box 5, Canadian Student Social and Political Organizations Collection (CSSPOC), McMaster Archives and Research Collections. Conservative party become the voice of the Right, as the Republicans are becom- ing in the States.” 17 This lament over the state of Canada’s conservatism was important, and the ebs was not alone in objecting to the apparent centrist nature of the federal Progressive Conservative Party and its provincial counterparts. For instance, in 1962, Basil Dean, publisher of the Edmonton Journal , had complained that, federally, with all the parties coming “in varying shades of pink,” true blue conservatives had no option to represent their views. 18 The Red Toryism that predominated among the Progressive Conservatives left much to be desired on the part of doctrinaire conservatives, and while the right-wing populism of Social Credit was a natural fit for disaffected Tories, that party, while popular in certain provinces, lacked broad national appeal. 19 Real conservatives, the ebs maintained, faced a dismal dilemma: “How can you choose among three differ- ent shades of pink?” 20 One solution was to push movement conservatism right- ward, a prospect that worried some Progressive Conservative members. “I’m personally concerned,” stated Bruce MacOldrum, the president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Student Association, “I think there’s a resurgence of right-wing thinking – a reaction to the anti-war position of many campus organ- izations and to the vagueness of Canada’s position.” 21 Certainly, ebs members portrayed themselves as filling “a vacuum in Canadian politics.” “We represent,” Andrews stated, “what a lot of people think.” 22 ebs members played up their devotion to anti-statist ideals, albeit in strident terms. A handbill outlining the group’s positions emphasized disgust with taxes levied on “hardworking producers” that paid for welfare for “able-bodied para- sites.” 23 Similarly, the masthead of its newsletter, Straight Talk! , edited by Fromm and Jeff Goodall, an early joiner, blared that the ebs was “dedicated to the prin- ciples of individual freedom and responsibility, free enterprise, and firm action The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism 81

31 “Fighting Fromm Leads Poll,” The Varsity , 8 March 1968; “Fromm Impeachment Fails,” The Varsity , 6 November 1968. 32 “U of T Chorus Sings Its Way to $5,015,” The Varsity , 13 November 1968. 33 “SAC Budgets,” The Varsity , 14 March 1969. 34 “What We’ve Been Doing,” Straight Talk! , September–October 1969. 35 “Churches Spread the Word – but Softly – at the CNE,” Toronto Star , 30 August 1969; “The Voice of Women,” EBS handbill, n.d., file Hate Literature, vol. 3, MG 28 I218, Library and Archives Canada. On the Voice of Women, see Tarah Brookfield, Cold War Comforts: Canadian Women, Child Safety, and Global Insecurity (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012). 36 “Anti-Soviet Posters at CNE Taken Down,” Globe and Mail , 15 August 1969; “Anti- Red Posters Down at CNE,” Toronto Telegram , 15 August 1969. 37 “Neutral Ground,” Toronto Star , 16 August 1969; “It’s a Free Country,” Globe and Mail , 16 August 1969. 38 “EBS at the CNE,” Straight Talk! , September–October 1969. Fromm received 477 votes, the most for any successful candidate that year. Moreover, an impeachment effort launched by left-wing rivals failed, with one of Fromm’s opponents lamenting that enough students evidently agreed with the ebs leader’s reactionary positions. 31 Still, in the welter of late 1960s campus politics, Fromm was a lonely right-wing voice, and, on the sac, he sought to dis- rupt what he perceived as the activities of the radical left. 32 His efforts, including an attempt to cut The Varsity’s funding, were blocked by other sac members, and, in 1969, he lost his bid for re-election, affording him more time to devote to ebs activities off campus. 33 The ebs took its anti-communist message to the 1969 Canadian National Exhibition (cne) in Toronto. 34 Its presence became a source of controversy after the group directly targeted other participants, including a nearby booth selling Russian consumer goods. The ebs’ booth featured posters demanding “Bomb the Cong Back into the Stone Age” and “End Soviet Occupation and Suppres- sion in Baltic States.” The ebs members distributed a handbill attacking the Voice of Women (vow) peace group, which asked: “Love for flag, apple pie, and mom are taken for granted – but, is the Voice of Women worthy of that respect to-day?” The pamphlet alleged that the vow were promoting peace “on com- munist terms.” 35 When the cne’s organizers demanded that the ebs halt this criticism, the group denounced the request as an attack on freedom of expres- sion and threatened to complain about signs posted by the vow. 36 The claim to free speech was a deft move – still used by far-right figures today – allowing members to frame themselves as victims and gain sympathy from normally unfriendly quarters. Although the Toronto Star declared that the cne’s organ- izers were justified, the Globe and Mail ’s editors defended the Burkers on the ground that the cne’s staff “worries too much about public relations and not enough about principle – the principle being freedom of expression.” 37 In a ret- rospective on their cne experience, the ebs boasted that the media coverage had boosted interest in the group, with the publicity making clear to a wide audience “that there is an alternative to the liberal-leftist-Communist dogma continually thrown at us by the mass media.” 38 Providing this alternative – and ensuring publicity about it – was a key motive for early ebs activities. The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism 83

39 “Pierre Elliot Trudeau,” EBS handbill, 1968, and “Say No To Trudeau,” EBS handbill, 1968, folder 2, box 5, CSSPOC. 40 “Don’t Confuse Us with Birch Society, Edmund Burke Group Asks,” Globe and Mail , 7 August 1968. 41 Michael Valpy, “Burker Tells of His Enemies,” Globe and Mail , 17 February 1971. 42 Jeff Goodall, “Creeping Socialism in Canada,” Straight Talk! , March 1970; “Socialism’s Assault on the Economy,” Straight Talk! , September–October 1969; “Frogs and Freedom,” EBS handbill, n.d., folder 2, box 5, CSSPOC. 43 Christopher Dummitt and Christabelle Sethna, eds., No Place for the State: The Origins and Legacies of the 1969 Omnibus Bill (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020). Criminal Law Amendment Act, SC 1968–9, c. 38. 44 “A Moratorium on Treason!” EBS handbill, n.d., folder 2, box 5, CSSPOC; “Anti- Communists Disrupt Liberal Session,” Globe and Mail , 2 March 1970. 45 Christo Aivalis, The Constant Liberal: Pierre Trudeau, Organized Labour, and the Canadian Social Democratic Left (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018). The Burkers also gained notoriety for their attacks on Pierre Trudeau. If Trudeaumania touched a positive chord among many young liberals and pro- gressives, it also had an obverse effect on ebs members and conservatives more broadly. During the 1968 federal election, the group launched a major cam- paign to expose Trudeau as “a veteran socialitarian [sic]” who was hiding his true sympathies. Printing a lengthy timeline that showcased the Liberal leader’s “consistent dedication to socialism” and urging voters not to be fooled by his “swinging ‘image,’” it asked: “Can we Canadians afford a socialist government after we have seen the bankruptcy and economic hardship that socialism has brought to other countries and most recently to Britain?” 39 While the group’s anti-Trudeau message had little impact on the election – the Liberals swept to power – the ebs attracted press attention, and the new prime minister entered the fray, dismissing the Burkers as “sick people.” 40 In a sense, Trudeau’s election was a godsend for the ebs, giving it a prominent target. As Fromm explained to seventy-five students at Humber College, hippies and other radical youth attracted a lot of attention, but since they were largely disorganized, they ultimately posed little danger. Conversely, Trudeau and other “Fabian socialists” were the real threat because they now controlled the govern- ment. 41 Early in their mandate, the Liberal government launched new programs that led the ebs to catalogue a range of outrages, including higher taxes, social- ized medicine, farm price supports, and subsidized teachers’ pay. The result of these policies was Canada’s transformation from a “free nation” whose citizens accepted personal responsibility to a “slave nation” under bureaucratic control. 42 Beyond this opposition to social welfare programs, the Burkers attacked “our Liberal-Trudeauvnik leaders” for permitting and even encouraging abortion and homosexuality – the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1969 had decriminalized homosexuality and permitted limited abortion 43 – and for their “criminal indif- ference” towards communist repression. 44 While a recent left-wing analysis of Trudeau has emphasized his lack of progressive bona fides, it is worth recalling that, nevertheless, conservative Canadians viewed him with grave dislike. 45 The Burkers showed their displeasure for the Trudeau government in early 1970, 84 The Canadian Historical Review

52 “Libraries’ Lenin Exhibition ‘Gross Insult,’ Rightists Say,” Toronto Star , 11 April 1970; “Lenin Party in Toronto Erupts into Brawl,” Globe and Mail , 4 April 1970. 53 “Maoist Intimidation Charged,” Globe and Mail , 12 July 1971. 54 “‘Burkers’ Laud Attacks,” Winnipeg Free Press , 19 October 1971; “Kosygin Attacked in Ottawa by Man Shouting ‘Long Live Free Hungary!,’” New York Times , 19 October 1971. 55 “Burkers’ Bookstore Raided by Police, Small Pig Is Seized,” Globe and Mail , 26 October 1971; “Two Plots to Kill Kosygin Were Serious, Police Contend,” Globe and Mail , 29 October 1971; John Miller, “The Attack on Kosygin Worked Out Very Well,” Star Weekly Magazine , 18 December 1971. 56 “Human Rights and the United Nations,” EBS handbill, n.d., folder 2, box 5, CSSPOC. 57 “Edmund Burke Fails to Move Students,” The Varsity , 22 January 1968. at Toronto City Hall and disrupting a banquet organized by the Canada-Soviet Union Association. Thirty Burkers broke into the dining hall, lobbed eggs at the attendees, including the Soviet and Czechoslovak ambassadors, and then engaged in a fistfight with diners. 52 The following year, ebs members marched through Toronto’s Chinatown. Carrying the Canadian Red Ensign – the flag replaced by the Maple Leaf in 1965 and often utilized as a right-wing symbol be- cause of its connection to Canada’s British heritage and the ethnic nationalism of pre-1960s Canada – the marchers stopped at a Chinese-language bookstore, which Fromm denounced as a front for Maoist propaganda. 53 It was through its anti-communist efforts in October 1971 that the ebs achieved its greatest notoriety, when one of its members, Hungarian-born dissi- dent Geza Matrai, tackled Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin near Parliament Hill. Victoria Andrews – an ebs spokesperson, Donald Andrews’ wife, and one of the few female members – informed reporters that the group’s members were “all very proud” of Matrai, who had displayed “the disgust and anger that many Canadians feel about Russia and communism but are too scared to show.” 54 The incident was front-page news in Canada and internationally and a diplo- matic headache for the government. A tip that the ebs intended to assassinate Kosygin led police to raid the ebs bookstore in Toronto, resulting in the seizure of a machete, a baseball bat, and a pig, all of which were to have been used in an effort to assault and embarrass the visiting Soviet dignitary. ebs members’ homes were also raided, but police failed to recover any firearms. Whether or not they intended to kill Kosygin, the Burkers were delighted by the police raids. “At last,” a journalist reported, “someone was taking them seriously.” 55 Anti-communism was important to the ebs, but it was only one of many factors influencing the Burkers’ positions. For instance, they maintained strong opposition to the United Nations, fearing, like many on the far right, that the international organization threatened Canada’s sovereignty and that it served as a tool of communist and Third World states. The Burkers argued that, while the un Charter celebrated basic human rights, the un itself ignored the “forgotten millions behind the Iron Curtain … languishing in Communist captivity.” 56 So committed were they to their anti-un message that ebs members picketed a Model un conference at a Toronto high school. 57 Racism also influenced the ebs’ activities. For instance, in a period in which growing numbers of human rights activists championed anti-apartheid efforts, 86 The Canadian Historical Review

58 “Rhodesia Combats Communism: Teach-in,” The Varsity , 13 November 1967; “Angry Africans Storm from University Rhodesia Teach-in,” Toronto Star , 13 November 1967. 59 “APSC Grad Backs Wallace,” The Varsity , 30 October 1968; Paul Fromm, “The Case for Wallace,” Straight Talk! , October–November 1968. 60 Proudfoot, “Right-wing Party.” 61 On the shift towards civic nationalism, see José Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identity in English Canada, 1945–1971 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005). the Burkers backed Southern Rhodesia’s apartheid regime, which faced interna- tional sanction in 1965 after unilaterally declaring independence from Britain in order to maintain white minority rule. While the Burkers defended Rhodesia’s government under the guise of anti-communism, organizing a pro-regime sit-in at the University of Toronto in 1967, the racial overtones of the situation were obvious. When Black students disrupted the teach-in, Fromm shouted at them: “Are you civilized?” 58 In the lead up to the 1968 us presidential election, Fromm hosted an ebs event where, beneath a Confederate flag, a pro-George Wallace speaker defended the segregationist candidate, and Fromm himself championed Wallace in an editorial. 59 These activities stood in stark contrast to the demon- strations held across Canadian cities in solidarity with the African American civil rights movement, another sign of the Burkers’ counter-countercultural activism. Anti-communism served to mask racism, which was part of the group’s early effort to appear less extreme on this sensitive issue. “[W]e don’t want any rabid racists,” Fromm asserted in one of his first press interviews. Yet in explaining the group’s inaugural sixteen-point plan, which included a defence of apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa, he made clear his belief in white supremacy. “It took us, the British, I mean, 2,000 years to develop successful democracy,” he told a reporter. “It’s ridiculous to suppose that savages can do the same thing in a few years.” 60 The ebs championed the idea of Western civilization and the need to protect Canada’s Western culture, an important differentiation from earlier Canadian far-right groups that had cast Canada’s traditional identity as being British or French. This new emphasis reflected a shift in the Canadian population, which had far more continental Europeans than in the past, as well as the fact that many ebs supporters – including Andrews and Fromm – were not of British ancestry. Promoting so-called Western civilization, and casting their white supremacy in these terms, became a focus for many far-right groups internationally. The Burkers were nevertheless still employing ethnic nation- alism, albeit using the markers of whiteness or Europeaness to exclude others from the Canadian polity and challenging the emerging civic nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s. 61 As with many radical organizations in the 1960s, the ebs attached con- siderable importance to the Vietnam War. Whereas many young people protested the conflict, Burkers – true to their counter-countercultural beliefs – demonstrated in support of us involvement. “Vietnam is our battle too!” the group asserted, adding that it was “time for us to make a contribution to our long-range defence” by fighting communism abroad. While many peace ac- tivists denounced the Canadian government’s “complicity” in the conflict via The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism 87

69 “Police Ride Horses into Kosygin Pickets,” Toronto Star , 26 October 1971; “Rightwing Youths Disrupt Chartrand Speech at U of T,” Toronto Star , 29 March 1971; “Fight Mars Teach-in on Quebec,” Toronto Star , 5 December 1970; “Tent City ‘Picnic’ Attracts Neighbours Bearing Gifts,” Toronto Star , 2 August 1971; “Radicals’ Lawyer Douses Rightist Leader,” Toronto Star , 23 June 1970. 70 Desmond Bill, “Edmund Burke Society Joins the Political Fray and Takes the Punishment,” Toronto Star , 27 June 1970. 71 Jeff Goodall, “Counterprotest against ‘Peace’ Marchers,” Straight Talk! , November 1970; “Protest March on Vietnam War Ends in Fistfights, Shouting Row,” Globe and Mail , 2 November 1970. 72 “Burke Society Says Violence ‘Manly’ Way to Fight Communists,” Toronto Star , 19 October 1971. 73 Alan Overfield to editor, Toronto Star , 17 November 1971. 74 “Kunstler Cleared of Assault against Canadian Rightists,” New York Times , 2 December 1970. 75 “Apologist for Murder Attracts Violence,” Toronto Star , 30 March 1971. the Ontario Science Centre; disrupting a talk by Quebec socialists Michel Char- trand and Robert Lemieux, during which a caretaker was temporarily blinded by pepper spray; forcefully shutting down a teach-in on Quebec separatism; ransacking a tent city and assaulting its homeless inhabitants; and instigating a melee during a talk by William Kunstler, the radical American lawyer rep- resenting anti-Vietnam War protestors arrested during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. 69 These violent actions were central to the ebs’ mission and ethos, a means, Fromm explained, to “force the media to give another point of view.” 70 Just as terrorism relies on the publicity that results from an attack, this street-level dis- order appeared helpful to the Burkers’ cause by garnering attention. Following a confrontation with anti-Vietnam war protesters, one ebs member crowed that the group had “successfully dominated news coverage of the event.” 71 Violence also allowed ebs members to demonstrate both their commitment to their cause and their toughness. The latter consideration was an important element of the performative masculinity at the heart of much far-right activism, including that of the ebs. As Fromm told a reporter, violence was a “‘manly’ way to fight Com- munists.” 72 However, when the group itself was targeted, they were quick to complain of unfair conduct on the part of their enemies, as they did in 1971, after a box of poop was delivered to the ebs bookstore. 73 Similarly, during the fracas that ensued when the ebs interrupted Kunstler’s public meeting, Fromm was knocked unconscious. His tough guy persona battered, Fromm laid assault charges against Kunstler, who was later acquitted. 74 In 1971, taking note of the ebs’ record of violence and characterizing its members as “little more than a bunch of goons looking for trouble,” the Toronto Star called for a police crackdown. 75 schism Instead of being shut down by authorities, like many extremist groups, the ebs split apart. Ontario provincial politics were the proximate cause of the break between one part of the group led by Donald Andrews and a rump that formed around Fromm. In February 1972, it emerged that Burke members held key The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism 89

76 “Burkers Fight for Hold on Ontario Socreds,” Globe and Mail , 28 February 1972. 77 “Our Symbol – The Celtic Cross,” Straight Talk! , June 1971. 78 “Anti-racist Committee Meets Despite Fire, Slogans at School,” Globe and Mail , 9 December 1974; “Western Guard Tries to Disrupt Meeting of East African Asians,” Globe and Mail , 28 August 1972; “Viet Cong Official Tells Rally We Are More Sympathetic,” Toronto Star , 13 June 1972. 79 “Western Guard to Patrol Downtown Area Street Cars,” Globe and Mail , 8 February 1974. 80 “Western Guard Head Denies Hating Blacks,” Globe and Mail , 29 January 1975. posts in the Social Credit Association of Ontario and were seeking to run as Social Credit candidates in Toronto ridings. The presence of ebs members was too much even for the conservative Social Credit national executive, which barred persons holding ebs affiliation from being candidates. In response, the society rebranded itself as the Western Guard. 76 This transformation was more than a name change: Fromm, who sought to advance the far-right cause through electoral politics, was forced out. Whereas the ebs had anti-communism as its putative guiding ethos, the Western Guard, now headed solely by Andrews, became a more openly and militantly white supremacist organization geared towards violence. Even before the ebs’ demise, Andrews had pushed for the group to adopt a Celtic cross, a key symbol for Europe’s far right. An editorial in Straight Talk had praised this emblem as “the mark of a new, muscular, Western dedication.” 77 The wider cause of the Fromm-Andrews schism lay in the debate over appropriate tactics for advancing the far-right cause. Never numbering more than several dozen members, the Western Guard operated in Toronto throughout the early to mid-1970s. Its activities included distributing leaflets and running a telephone service where callers could ring the group’s phone number and hear pre-recorded messages. The recordings offered a more inexpensive and wider-reaching form of distributing prop- aganda than a printed newsletter, though the group continued publication of Straight Talk . Other actions amounted to little more than a continua- tion of the delinquency with which the ebs had become associated, from spray-painting construction sites with racist slogans to assaulting leftists. On separate occasions, Western Guard members set fire to a high school audito- rium hosting an anti-racist teach-in, disrupted a meeting of Ugandan Indian refugees, and threw a paint can at a pro-Vietcong speaker. 78 Playing to fears of crime linked to Toronto’s growing non-white immigrant communities, the group sent vigilante patrols on to subways and streetcars. Despite con- cerns raised by members of the public, the Toronto Transit Commission and union officials ruled that the patrols were legal so long as passengers were not assaulted. 79 In 1975, members in Nazi uniforms interrupted a live per- formance on Toronto’s City-TV by Black rhythm-and-blues musician Dwight Gabriel. After pelting his band with bananas, the Western Guard stormed the stage, injuring Gabriel’s wife Teri. The incident led authorities to file assault charges against Andrews. A police officer who responded to the scene remarked to reporters: “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a group of people looking like Hitlers.” 80 90 The Canadian Historical Review

87 “2 in Western Guard Jailed in Racist Plot,” Globe and Mail , 18 February 1978. 88 “Freemasons Secret Murders, Eh, Wot?,” Straight Talk! , April 1977. 89 “Building an Organization,” Aryan , Spring 1978; “Newsflash on Nazi UFO Activity,” Aryan , April 1976; “The Last German Battalion,” Aryan , January 1976; “The Antarctica Theory,” Aryan , March 1976; “The Hollow Earth,” Aryan , August 1976; “Atlantis Today,” Aryan , October 1976. 90 “Sparta,” Aryan , March 1976; “Our Downfall in the Past: Our Lesson for the Future,” Aryan , Winter 1977–8; “An Apple a Day Helps Keep the Doctor in Pay,” Aryan , March 1976; “The Sugar Story,” Aryan , March 1976; “White Bread: A Killer,” Aryan , August 1976. 91 “The Aryan,” Aryan , Winter 1977–8; “Women,” Aryan , March 1976. 92 “Editorial,” Aryan , January 1976. ten months) and Zarytshansky received eighteen months – the presiding judge noted that Andrews had shown “an appalling antipathy toward black and Jewish members of the community and an attitude toward Marxists wholly inimical toward the concept of freedom of expression.” 87 With Andrews gone, John Ross Taylor stepped into the Western Guard’s lead- ership vacuum. Born in 1913, Taylor had been part of the short-lived Canadian Union of Fascists in the 1930s and was interned with other Nazi sympathizers during the Second World War. After his release, he founded several far-right groups; his takeover of the Western Guard marked Taylor’s latest effort to unite Canadian fascists. Under Taylor, the newly renamed Western Guard Universal (wgu) lurched even further into the lunatic fringe. For instance, a 1977 issue of Straight Talk featured not just typical far-right fare such as a defence of Benito Mussolini’s political program but also an exposé on Jack the Ripper’s links to the Masonic Lodge and Freemasonry’s threat to Canadian society. 88 Taylor published a separate newsletter, the Aryan , which trafficked in conspir- acy theories. Grounded in opposition to the “Jewish/Freemasonist/Communist world destroyers,” the Aryan informed its readers about the existence of Nazi flying saucers, a secret Nazi state in Antarctica, and the separate Aryan state of Atlantis. 89 The newsletter traced the supposed history of Aryan civilization stretching back to Ancient Egypt, Persia, Sparta, and Rome, the never-ending clash between the Aryan race and its many enemies such as Jews, wax on ap- ples, sugar (“a foodless food”), and the “evil of white bread,” which, along with other processed foods, was weakening Western civilization. 90 It is easy to dismiss these paranoid conspiracies, but the wgu also devoted considerable attention to feminism and immigration, voicing opposition to changes taking place in Canadian society, politics, and public policy. Articles emphasized that the role of women, especially white women, was to act as “moth- ers and educators of the coming generations,” and while this situation might be “unfair,” it was how they had been “designed by Nature.” 91 Anti-feminism remains a cornerstone of far-right thinking, matched by a wider emphasis on hyper-violent masculinity, including a dismissal of “namby-pamby” conserva- tives who refused to forcefully confront real threats to Western society. 92 Here, the wgu’s primary concern was non-white immigration. Toronto, the wgu lamented, had “been invaded by the Third World,” and Montreal was “a city in 92 The Canadian Historical Review

93 Ted Ferguson, A White Man’s Country: An Exercise in Canadian Prejudice (Toronto: Doubleday, 1975). 94 “Regent Park Erupts in Racial Violence,” Straight Talk! , March 1977; “Montreal in Decline,” Straight Talk! , March 1977; “Canada: A White Man’s Country,” Straight Talk! , March 1977; “Kill the Whites!” Straight Talk! , August 1977. 95 “Tribunal Probing Western Guard,” Globe and Mail , 13 June 1979; “Judge Rejects Western Guard Bid,” Globe and Mail , 27 October 1979; “Western Guard Fine, Sentence Suspended,” Globe and Mail , 23 February 1980; “Western Guard Leader Loses Sentence Appeal,” Globe and Mail , 28 February 1981. 96 Stewart Bell, Bayou of Pigs: The True Story of an Audacious Plot to Turn a Tropical Island into a Criminal Paradise (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2008). 97 Marci McDonald, “The Enemy Within: The Far Right’s Racist War against Society,” Maclean’s , 8 May 1995. an active state of racial-cultural decline.” They denounced “race traitors” such as Ted Ferguson, author of a book on the Komagatu Maru incident, 93 the “sicky White liberal-left” who wrongly felt “guilty about White Racism,” and the faceless bureaucrats implementing an immigration policy that was ensuring “one more White nation is bled dry, mongrelized and enslaved.” 94 These attitudes reflected an extreme form of a sense of unease existing among a wider segment of the Canadian populace. Anti-immigrant and anti-feminist discourses continue to animate the far right today. Under Taylor’s leadership, the wgu unravelled. Haemorrhaging members, it faced run-ins with authorities. Citing hate crimes legislation, Canada Post stopped delivering mail to the group in 1977, leading the wgu to relocate its mailing operations to Buffalo, New York. Taylor was tried for several hate crimes connected to the distribution of propaganda and the operation of an answering machine service spewing racist messages. In 1981, he was briefly imprisoned for contempt of court for continuing to operate the answering ma- chine while on trial, and the wgu ceased operations. 95 Meanwhile, freed from jail, Andrews lost his job as a public health inspector but founded the Nation- alist Party of Canada (npc), another far-right group under whose banner he became a perennial candidate for local office in Toronto. The npc’s most infa- mous alumnus was Wolfgang Droege, a German immigrant who had joined the Western Guard shortly before Andrews’ imprisonment. Droege played a major role in the hare-brained 1981 plot in which American and Canadian white supremacists sought to seize the country of Dominica for use as a base for illegal moneymaking schemes. 96 Later founding the Canadian kkk, Dro- ege became a leading force in Canada’s far right in the 1980s and 1990s, a period marked by the growth of militant white supremacist groups, especially skinheads, whose members were increasingly young. “Once the average age of a Canadian racist was 60,” Peter Raymont, a documentary filmmaker, told a reporter in 1995. “Now, it’s 18 to 20 years old.” 97 The ebs had originated in part as a youth-oriented conservative organi- zation, and, despite his May 1972 break with Andrews and the Western Guard, Fromm continued in his effort to build a right-wing political move- ment. His disagreement with Andrews lay over the value of the hooliganism for which the ebs and the Western Guard became infamous, which Fromm The Edmund Burke Society and Right-Wing Extremism 93