British Columbia
On January 10, 2005, the Edmonton Police hate crimes unit, with the cooperation of the British Columbia RCMP hate crimes unit, arrested Glenn Bahr at his parents’ home in Langley, BC. Bahr was transported back to Edmonton to face a charge of willfully promoting hatred contrary to s. 319 of the Criminal Code.
On February 18, 2005, the British Columbia RCMP hate crimes unit and others raided the Fort St. John home of Bill Noble who uses the pseudonym ‘Exterminance’ on the Internet. Noble’s computer hard drive and other personal effects related to the alleged offence were seized. The search warrant was obtained based on the allegation that Noble had engaged in the willful promotion of hatred contrary to s. 319 of the Criminal Code through material on his website www.exterminance.org and other Internet postings. As of November 2006, Noble has now been formally charged under s. 319 and his trial is proceeding in British Columbia. Noble moved to Edmonton, Alberta following the police raid.
During the fall of 2005 some slow progress was finally made in a federal human rights complaint filed by the Montreal human rights group Centre for Research and Action on Race Relations (CRARR). The complaint alleges that both the websites for BC White Pride and another operating under the pseudonym White Renegade are run by John Beck of Kelowna, and contain racist and antisemitic material likely to promote hatred and contempt in violation of s. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. A hearing before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is scheduled for November of 2006.
During 2005, Internet postings continued to be made to the Canadian section of the US neo-Nazi forum Stormfront by a number of individuals claiming to reside in British Columbia. A number of these individuals were remnants of the now defunct Western Canada For Us, including Coquitlam residents Ciaran Paul Donnelly and his girlfriend Jessica Beaumont. Federal human rights complaints filed against Donnelly and Beaumont in December of 2004 and January of 2005 respectively, allege that both individuals posted material to the Stormfront website that was likely to promote hatred and contempt of individuals on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. Both complaints were investigated by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and have now been referred to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) for a full hearing expected in late 2006.
Further developments in the Donnelly and Beaumont cases transpired on July 27, 2006 when the BC RCMP hate crimes unit and members from other police services raided the townhome of Donnelly’s mother in Coquitlam where Donnelly and Beaumont reside. The raid and seizure of the couple’s computers and neo-Nazi paraphernalia were pursuant to the execution of a search warrant alleging that each of them had committed the willful promotion of hatred contrary to s. 319 of the Criminal Code. No charges had been laid as of November 2006, but the requirement for the approval of the provincial Attorney-General for the laying of charges can often delay the decision-making process.
In November of 2003, Canadian Jewish Congress filed a formal federal human rights complaint against Vancouver-resident Lubomyr Prytulak, alleging that content on Prytulak’s ‘Ukrainian Archive’ website (www.ukar.org) was likely to expose Jews to hatred or contempt. The complaint alleged that the site engaged in Holocaust denial and contained traditional antisemitic canards, for example, that Kosher certification is a Jewish conspiracy, and that Jews are cruel, disloyal, and dishonest. In September of 2005, the CHRC referred the complaint to the CHRT for a full hearing but it is understood that the parties reached a negotiated settlement shortly thereafter that included the removal of all material identified in the complaint. In an amusing turn of events, the website went offline at the same time and as of October, 2006 had been taken over by someone mocking Prytulak and indicating that future updates to the site will focus on the fight against antisemitism, hate speech, and the search for WWII-era Nazi war criminals still remaining in Canada.
In November of 2005, formal complaints to the British Columbia RCMP hate crimes unit and Bell Sympatico resulted in the rapid shutdown of a BC neo-Nazi skinhead group’s free MSN website, which had been hosted by Bell Sympatico and MSN. The site was operated by a youth named Dan along with his girlfriend Brittany from Comox, BC. It provided photos of both of them, including one of Brittany holding their young son, while proudly displaying the swastika-treads on her boots. Under a heading called ‘diejewishscum’, the website featured an image depicting a Jew as a rat, with a swastika-shaped knife plunged into its back and blood spilling out onto the ground. In addition, there were pictures glorifying Adolf Hitler, grotesque caricature cartoons of blacks, and threats that white “race mixers” will be slaughtered on the ‘Day of Reckoning’.
