Heritage Front

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The Heritage Front use the "Life Rune" as their logo

The Heritage Front was a Canadian neo-nazi, nationalist, and anti-Semitic organization. The group described its membership as "ordinary Canadian men and women who are dedicated to the European values and traditions upon which this nation was originally founded."^[1]

1 History
2 Violence and Criminal Behavior
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

The Heritage Front was founded in 1989 by former Ku Klux Klan member Wolfgang Droege, Gerry Lincoln, Max French and other former members of the Nationalist Party of Canada who were disenchanted with Don Andrews's leadership and felt a new organization and new tactics were necessary. The idea for the new group was developed in early September 1989 when a delegation of 18 far-right activists from Canada were visiting Libya at the invitation of Moammar Qadaffi who was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of his regime.

The Front formed an alliance with the Church of the Creator and its Canadian leader George Burdi. Other prominent figures in the Canadian far right such as Paul Fromm and Ernst Zündel worked with the Front but did not join the organization.

In 1992, the Front also brought prominent American neo-Nazis Tom Metzger and John Metzger to Canada to speak and provided security at a speech by Holocaust denier David Irving.

Droege retired in 1995 following legal troubles (see Violence and Criminal Behavior below) and handed leadership of the Front over to Marc Lemire.

Under Lemire's leadership the membership of the Front declined rapidly, and the organization ceased to exist as of 1995.

On April 13, 2005 Droege was found shot dead in his Toronto apartment.

[edit] Violence and Criminal Behavior

The Heritage Front maintained a telephone message line to which people could phone in and listen to a different editorial each day. The "voice" of the Heritage Front on this phone line was Gary Schipper. The line resulted in complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and hearings into allegations that the Front violated Canada's hate crime laws.

The group garnered a great deal of media attention and held a series of "racist rock concerts" in Toronto and elsewhere. Immediately after one of these concerts a Tamil man returning home from work was beaten and partially paralyzed by several racist skinheads who had just left the concert.

The activities of the Heritage Front led to the formation of an Anti-Racist Action branch in Toronto which engaged in a series of anti-racist demonstrations and confrontations with the Front, culminating in 1993 with a riot on Parliament Hill between members of the ARA and the Front following a concert by Burdi's rock band RaHoWa. Four Heritage Front members, including George Burdi, were arrested and charged with assault. Burdi was sentenced to a year in prison for aggravated assault and subsequently dropped out of the movement and renounced racism.

A month later ARA held a militant demonstration outside the Toronto home of Gary Schipper which resulted in thousands of dollars of damage to the property. Droege and other members of the Front responded by attacking members of ARA outside a Toronto pub that evening resulting in Droege and other Heritage Front members being charged with assault.

Grant Bristow, working on behalf of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), infiltrated the group and became one of its leaders. CSIS and Bristow claim that their role was to gather intelligence on the far right and try to suppress its violent activity. Bristow's role in the Front was exposed in 1994 by the Toronto Sun and became the subject of an inquiry by the Security Intelligence Review Committee which published a report on the matter in 1994.^[2]

In 1995, Droege was convicted of the assault and sentenced to five months in prison. He also spent time in jail for contempt of court and other violations relating to the Canadian Human Rights Commission tribunal.