John Ross Taylor

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For other persons named John Taylor, see John Taylor (disambiguation).

John Ross Taylor (ca. 1910 - November 6, 1994) was a prominent Canadian neo-Nazi leader.

Born into a well-known Toronto family, Taylor associated with the Quebec-based fascist leader Adrien Arcand in creating a national fascist party, the National Unity Party during the 1930s. Taylor played a key role in organizing the putative party in English Canada before he broke with Arcand and joined the Canadian Union of Fascists.

Taylor was interned as a Nazi sympathiser during World War II.

In the 1963 Ontario election, he ran in St. Andrew riding for the "Social Credit Action", a splinter group from the Social Credit Party of Ontario. He won 102 votes, or about 1% of the total cast.

In the 1974 federal election, he was an independent candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in the riding of Davenport, and received 102 votes (0.69% of the popular vote), placing fourth in a field of six candidates. From 1970 to 1977, Taylor was leader of the Social Credit Association of Ontario however, the fact that he did not run as an Independent suggests this group was not formally linked with the Social Credit Party of Canada.

In 1976, he became leader of the white power Western Guard Party. In the 1980s, Taylor was twice found in contempt of court for refusing to comply with a 1979 order by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to end his recorded "White Power" messages on the Western Guard Party's phone line. He was imprisoned from October 1981 to March 1982, and again later in the decade for violating the Canadian Human Rights Act. In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the ruling against Taylor.

In the last years of his life, Taylor was active in the Aryan Nations after he moved to Calgary following his release from prison. He died in a Calgary boarding house in 1994.

He appears, as a slightly dazed figure, in the documentary film Blood in the Face , directed by Kevin Rafferty, a cousin of George W. Bush, which looks at the American neo-fascist movement.