William John Beattie

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For the Northern Irish politician and minister, see William Beattie.

William John Beattie was the founder and former leader of the Canadian Nazi Party. The establishment of the Canadian Nazi Party, re-named the National Socialist Party in 1967 [1], marked a re-emergence of organized neo-Nazi activity in Canada that had been dormant since the days of Adrian Arcand. [1]

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[edit] The Canadian Nazi Party leader

Beattie led the Canadian Nazi Party/National Socialist Party from its establishment in 1965 to 1978 when the group disbanded.[2] Prominent members of the Canadian Nazi Party included Jacob Prins, Martin K. Weiche, and John Ross Taylor, all of whom would later play important leadership roles in the far right in later years.[3] Weiche was identified as president of the "Canadian National Socialist Party" which may be a successor organization to Beattie's group.[4]

Beattie organized a number of rallies in Toronto in the mid 1960s, although few actual Canadian Nazi Party members attended, and none of the rallies resulted in much support for Beattie’s cause. One of these rallies on May 30, 1965, resulted in a violent encounter with Jewish activists who disrupted Beattie’s rally at Allen Gardens.[5][6] Beattie later found himself in legal trouble as a result of his rallies. As a result of a number of violent confrontations, Beattie was sent to prison for six months having been convicted of public mischief.[7] In a 1966 Playboy Magazine interview, American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell referred to Beattie as leading, “a tremendous and successful movement” in Canada.[8]

After changing the group’s name to the National Socialist Party, Beattie created a recorded telephone message line. Among the messages recorded was one that claimed, “that blacks were being manipulated by Jew-communists.”[9]

[edit] Activities after the Canadian Nazi Party

Beattie disbanded the National Socialist Party in 1978. Soon after he and John Ross Taylor co-founded the short-lived British People’s League. In both 1988 and 1989, Beattie organized neo-Nazi rallies on his property in Minden, Ontario. “His second gathering, called 'Save Our Canada Day Festival', attracted more than 200 racial activists from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and New York State and resulted in a large cross being burned in celebration of the Aryan race.”[10]

[edit] Ernst Zundel’s Canadian Human Right Tribunal hearing

Beattie was to be a key witness for Paul Fromm during the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal concerning Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel in 2000. Fromm’s organization, the Canadian Association for Free Expression, had intervener status during the hearings.[11] Fromm claimed that Beattie would testify that the Canadian Nazi Party had been a front created by the Canadian Jewish Congress as a means to enact Section 319 of the Criminal Code:

Beattie will reveal that he was a dupe and a patsy, that everything from his group's name to its major activities was suggested or quarterbacked by persons acting as agents for or reporting to the Canadian Jewish Congress. Uncannily, at the very time that the Canadian Nazi Party was being built up and just as quickly destroyed a government committee was holding hearings to propose anti-hate legislation. The Cohen Committee made significant mention of the threat posed by John Beattie. The Canadian Jewish Congress, which largely created the short-lived Canadian Nazi Party, had, since the 1930s been lobbying for restrictions on freedom of speech.
Beattie will reveal how an agent for the Canadian Jewish Congress lured him into a technical breech of the law, which landed the now unemployed, penniless Nazi leader in prison for six months. Beattie will also expose the fact that the same agent proposed legal maneuvers [sic] that were calculated to frighten and cause distress among Jews, thus heightening the "Nazi" menace, which was used as the argument for the 1971 "hate law" (Section 319 of the Criminal Code) and the subsequent section 13.1 (telephonic communication of hate) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, where truth is no defence.[12][13]

When it came time for his testimony however, Beattie was unavailable. Though Fromm claimed that Beattie’s absence was as a result of a scheduling conflict, it appears that Beattie was upset by the wording of the press release that referred to him as a “dupe” and “patsy.” NOW magazine 14 December 2000

[edit] Current activities

John Beattie (who now works as a paralegal[14]) has resumed his far-right activities. Beattie has re-created the British People’s League which claims to promote and protect “our ancient cultural traditions, as a powerful lobby force.”[15] At one point, he hosted an Internet radio program that now appears to have ceased.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Shofar FTP Archives: orgs/canadian/sirc/heritage-front/HF-I-Overview
  2. ^ Canadian Content 18 December 2001
  3. ^ http://www.settlement.org/downloads/Far_Rightwing_Movement_in_Southwest_Ontario.pdf
  4. ^ Canadian Press, "Melee erupts at protest over planned talk show", The Globe and Mail, October 11, 1980
  5. ^ Shofar FTP Archives: orgs/canadian//c-far/bigotrys-fellow-travellers
  6. ^ Canadian Content 18 December 2001
  7. ^ Shofar FTP Archives: orgs/canadian/sirc/heritage-front/HF-I-Overview
  8. ^ a:\rockplay.HTM
  9. ^ Shofar FTP Archives: orgs/canadian/sirc/heritage-front/HF-I-Overview
  10. ^ Canadian Content 18 December 2001
  11. ^ NOW magazine 14 December 2000
  12. ^ cafe20001126.html
  13. ^ NOW Magazine
  14. ^ John Beattie, Paralegal Court Agent
  15. ^ British People's League

[edit] External links