A glimpse at the Klan in Canada ...
SASKATCHEWAN
"In Saskatchewan the Klan was started late in 1926 by a group of men who came by train to Moose Jaw from the U.S. via Eastern Canada.
There were few Negroes in Saskatchewan, but the Klan found plenty of adherents -- one of its organizers claimed a peak membership of 47,000 -- when it directed its attacks against Catholics and Jews, then immigrating to Canada in large numbers from Europe.
During the 1929 provincial election campaign, crosses were burned at numerous points ...
Hooded Klansmen marched through one Catholic church during a service.
Klansmen went from community to community on horseback to spread their word. They told listeners that people called one another "Mac" at that time in the U.S. and Canada because it was a secret codeword, symbol of a plot to "Make America Catholic."
"Sol Sanderson, president of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians (FSI), recently told a CBC reporter that his organization has been aware of Ku Klux Klan activity in Saskatchewan. He said the FSI would keep an eye on the developments and maintain close contact with the RCMP... According to the article in Saskatchewan Anglican, Klan leaders recently interviewed in Toronto said that Klan cells or `Klaverns', as they are called, are active in Montreal, Vancouver, and rural Saskatchewan. David Duke, leader of the Ku Klux Klan, said that membership in Canada had increased tenfold in the past two years, but declined to give any membership figures.
This is the first indication of Klan activity in Saskatchewan for many years. There were about 125 Klan cells in the province during the early 1930's, according to a University of Saskatchewan study done in 1968."
(Article, 1980)
"Regina resident Christian Waters is a high-ranking officer with the Canadian branch of the Brotherhood of Klans (BOK), considered to be the largest Klan group in North America. Waters’ membership with the group was confirmed in an e-mail and phone call by Jeremy Parker, imperial wizard of the Ohio-based BOK.
Waters, who writes under an alias on the group’s Web site, claims that over the past two years, the BOK’s membership in Saskatchewan has gone from one (himself) to roughly 250 members, and around 3,500 Canada-wide. Of the Saskatchewan members, he said that while there is a strong base in Regina, many live in rural areas."
(Leader Post article, 2007)
ONTARIO
Their movements were routinely reported in the Toronto Star, especially once the organization took root in the area. Articles told of crosses burning in the hills of Hamilton, of a dynamite explosion at a Catholic church in Barrie whose suspected orchestrator had Klan ties, and robed Klansmen laying a wreath at the city hall cenotaph.
What made these groups different from their American cousins, however, was a focus on preserving a narrow, religious- and ethnic-based notion of Britishness in Canada, explains James Pitsula, a University of Regina historian whose book on the KKK, Keeping Canada British, was published last year"
(The Star article, 2014)
Picton on the Bloomfield Road on Sunday, September 19. It was estimated some 5,000 people attended the afternoon demonstration. A further 6,000 people were present in the evening, and they arrived in over 1,000 cars, to witness "the weird initiation" ceremonies in the words of The Picton Times editor.
Seven women and nine men were candidates for admission to membership at this ceremony. Four huge crosses were burned, "making a brilliant illumination for the activities in the centre of the field."
(The Picton Times, 1926)
“The Klan was everywhere,” she says. “There were cross burnings documented all over Ontario, the last one being in North York in the mid-'80s. I think the way Canadians deal with it is to blow if off, saying it didn’t happen that much up here. We’re so caught up in denial that I think just about everything this show reveals is going to be shocking on some level.”
(Daily Xtra, 2013)
Two Canadians -- one a Klan member -- and eight Americans were charged Monday with plotting to overthrow the government of tiny Dominica in the Caribbean.The FBI said the group had stocks of automatic weapons and explosives."
(Archive article, 1981)
"In Toronto, hidden hotel room cameras catch the Canadian head of the Ku Klux Klan hiring a hit man." (Fifth Estate, CBC, 1985)
Articles:
Ontario Legion branch shut down after KKK Halloween costume debacle (Globe &Mail, 2010)
The Grim History of the Ku Klux Klan in Toronto (article, 2014)
Historicist: The KKK Took My Baby Away (Torontoist, 2016)
ALBERTA
"KKK were once a powerful force in Edmonton under the leadership of John James Maloney, a seminarian who had worked to revive the movement in Saskatchewan. Seeking more political control, Maloney moved to Edmonton in 1930, restored the Alberta Ku Klux Klan, and declared himself the Imperial Wizard... The KKK hosted lavish dinners and public gatherings, attended by hundreds. In 1931, the group celebrated Daniel Knott's mayoral victory by lighting a fiery cross on Connors Hill.
On more than one occasion during Knott's term, they requested permission to use the Edmonton Exhibition Grounds (now known as Northlands) for a picnic and cross burning ..."
(CBC 2016)
"Two men with links to the Ku Klux Klan were arraigned Monday on charges of conspiring to blow up the Calgary Jewish Center and kill a prominent Jewish businessman."
(Associated Press, 1988)
NOVA SCOTIA & NEW BRUNSWICK
"Earlier this spring in Windsor Junction, Ku Klux Klan graffiti was plastered outside the riding office of Percy Paris, a provincial cabinet minister who happens to be black.
And the entire country gasped last month when an interracial couple an hour away from Halifax announced they were moving to an undisclosed location to protect their five children in the aftermath of a cross-burning."(Quote from: Racism's long history in quiet East Coast towns, Globe & Mail, 2010)
"Here’s a little known fact. Well into the fifties Nova Scotia, and Canada for that matter, was so deeply racist and so completely segregated you’d think you were living in South Africa under apartheid.
In all of Halifax there wasn’t a hotel or restaurant to be found that would serve African Nova Scotians. You could go to a Fish and Chips for take out, but that was it.
The New Glasgow movie theatre with its segregated seating, the one where Viola Desmond was arrested, wasn’t the exception, it was the rule in Nova Scotia. Segregation was sanctioned by the courts...
In the late 1920s the Ku Klux Klan thrived in Canada, especially in Saskatchewan. It was quite a force in Eastern Canada as well, Reynolds suggests, with 17 active Klan lodges in New Brunswick alone, and with leaders who enjoyed easy access to government politicians.
(Nova Scotia Advocate, 2016)
"The KKK was once active in New Brunswick too. I was unable to find any scholarly work that had much mention of the KKK in New Brunswick (although there were a few interesting writings scattered online) but I did find copies of KKK documents at the PANB [Public Archives of New Brunswick] that had been found in a wall of a house. These included their bylaws, and for some klaverns (as they called their chapters) a membership list. It turned out that two colleagues of mine had grandfathers in the KKK in southern NB.
I found the subject difficult to research locally, even though there had been at least two klaverns here, possibly three—unfortunately, the documents only mentioned one in passing, and the second arose after the date of the documents found in the wall. However I do have the list of the charter members of the Dalhousie NB klavern—also found during a demolition—and again, some people I know had no idea their relatives were involved.
Even though the Klan had a rally in Dalhousie, NB and drove through the streets in cars in the early 1930s as part of a membership drive, I could find no photos, and no elderly people who would admit to seeing the event although a news report said that it was witnessed by hundreds. Also, even though people took endless photos in those days of men dressed in their various club regalia and costumes, a call I put out resulted in exactly zero Klan photos...
The Klan did burn crosses here, and I found an elderly witness to that...
... I know of at least two cross burnings in Dalhousie, NB in the 1930s, and I was told that the Campbellton, NB klavern used to burn their crosses on the current site of the WalMart in Atholville."
(Halifax Examiner, 2015)
Articles:
Teen gets four months for cross burning (2001)
Arrest warrant issued for Klan recruiter (2001)
MANITOBA
The Klan in Manitoba began sometime in the 1920's through out-reach efforts after the success of the KKK in Saskatchewan. For more information on Manitoba's Klan history read this full blog post (sources at bottom). It failed to thrive for several reasons, including the cost of joining.
"In 1922, threatening letters signed by the Klan were delivered to St Boniface College in Winnipeg. Before the year was out, the college burned to the ground, causing the deaths of ten students."
(Book quote: "Color Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada)
In 1992, three Klan members were charged in court, but the charges were later stayed:
"... three men were charged ... with inciting hatred against blacks and other minorities, following a lengthy undercover police investigation. They were also charged with advocating genocide and mischief ..."
(Jewish Post & News article, 1992)
BRITISH COLUMBIA
"In 1924 a Klan klavern was established in Vancouver. The BC Klan claimed a membership of more than 10,000 including five MLA's. In that province the Klan merely latched on to the strong anti-Asian sentiments, and the demand that East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants be repatriated."
(Book quote: Is God a Racist? The Right Wing in Canada)
"In the fall of 1925, the Invisible Empire of the Kanadian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan paraded en masse up Granville Street to take up residence in their gorgeous new headquarters. They held an "informal reception" there on Oct. 30. “They paraded on the grounds in their white robes,” one neighbor recalled, “carrying fiery crosses of red electric lights. We saw them coming in their white hoods with the black eyeholes. It left a very lasting impression.”
" ...there was a chapter in Vancouver in 1925. The Klan popped up in the news today ... when vigilantes dressed in their hooded apparel kidnapped a Chinese houseboy who worked in the house where the murder occurred. "For six weeks," Starkins writes, "he was shackled to the floor of an attic room in Point Grey, and subjected to frequent beatings and death threats" to try to force out the name of the killer. They finally let him go when they realized he was innocent."
"Today Princeton is a quiet community in southern B.C. where a few thousand people live. But in the early 1930s the small town was the epicentre of anti-communist hysteria, where police clashed with miners and their families, and the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses and made threats."
Articles:
19th Century
"Little is yet known about the spread of Ku Klux Klan activities to Canada during its first active phase from 1865 to the 1870s ... [Story follows of a black man being killed for marrying a white woman]
... It also appears that some Canadians held the American Ku Klux Klan in great esteem... [quotes journal applauding Klan and bemoaning 'uneducated' ex slaves in society]
... During the 1870s, at least some Canadians were initiated into the Klan in eastern Ontario. There is also evidence that American Klansmen, fleeing responsibility for their lawless activites, crossed over into Canada to seek refuge ... [Story follows of a Klansman who killed a black man in the south and fled to Canada; followed by American detectives who drugged him and brought him back across the border. Canadian authorities and newspapers demanded his return, so the Americans returned him and he lived in London, Ontario afterwards, 'welcomed warmly'.]
(Pages 182-183, Color Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada)
Now this is by no means an exhaustive list, in fact this is only a cursory glance at the subject matter. It appears that cakers are finally beginning to acknowledge the past, much to the dismay of the government and its propaganda efforts, I'm sure. (Or I should say, a handful of authors are being honest and forcing the rest to face reality!)
So we'll end with this quote from a Vice commentary article:
"In the four years I've spent in London, Ontario I've been called names like Ebony, Dark Chocolate, Shaniqua, Ma, Blackish, and Boo. I've encountered blackface on Halloween and been told to go back to my third-world country (twice). I've been pushed off the sidewalk by white kids. I've been humiliated by white guys shouting, "Look at that black ass!" as I walked down a busy street. I've been an ethnic conquest for curious white men. I've witnessed my boyfriend get called a nigger over 20 times ..."
Welcome to London, Ontario! O Canada! #sunnyways
Further reading:
Books:
