White Lies is based on Elisa Hategan’s life

White Lies is based on Elisa Hategan’s life

For the record, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s 1998 movie White Lies, starring Sarah Polley, is based on my life. I have all the verifiable news clippings to prove a vast majority of scenes were based on my life. I also have email correspondence from a former consultant of the film – which demonstrates how the film producer researched my life via court records and interviews with people who knew me at the time, in order to write his script.

Specifically, the scenes were lifted from my 1994 trial testimony against the Heritage Front white supremacists, and my 1995 testimony in the House of Commons, along with the extensive press coverage in the Ontario newspapers that covered my story. When examined frame-by-frame, approx. 80% of scenes from White Lies can be directly traced to Elisa Hategan.

However, I never received any compensation or credit for a movie (an unauthorized biography) that wouldn’t have existed without me. After I testified against neo-Nazis at only 19, and while I was dumpster-diving for survival and begging for spare change on street corners while in hiding, people were making money hand over fist based on what had happened to me. Producers were attending Emmy and Gemini galas and getting nominations for a film that wouldn’t have existed without me, a film that shared MY LIFE with millions of viewers.

Shame on all those who exploited a teenage girl who had nothing but the truth on her side. For more details and to see the articles that formed the basis for the screenplay, please visit my website’s Press Clips section.  

If you’re interested in finding out more resources about radicalization, extremism and the process of indoctrination, or know someone who is at risk of being radicalized, please message me. To book me for a speaking engagement, lecture, keynote or workshop at your event or to request more information about topics of interest, please visit my Speaking page to view options and contact me.

An Open Letter to Canadian Media

My name is Elisa Hategan and I’m a Canadian writer and freelance journalist. Twenty years ago, I was a teenage member of an Ontario-based domestic terrorist group called the Heritage Front. They were a radical white supremacist, neo-Nazi lobby group with ties to organizations that connected into parliamentary politics. After turning against them, collecting information and testifying against group leaders in court, the Toronto Sun broke the story that one of the group’s leaders was a CSIS agent, Grant Bristow. For a period of approx. 4 years, the Heritage Front had been founded and funded in large part by Canada’s own intelligence service, CSIS (Canadian Intelligence Security Service) – the Canadian equivalent of the CIA. They called it Operation Governor.

 

After the official inquiry resulted in a whitewashed report that was slammed by both left-wing activists and Preston Manning, then-leader of the Reform Party which was essentially destroyed by revelations that Heritage Front members had infiltrated its ranks, I went into hiding and tried to forget what had happened. Over the years, however, I realized it was a story I had to tell. So in 2010 I wrote a memoir titled Race Traitor and entered into negotiations with Penguin Canada over the acquisition rights, but after a month and no solid offer I walked away from the negotiation table. I should add that no other publishers, big or small press, were interested in publishing it. “The issue of white supremacy has had its day” Douglas & McIntyre. “ I can’t see a broad market for the book.” – Random House. Last year I ended up self-publishing it: Race Traitor: The True Story of Canadian Intelligence’s Greatest Cover-Up

In the month after the book came out, I was interviewed by a senior journalist at the Globe & Mail, Colin Freeze, as well as a Director of Programming at the CBC here in Toronto. They both expressed great interest in covering the story, but afterwards came back at me with excuses that senior editors were reluctant to go to print (or, as in the case of CBC, to air) with it – mainly because it was an old, irrelevant story since it happened 20 years ago. Also, there was the pesky issue that in today’s political climate, and according to Minister of Justice Peter MacKay’s own admission, only religion-based violence can be considered terrorism, i.e. only Muslims can be terrorists. In other words – when a Christian massacres almost 100 defenceless youth on Utoya Island in Norway, murders innocents outside a Kansas City synagogue (on the heels of Holocaust-denier David Irving’s talk two weeks earlier), plots a Halifax Valentine’s Day massacre or shoots 3 innocent Muslims in Chapel Hill execution-style, they are not terrorists but misguided, lone misfits.

Just this past month, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper (who in the 1980s was a member of the extreme right-wing Northern Foundation, which had Heritage Front and Reform Party members, along with skinheads, anti-abortionists, Holocaust-deniers and Conrad Black) has announced a new bill that essentially duplicates the NSA laws of arrest without warrant, anybody can be detained for a week under the pretext of “terrorism”, etc. Bill C-51 is extremely troubling, considering that they will be giving CSIS far greater powers than ever before, turning it into what many have called a “Secret Police” with far-reaching powers.

Given the context of Bill C-51, it didn’t surprise either myself or the numerous activists, anti-racists and aboriginal protesters I’ve communicated with, that we cannot get any mainstream press coverage in Canadian media. Telling the story of how Canada’s own intelligence agency formed a domestic terrorist group that stalked, harassed and assaulted several left-wing activists in the 1990s would be in direct conflict with what Stephen Harper’s government is attempting to pass into law – a law whose definition is so broad, so undefined, that anyone in direct opposition to our government’s interests (such as Aboriginal protesters and the Idle No More movement) would fall into the category of “terrorist.”

Under Bill C-51, ‪CSIS will have the power to: 1) detain people without charges for up to 7 days; 2) interfere with bank transactions and seize bank accounts if they are “suspected” of potential terror activity; 3) order the seizure of “terrorist propaganda” or order it deleted from an online source; 4) stop any passengers “suspected” of travelling overseas to commit a terror offence to be removed from a flight; 5) seal court proceedings; 6) make it illegal to “promote” or “counsel” terrorist activity – the definition of what this constitutes is, of course, left up to CSIS’ interpretation. Using “disruption warrants,” Canada’s spies will do just about anything: “enter any place or open or obtain access to any thing,” to copy or obtain any document, “to install, maintain, or remove any thing,” and, most importantly, “to do any other thing that is reasonably necessary to take those measures.”

Bill C-51 MUST be stopped, or at the very least re-examined. The repeated violations and more violations on the part of the former intelligence unit of the RCMP, which became CSIS, which evolved into CSEC, cannot be overlooked. Neither is Harper’s ongoing use of CSIS as his personal domain pet whenever he wants to keep tabs on anti-fracking protesters, Green Party members, or whoever is opposed to the Conservative Party’s mandate. Such collusion between government and intelligence agencies is insidious at best, and will be used politically to defeat (or even imprison) political opponents.

History has already showed us what can happen when agents run amok: Grant Bristow’s handlers had been inherited from the same RCMP department which preceded CSIS’s inception. Back in the 1970s they were burning barns in Quebec while blaming it on the FLQ. After that scandal ensued and RCMP intelligence was disbanded, they moved over to the newly-minted CSIS and taught neo-Nazis and violent skinheads (some of whom were part of the now-disbanded Airborne Regiment) intelligence techniques, thus contributing to assaults, stalking, harassment and worse. Since they got away with all of the above, I cannot imagine what will happen when they gain autonomy.

There is a wide amount of evidence, press clippings and media sources that back up my memoir, as well as the testimony of activists who had been terrorized. Please consider featuring the story of CSIS’s establishment of the Heritage Front in your media outlets – Canadians have a right to know what their own government has done in the past, in order to prevent it from ever happening again.

Please let me know if you require further information and/or documentation, which I would be happy to provide.

Elisa

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An Open Letter to Vertica Resident Services

Christmas season conveys a warm, friendly time when kindness and human connections trump profit and corporate greed. But somehow, I don’t believe that Vertica Resident Services (and the corporate heads and shareholders behind this company, BCIMC Realty Corporation) believe in such traits.

So, against all odds, reason, and even against the Human Rights Comission code, Vertica Resident Services has proceeded with eviction proceedings against my frail, Alzheimer-suffering, deaf mother.

She is 70 years old, deaf, suffering from dementia hallucinations, Alzheimer’s and macular degeneration (she’s going blind). For the last month and a half, she has been living on the 10th floor of Mount Sinai Hospital.

Although the Toronto Housing Commission has been paying the bulk of her rent for at least 15 years, and she has never been late on her rent with one exception, something terrible happened: last November my mother fell and broke her leg while walking on the street. She has been in hospital for the last two months, suffering from dementia-related hallucinations and a broken limb.

I ensured that her rent was paid in full in the meanwhile – in fact, even December’s rent cheque cleared with no problems. AND I sent them the full payment owing, PLUS January’s payment well before it was due.

Everything was in order – or so I thought.

And then I discovered, while examining the contents of my mother’s purse, that Vertica Resident Services was going to court to get her evicted. Which, incidentally, is against the Human Rights Code of Ontario and grounds for a discrimination complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

After I contacted the building manager, Indira Escobar, I discovered that despite having sent them full payment for all rent in arrears, PLUS interest (to cover ONE bounced cheque), Vertica was determined to evict my mother. In fact, Escobar appeared particularly determined to get my mother out of the building. This is the email she sent me, which clearly indicated that Vertica was at fault for dropping the ball on my mother’s case: “Monica Silva went off on mat leave back in Sept 15, there is no documentation of you or even housing has no info on you. Amir (the current Community Manager) has spoken to the nurse and no info was given to him of your mother, due to the privacy laws.”

So basically, because someone at Vertica went on Maternity leave, and Amir Parekh didn’t bother to ask Toronto Housing Authority for my mother’s next-of-kin info, somehow my mother is at fault?

And then the punch line – Ms. Escobar indicated to me, both in writing and in her rather unsympathetic voicemail, that she would NOT process the rent cheques she was given. Uh, not unless we paid $2000 for Vertica’s legal fees (i.e. when Ms. Escobar jumped the gun and skipped due process by initiating eviction papers).

Are you freaking kidding me? What landlord gets to say, “Ahem, I don’t want any money from you – I’d rather get you evicted instead, so we will not be processing any rent cheques from you from here on forward.”

Newsflash, Vertica Management – this is ILLEGAL. Oh, and you might want to read up on your Ontario Human Rights Code, because evicting someone who is in hospital over a SINGLE bounced cheque – and refusing any attempts to process the payment for the rent in arrears – is also illegal. It’s called DISCRIMINATION. You may want to read up on it – it’s on page 85-86 of the Human Rights Commission’s Policy on Human Rights and Rental Housing.

So instead of celebrating the holidays surrounded by friends and joyful cheer, I will be spending the last week of December preparing to file an official complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

So Vertica, in case you’re reading this right now and you didn’t read up on your basic tenant human rights, it is actually illegal for a landlord to evict someone who has been languishing in the hospital. Of course, that didn’t stop Vertica Resident Services from instigating eviction proceedings. And it didn’t stop its manager at 57 Charles St apartments, Indira Escobar, from refusing to accept my cheques for the full amount due.

YES – you read that right: Vertica Resident Services is dead-set on putting my mother on the street in the middle of winter. It’s mind-boggling that the building manager at 57 Charles Street would rather REFUSE full payment of rent just to evict my ill, hospitalized mother. If that doesn’t demonstrate a clear instance of mens rea (I’ll let their legal team explain the concept to Vertica and their questionable management group), then what does?

It seems rather fraudulent to me that Vertica has taken all subsidized payments from Toronto Housing Authority up until today, plus kept processing my mother’s rent cheques all the way through December, but suddenly decides to STOP ACCEPTING January’s rent cheque because they’d rather evict than accept rental payment.

By the way, it’s also discrimination to deny rental housing to someone who is a low-income senior citizen who is suffering from dementia. Of course, that didn’t stop Vertica’s Ms. Escobar from implying that somehow she was in a position of authority to determine whether my mother can live alone in their building…or not. “I will call you and discuss if your mother will be able to live alone after her release,” she wrote in the same paragraph in which she stated categorically, “Unfortunately, we can’t process these cheques.”

Newsflash again, Vertica Management Services – you do NOT get to “discuss” or “determine” if my mother is able to live alone after her hospital discharge. You are not a geriatric expert, are you? I didn’t think so. Nor can you get away with such blatant violation of a vulnerable senior citizen’s basic human rights.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s own guide clearly delineates that wrongful eviction due to hospitalization is grounds for a discrimination suit. But maybe Vertica isn’t counting on people actually reading up on their human rights, or contacting lawyers for legal advice.

Simply put, Vertica doesn’t care. Why should it? As soon as they get my frail, 90lbs mother evicted, they’ll get to raise the rent for a bachelor apartment in downtown Toronto to $2000+.

Corporate profit triumphs once again over human rights.

As soon as the Human Rights Commission offices open in January, I will be filing an official complaint against Vertica Resident Services. And I know I will win. Hopefully the additional thousands of dollars spent by Vertica paying lawyers and Human Rights Commission fines will be worth Ms. Escobar’s refusal to process a $458 cheque. And hopefully these fines and bad karma will teach Vertica a thing or two about Canadian Human Rights and more importantly, kindness and understanding.

But that’s little comfort for spending the rest of the holidays full of stress and worry about a parent who is slowly slipping away, and nobody seems to give a damn.

UPDATE: It was not until I contacted BCIMC Realty Corporation and used several social media platforms to expose the incompetency of Vertica’s manager and the injustice of what was going on in my mother’s case that we got results.

It turns out, BCIMC hired Vertica Resident Services to manage the buildings, since the BC corporation (BCIMC) is primarily an investment company for seniors’ portfolios. The irony! So I got as many top senior emails from BCIMC as I could and wrote them a message informing them of how Vertica had dropped the ball, and THEY were going to get sued. I ended my letter with: “It’s ironic that your company invests senior citizens’ portfolios and thus claims to be concerned about the rights of the elderly, but you will illegally throw a frail, hospitalized, elderly woman on the streets over a $458 cheque which she has already attempted to pay back.”

It’s a shame that BCIMC had to be sent this message, considering they hired Vertica Resident Services in good faith to manage several buildings throughout Ontario. And it would be a shame that Vertica might lose their contract with BCIMC if enough of these sort of complaints reach corporate headquarters. However, since Vertica hires managers who don’t open their clients files to see their rents have indeed been paid up until December and would rather use extortion and bullying tactics to get their lawyers’ fees paid instead of admit to an error, this is a consequence that Vertica may have to learn in order to manage their hiring practices better in the future. At the very least, they avoided a major lawsuit through the Human Rights Tribunal – something they may yet have to deal with in the future if they do not keep a close eye on the strong-handed tactics of their Ms. Escobar.

I truly appreciated that Vertica’s Director of Operations did eventually telephone me on Friday afternoon and was actually humane and sympathetic, something that I never expected from them after the way Ms. Escobar had treated me and my mother. I accepted their apology and the fact that apparently they DO want my mother as a tenant in their building. Having said all this, I will wait until the cheque clears out of my mother’s account and I double-check that her possessions haven’t been thrown onto the street before I consider this matter closed.

RACE TRAITOR: The True Story of CSIS’ Greatest Cover-up – Official Press Release

Available in e-book format only at Kobo and Amazon.

RACE TRAITOR:The True Story of Canadian Intelligence Service’s Greatest Cover-Up is the visceral true story of a teenage girl who becomes entangled in Canada’s most powerful white supremacist group, the Heritage Front – a domestic terrorist group later revealed to have been created and funded with the assistance of Canada’s spy agency, Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).

To sixteen-year old runaway Elisse, the new friends she encounters in the secretive Heritage Front are the family she’s never had. They feed her when she’s hungry, watch her back, and Wolfgang Droege, one of the group’s charismatic leaders, introduces her to a trusted friend, notorious Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, who provides her with shelter and work.

In less than a year, Elisse evolves into an extremist groomed for a leadership role in the far-right movement. Her loyalty earns her the attention and tutelage of Grant Bristow, co-founder of the Heritage Front, who is training a secret faction of skinheads and neo-Nazis in information-gathering and terror tactics targeting political opponents. Rapidly drawn into their web of hatred, Elisse witnesses an escalating campaign of terror from which there seems no way out.

Forced to confront her sexual orientation and secret heritage, Elisse realizes that she must fight back. But when she attempts to shut down the vicious organization that had brainwashed her and terrorized innocent Canadians, she learns that a darker force is behind the façade of the Heritage Front: Canada’s own spy agency, backed by the government that was supposed to protect her.

A CSIS cover-up has just begun.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

At age 16, Elisa Hategan was an alienated runaway who became recruited into Canada’s most powerful white supremacist movement, the Heritage Front. She was groomed by top leaders to become a rising star of the extremist far-right movement. An errand girl for notorious Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, she was a witness to the illicit activities of an undercover CSIS agent and co-founder of the Heritage Front. At age 18, she turned against the group and spied on them for several months before testifying in court and going into hiding.

Alice in Writerland

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

June 4, 2012

Toronto, Ontario

Incognito Press announces the publication of ALICE IN WRITERLAND: A WRITER’S ADVENTURES IN THE UGLY WORLD OF PUBLISHING, written by local author Elisa Hategan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elisa Hategan is the Romanian-Canadian author of RACE TRAITOR, a debut novel based on her experiences inside a terrorist group, which won a Toronto Arts Council award, an Ontario Arts council grant, and a Canada Arts Council work-in-progress award, as well as qualified as semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ALICE IN WRITERLAND is a heartbreaking, candid and scathing indictment of the publishing industry and the personal sacrifices involved in the pursuit of success. Much more than a shocking exposé of unprofessional behavior in the literary world, however, this is a memoir that transcends into an intense exploration of what it means to be an artist.

If you could have anything you wanted, would you sell your soul for it?

ALICE IN WRITERLAND provides a shocking inside view of a world where pompous literary agents, sleazy managers and high-priced creative writing workshops have created an industry that is less interested in pursuing talent and more concerned with ripping off hopeful writers.

If following your dreams meant giving up everything you held dear, would you still do it?

Elisa Hategan started out as a debt-ridden poet who knew absolutely nothing about the publishing industry. On a whim, she applied for and won a scholarship to a prestigious creative writing program. Within a year she had transformed from complete newbie to professional writer, winning multiple art grants and being accepted to the most prestigious MFA program in the country. Better yet, she had the perfect agent and a manuscript that caught the attention of a Big Six publisher.

And then, somewhere along the way, it all went terribly wrong.

Elisa Hategan’s Alice in Writerland: A Writer’s Adventures in the Ugly World of Publishing is the heartbreaking and ultimately triumphant story of one woman’s attempt to make it as an author, all the while trying to figure out what that really means in the 21st century.