An Open Letter to the Toronto Star and Jennifer Yang about Grant Bristow and the It Campaign

 

  

Please note: The letter I am posting below, in bold font, was written today by Martin Theriault of the Canadian Centre on Racism and Prejudice and has just been sent to the editors at Toronto Star and the journalist who wrote a slanted piece on Grant Bristow without bothering to check all her facts. I am pasting his letter here without Martin’s permission, because I want everyone out there who cares about truth and good journalism practices to know what is really going on.

I am too upset at this time to write my own rebuttal, but will do so in the coming weeks. However, I am ready and eager to present actual evidence – affidavits, along with correspondence between prominent human rights attorneys Paul Copeland and Clayton Ruby and Metro Toronto Police re. charging Bristow for actual crimes. Any media persons who are interested in actually knowing what really happened back then can contact me via my website’s Contact Me form.

I refuse to link to Jennifer Yang’s shoddy piece of “journalism” for the following reasons:

1) Ms. Yang didn’t even bother to contact me for an interview prior to going to press, even though her office’s IP address was recorded by Statcounter approx. a dozen times, scouring this blog for my Bristow pieces. And in spite of the fact she actually followed me on Twitter! Despite being considered an important witness on Bristow and Operation Governor and asked to testify in the House of Commons in 1995 about the illegal activities I witnessed Bristow commit, Toronto Star’s Yang didn’t deem my knowledge worth even a 5-minute interview.

2) While I am glad that she at least thought to contact Bill Dunphy, Yang neglected to fact-check with other seasoned journalists who investigated Bristow, such as Andrew Mitrovica. However much I disagree with some points of his Walrus piece, his knowledge of Bristow’s actions is worth taking another 5 minutes to contact – that is, if you are trying to write an unbiased, legitimate piece of journalism.

3) Yang made no attempt to interview any women – whether me as an eyewitness or the women who were terrorized by Bristow. Who knows, perhaps our gender disqualifies us from commenting on CSIS and political affairs. Again, I would have been glad to connect her to some of Bristow’s former victims or at least show her evidence of their assault and harassment, but she didn’t think I needed to be contacted.

4) Yang glossed over a very serious attempt by Grant Bristow sometime in 2010 to undermine then-Edmonton Jewish mayor Stephen Mendel’s electoral campaign by assuming a fake journalist persona and conducting an interview that resulted in Bristow being slapped with a libel charge. This, plus the Fifth Estate-recorded testimonies of many of the strippers who were around Grant Bristow during his stint as a failed strip-club comedian should go to revealing the character of a man who was paid, in total (before and after entering the Witness Protection Program) hundreds of thousands of dollars – and never led to a single arrest and conviction of a Canadian white supremacist.

5) There is ZERO proof of an attempted Heritage Front attack on Bernie Farber or the CJC – if this was more than fabrication on Bristow and his handler’s part, why did we not hear about this before CSIS went into damage control mode? What better way to neutralize outrage from the Jewish community but concoct a story about averting the assassination of one of its prominent spokesmen? If it were true, why wasn’t Wolfgang Droege or whoever discussed such an attempt ever charged with conspiracy to commit murder, or terrorist plotting, or whatever?

The answer is simple – because it didn’t happen. Or someone would have been charged and convicted, pure and simple. When I met Bernie Farber at his office back in 2014 and we discussed my book Race Traitor: The True Story of Canadian Intelligence’s Greatest Cover-Up, of which he was extremely complimentary of and displayed it on his bookshelf, he privately expressed to me his own doubts about that plot – along with referring to Bristow as a “schmuck”.

Grant Bristow’s sole purpose was to be an architect of the Heritage Front and build it to the point where crime would occur to justify the operation. Somewhere along the way, he turned into the rogue agent provocateur who compelled many dangerous neo-Nazis and even an underage girl like me to commit crimes – even going so far as to hand us lists of names, home and work addresses, and the telephone numbers of the people he wanted us to terrorize.

And when  he was finally questioned about Heritage Front crimes, including his own participation, CSIS provided him with a lawyer and coached him on how to avoid offering any self-incriminating answers when questioned by Metro Toronto police (see letter photo above) and essentially hinder any and all investigations.

For Toronto Star to quote Grant Bristow on the dangers of white supremacy is tantamount to allowing an unrepentant ISIS jihadist the platform to preach about the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. It’s contrived, ill-thought, fake and utterly reprehensible.

Without further ado, here is Martin Theriault’s letter to the Toronto Star in response to the piece published by Jennifer Yang in yesterday’s paper.

Date: 2017-04-10 16:20 GMT-04:00
Subject: About Bristow and your story of April,9, 2017-
To: jyang@thestar.ca, publiced@thestar.ca

My name is Martin Thériault. At the time of the Heritage Front and the Bristow affair, I was the coordinator of the Canadian Center on Racism and Prejudice (CCRP). I have been involved in the anti-racist movement in Canada and abroad since 1979. I was a very active element in confronting hate and bigotry in all parts of Canada. At the time, I was the one that got Elisse Hategan out of the Heritage Front and was a key member in organizing the prosecutions of Wolfgang Droege and his associates at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The chief prosecutor, Eddie Taylor, counsel of the Cdn Human Rights Commission, was able to get a conviction and sending these neo-nazis to jail and stop the operation of their hateline with the testimony of Elisse Hategan. The judge commended the excellent testimony of Ms. Hategan in his ruling of the case.

At these hearings, Grant Bristow was the chief organizer for the defense of the Heritage Front leadership, providing materials in the hope to discredit the testimony of Ms. Hategan. His work failed and the neo-nazis were sent to jail. Even at that time, neo-nazis from the Hammerskin movement came up from Buffalo, NY on the clear purpose of doing a job on Ms.Hategan, myself and the late Rodney Bobiwash, also from the CCRP and the Native Center of Toronto. This was a key moment and Bristow worked extensively to develop a defense strategy for the nazis! This is IT for such so-called great canadian!

Bristow was a member of a rogue unit of CSIS in Toronto. His handler,and his staff, did everything they could to support Bristow in his work. Al’s angels, as we referred to them, were always in attendance at the hearings. Ms.Hategan, myself and Eddie Taylor had to fight our ways to get police protection during these hearings. 

Bristow never sent anyone in jail. In your article, you mention that he was instrumental in the arrest of the donut shop gang(Barker and friends). Actually, this is also a fabrication. Weeks before, the OPP and Metro Police had signed affidavits from Ms. Hategan on weapons cache of some of these elements. When the info went up the chain of command, no actions were taken and a source confirmed to us that the top levels have received info NOT to support or do anything about the information contained in the affidavits!!!!

Bristow did nothing in respect to deportation of international white supremacists from Canada. In the Metzger’s case, even with an APB sent by Immigration Criminal investigation Unit to all entry points, the HF sent one of their boys to pick them up and got them into Canada. Bristow was the chief of security and intelligence of the Heritage Front. To say that he did not know the operation is ridiculous at best.

At the same time, CSIS made up a story that the Metzger’s planned to storm Queen’s Park or the House of Commons. The RCMP sent in a squad, a wrong one by the way, to arrest the Metzger’s after their speech at the Latvian Hall. I was with Mr. Bobiwash, a witness at the scene of the take down. For that made up story, the handler received a commendation from Ottawa!!!! In respect to Maguire, in Canada illegally and staying at Bristow’s apartment, he was arrested with Bristow with weapons and later deported. Maguire was, for anti-racist researchers on both side of the borders, an FBI informant on Aryan Nations and other organizations. As for Dennis Mahon, well, he was arrested by immigration at Pearson’s by immigration officials while Bristow was waiting at the arrival point. He was also put on questions by immigration officials but his handler showed up to get him out.

Bristow did the campaign for criminal harassment of anti-racists by members of the Heritage Front. Close to 100 people were the victims of that campaign, at home, at work and even at doctor’s appointment.

He trained, lead and organized the campaign. Some people lost their job, had to move out of Ontario, some victims of physical assaults. One social worker who had the greatness of adopting an afro-canadian child suffered dire consequences from that campaign. Her house was spray-painted, the tires of her car slashed. They also made an anonymous call to Children’s service to claim she was abusing her adopted child!!!

Only by the testimonies of the Police  chief of Toronto at the time and members of the city council, the claim was rejected based on the fact that it was baseless accusations and made by Heritage Front members. Her only crime- she was involved in forming the Riverdale Citizens coalition against racism, a group of local residents who just didn’t want to have neo-nazis in their area and provide education on racism and bigotry.

Bristow made up stories in his interview. This is the way he works all his life. When exposed, he got a well-paid pensions, a new house, a new car, a new identity and even some free connections to his family and free trips paid by the money of canadian taxpayers. He now says to be in the marketing business! It is interesting that he finds the SIRC report to be an honest recollection of what he did! In fact, SIRC made a report without any involvements or testimonies from the victims or anti-racists. I remember once a member of the Solicitor-general’s office asking what would they need to get out of that mess. I told him there was no exit from the truth and the whitewash report of SIRC would only deepens the cover-up of the rogue unit that Bristow was part of. 

Finally, I can only hope that you read the book of Elisse Hategan Race Traitor-The true story of Canadian Intelligence’s greatest cover-up. You will not find all the story but important parts of it in regards to Bristow’s real activities. Ms. Hategan went into hiding with the support of community members and anti-racists. She never got anything from the State, while Bristow is day-dreaming in the Foothills for his agent-provocateur work paid by Canadian taxpayers. One word, watch the tapes of Bristow’s speeches at neo-nazi rallies and he was shouting White Power! and as for the white powder, this is the one he is directing to medias in order to manipulate canadians.

I am still working against hate and bigotry. If you want , you can contact me at this e-mail address.

Martin Thériault
Research group on the far-right and its allies

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/Archives/Committee/351/sena/evidence/19_95-06-13/sena19_blk-e.html

 

Operation Governor: The True Story of Canadian Intelligence’s Greatest Cover-Up

“We’ll tear her to shreds.”

CSIS Toronto Region Investigator speaking of eighteen-year old Elisse Hategan, whose affidavits implicated CSIS agent Grant Bristow in criminal activity. CBC’s The Fifth Estate, October 1994

My name is Elisa Hategan and I’m a Canadian writer and freelance journalist. Today I’ve decided that I can no longer be silent about the upcoming Canadian Federal election and the vital importance of choosing a leader who will repeal Bill C-51, which has now become law and gives Canada’s spy agency CSIS unparalleled powers to spy on its citizens.

If you scroll down to the end of this page, you will be able to download a free excerpt of some of the most explosive parts of my 2014 memoir Race Traitor: The True Story of Canadian Intelligence’s Greatest Cover-Up.

When I was sixteen years old, I was recruited by a Canadian domestic terrorist group calling itself the Heritage Front – an extremist right-wing, white supremacist group with strong ties to Neo-Nazi Holocaust revisionists, the American Ku Klux Klan and even Muammar Khadafi. They became the family I never had. Two years later, after I witnessed the targeting of innocent people for harassment and violence, I realized I had to find a way to shut them down.

At first, I couldn’t see a way out. After I found support from a few courageous anti-racist activists, I spied on the Heritage Front for four months. In March of 1994 I took the stand and testified against a handful of group leaders in a contempt of court case that led to convictions and jail sentences. Within months, it was revealed that one of the three founders of the group was a paid agent of CSIS, Canada’s intelligence service. To put it bluntly, the Heritage Front had been created and partially-funded with the help of Canada’s own Security and Intelligence Service.

Despite the fact that I possessed a significant amount of information related to criminal activity within the Heritage Front, authorities showed no interest in taking any kind of action against the group. After repeated appeals to the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) were ignored, I was officially denied admission into the Witness Protection Program.

All my affidavits (detailing names and addresses of Heritage Front members who owned various weaponry and explosives, as well as detailed accounts of verifiable stalking, threats and harassment of community activists) were dismissed by police without as much as a single attempt to verify their authenticity.

I would later find out from an insider (as broadcast in a 1994 episode of CBC’s The Fifth Estate that featured evidence obtained from anonymous, highly-placed police and intelligence sources) that a CSIS mandate had circulated advising police forces to deny me protection and ignore my information, even at the risk of Canadian taxpayers and the threat to my own life. Over a period of five years, CSIS had sunk a huge amount of money into Operation Governor, which involved the creation of a neo-Nazi organization in Canada and escalating its levels of violence and armament. They couldn’t risk their house of cards to fall apart on the testimony of a teenage girl.

When details of CSIS’ Operation Governor did come out in the press, after an exposé authored by Toronto Sun reporter Bill Dunphy in August 1994, the operation was terminated. The agent who had co-created the Heritage Front, Grant Bristow, was quickly whisked away into Witness Protection, given a payoff totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars, two new cars and a four-bedroom, three-car garage home in another Canadian province.

No testimony or information from Grant Bristow EVER resulted in any arrests and convictions.

In the spring of 2015, 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 under the pretext of “terrorism”.

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. However, it has now become LAW.

THIS IS WHY I HAVE DECIDED TO GIVE AWAY AN EXCERPT OF MY BOOK Race Traitor: The True Story of Canadian Intelligence’s Greatest Cover-Up – RACE-TRAITOR Excerpt by ELISA HATEGAN 

This excerpt includes Chapters 16 and 19 of my memoir, which reveal information I also included in my 1993 sworn affidavits. They reveal disturbing information about the It Campaign – Grant Bristow’s involvement in encouraging criminal behaviour and activity in dangerous white supremacists and neo-Nazi skinheads. After you read this, you might get a better idea of why CSIS’s new mandate includes the provision that civilians are not to be raped or murdered.

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 has passed 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 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.”

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.

At the end of this PDF sample you will find a brief media library with photos, links to newspaper articles, blog links and videos that cover the events described in Race Traitor. This is only a starting point, and consists of articles myself and other activists managed to collect during that time. All these articles are still in the public domain and easily accessible via archival libraries and microfiches.

I also included direct links to sites where you can purchase the book.

I am grateful to all who buy a copy or offer a donation for this free PDF. Without the support of wonderful people and community activists who believed in me, I would never have made it through my teenage years – I am deeply thankful for your help.

Elisa

RACE-TRAITOR Excerpt by ELISA HATEGAN

Racists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists are the REAL threat

Newsflash: in light of the most recent act of domestic terrorism in Wisconsin, I have to say this: extremist white supremacists will kill, and kill again. Anybody who thinks they are, like Breivik in Norway, only “crazed lone gunmen” have no clue as to the weaponry and training white supremacist groups have accumulated. They are in the army. They are your neighbours. And ignoring these facts won’t make the inevitable go away.

Domestic terrorists ARE a real threat. In many ways, one much more significant than the notion of a foreign-born Muslim extremist. Trust me, I know.

They don’t have to cross borders, or smuggle weapons. They’re already here, and they already have them. They’ve already received military training, and are just waiting for the right time to strike.

As many of you probably know, I’m a subject matter expert on racism and white supremacy. As a teenager I had a very close insider look at one of the most prominent and violent white supremacist, neo-Nazi organizations in North America, the Heritage Front. I wrote a memoir about being recruited at age 16 in one such group, and then detailed my journey out (by way of spying against, then testifying in open court).  My memoir was rejected multiple times before gaining the attention of Penguin Canada. Ultimately I turned my memoir into a fictionalized political thriller which again I tried to sell to no avail.

Publishers were leery. We don’t have white supremacists anymore, they said. It’s not a subject that will appeal to people. It’s not Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s not Twilight. It deals with ugliness and distasteful things, and therefore we cannot accept it.

So I published it myself. It is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive depiction of the recruitment process white supremacists use to enlist youngsters and naive individuals into their ranks. It depicts the mentality of racists and neo-Nazis, and how important music and comradeship is to brainwashing someone into hating to the point of murder.

SO – if you’re reading this and want to know how someone like Wade Michael Page destroyed lives before he went on his murderous rampage, take a look at my book. If you can’t afford it, let me know and I’ll put you on a list for a free copy. It’s very important to me to get the word out that this incident, unfortunately, will happen again. And knowledge is the first step in learning how to combat hate.