They set up hikes, canoe trips, and potlucks.

They're also recruiting for fascist fight clubs.

How much do we know about these so-called active clubs?

How many are there in Ontario, and are they growing?

I asked Eric Sito, a reporter for CBC Visual Investigations, who worked for months to track the groups and identify their locations, and Steven Ray, senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focused on combating hate, extremism, and authoritarianism.

Eric, Steven, really appreciate you guys joining us on the line.

Uh, Eric, I'm going to come to you first.

You're part of a team that investigated white nationalist active clubs in Canada.

Before we get into that investigation, I really want to know what led you uh to this story in the first place.

>> Yeah, there were a number of reasons why we started looking into this.

Um, primarily it was one was that, you know, one of our producers actually last year, he had come across uh some of these uh videos that were put out by some of these active clubs and he noticed when he was trying to find where they were training that um there were soccermies training there.

there were uh you know kids playing at these same locations uh where where essentially where these these active clubs were training and making their videos.

So we said this is this is in the public interest like we need to do something about this like they're they're training next to you. You may not even know it.

>> U so that was one of the big things.

But one of the other big things too is that you know when we started digging into a little bit more you realize how much of an overlap there is with night white nationalism with some of the violent more violent extremist aspects of this and and so it kind of became more uh more evident to us that we needed to do something.

But then what really precipitated all of this was actually all those big mass deportation rallies that happened um last year or earlier this year.

There was uh you know just imagine if you you might have seen the videos but dozens of men black you know outfits masks marching around in unison uh calling for mass deportations and we thought to ourselves okay they're really becoming these groups are becoming much more bold uh seemingly freer to do these things and so we said we got to move on this so we started moving on it

and we thought to ourselves okay they're really becoming these groups are becoming much more bold uh seemingly freer to do these things and so we said we got to move on this so we started moving on it

>> Stephen uh Eric painted that picture uh quite lovely in terms of what we have been seeing it seems like the conversation around white nationalism uh is more prevalent now than ever.

it seems like the conversation around white nationalism uh is more prevalent now than ever.

This is something that you have been looking at for quite a while. Is that true?

>> That's right.

We're very much seeing a growing white nationalist sentiment in Canada that has really accelerated uh within the past five, six years.

And what's really concerning about this as well is not just that the sentiment itself is rising, but the threat is becoming more multifaceted and challenging.

So for example, a lot of these white supremacist ideas that we're seeing now, you know, five, six, seven years ago were very much confined to the fringes of society.

What we've really seen as of late is what we at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue call the mainstreaming of some of these extremist narratives.

you know, what was once a fringe idea, some of these anti-migrant beliefs that that we see circulate now and now again, they're being picked up in mainstream communities and propagated.

And that's part of the concern for us is when we see some of these ideas move from the fringes to the mainstream, uh it becomes more challenging to contain and more uh difficult to mitigate that threat.

>> I want to talk about stats scan's uh 2024 report, Stephen.

It revealed that the number of uh police reported hate crimes increased for six years in a row uh more than doubling since 2018.

Does that actually match what you're seeing sort of on the grounds with the information that you're analyzing?

>> It 100% lines up unfortunately.

Uh we monitor very closely uh some of the online communities amongst domestic extremists in Canada and some of the narratives and conversations they engage in.

We've seen an alarming rise in hate speech directed towards different populations in Canada which often correlate to uh pretty dramatic uh increases in offline hate crimes.

Um, so just to give you an example, we did some research on uh the targeting of South Asian communities uh in Canada and we found that between 2023 to 2024 uh online hate speech on X uh demonizing Canadian South Asians uh increased by 1,350%.

That is an alarming rise and it also correlates with a massive spike in hate crimes against that community.

So there's very much an interplay between some of the online dynamics we see as well as some of the offline dynamics.

You know, the these two uh these two environments are not mutually exclusive.

They feed off of one another and and it's a very concerning trend here in Canada.

>> We'll pick up a little bit on the uh sort of online culture, but I want to go back to the active clubs.

Um Eric, if someone is walking through the park, their local park, they may not suspect anything.

They may be seeing a couple of people having a workout or something.

Can you help explain what are active clubs?

Where can they be found?

>> Well, you know, active clubs uh can be found across the country now actually.

Uh and uh and you know, some of the stats out there show that there are uh nearly 200 now around the world.

Uh but when we're talking about looking at, you know, what an active club is, it's, you know, I'm going based on what they're going to be saying on their on their social media, which they're quite prolific uh with.

So what they normally say is we're here to recruit. We're here to bring people together to, you know, of like-minded people of of European descent.

Um and when actually you know what experts have told us is that you peel back that layer that while that is seemingly true the training the recruiting the coming together of creating community there's actually this kind of insidious layer of we're actually preparing for violence we're actually you know on standby in case something happens in case you know civilization falls right so society collapses so that's that's the kind of the subtext that's got that's below the surface which they're not, you know, you don't want to be too overt about, or at least they're not.

So that's that's the kind of the subtext that's got that's below the surface which they're not, you know, you don't want to be too overt about, or at least they're not.

>> But when it comes to where they are, um, this is what was the part, and I mentioned this a bit earlier, but this is what the part that was important to us is that there's this public aspect to this that went from, you know, uh, online kind of, you know, propaganda, memes, uh, messaging, and really going and taking that further and going to real world training.

that went from, you know, uh, online kind of, you know, propaganda, memes, uh, messaging, and really going and taking that further and going to real world training.

So, you know, we'll see them in parks.

Uh, most prominently for part of our investigation, we saw them training in like Hamilton's biggest park, right next to a children's garden, you know?

Um, and right next to a baseball diamond where where kids play, right?

Like they're right there next to you sometimes.

And most people probably didn't even notice, maybe they did notice and they just ignored it, but they're training in parks.

Um, and what we've also found is that there's there's this overlap with mixed martial arts or Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Uh, and it's not just, you know, here in the US there were some reporting that showed that they had been infiltrating Brazilian jiu-jitsu gyms in I think Tennessee, one of the active clubs there.

They got booted there. And what we found here is that they were also in a number of southern on southern Ontario gyms. uh uh a BJGA gyms here, one in Niagara, one in Hamilton, and then also even just like a regular gym with weights and all that.

So, they're kind of uh everywhere.

And they and then, you know, some of the some of the other stuff they do is they actually go out and they'll do hikes and they'll show them going hiking around different parts of Ontario.

Uh but but primarily, you know, and what we've actually noticed since our reporting is that there hasn't been as much of these types of kind of outdoor things.

And maybe it's just part of the reporting.

We don't know.

But for for a time for sure, they were definitely uh these groups were were actively in parks and gyms and showing that openly.

>> Well, Eric, you mentioned the the visible presence, but in your investigations uh you went and talked to some of the employees of these gyms uh to see if they knew what what did they have to say?

So we so we identified three gyms uh in our story and we just remember we only focused kind of on two two groups right it was uh nationalist 13 one of the the bigger ones out of Hamilton and then a growing one which kind of it's it's almost an active club and everything except the name of second sons um founded by a fellow named Jeremy McKenzie who's a founder of a militia-like organization according to law enforcement called Diaglon so so there's two kind of main things we focus

it was uh nationalist 13 one of the the bigger ones out of Hamilton and then a growing one which kind of it's it's almost an active club and everything except the name of second sons um founded by a fellow named Jeremy McKenzie who's a founder of a militia-like organization according to law enforcement called Diaglon so so there's two kind of main things we focus

so so there's two kind of main things we focus

Now, we we could have done a national thing, but we want to kind of keep it really hyperfocused to show kind of the microcosm of it.

But when we went and spoke to these owners that we identified where they were training, all of them said, you know, they did not know this was happening.

Uh, in one case, they said that they told us after the fact that if they had known, they wouldn't have let them come here, call them scumbags.

Um, but then they also got a lot of flack online after.

Uh, which is interesting in itself, right?

Like so there's that.

So it's interesting because a lot of them claim that they they didn't know and we have to take them for their word at this point.

But what's interesting is also they're getting a lot of vitriol from the community.

So it's it's kind of interesting, right?

Like they're trying to they are disassociating with but then when they do they get this this blowback which is kind of interesting.

>> Interesting.

Stephen, active clubs relatively new in terms of uh the monitoring that you're doing or has this been something that has been around?

>> So, the active clubs have actually been around for a number of years.

Uh we really saw them start to emerge in Canada sometime in 2021,

but Eric uh touched on a few things there that I think are really important to highlight.

Uh you know, they're coming out of the woodwork.

Uh we we've seen this in the past uh year in particular where they've held rallies in places like Hamilton uh Toronto, Niagara, all over the province and that is something that you know 2 3 years ago we didn't see them do as much.

and that is something that you know 2 3 years ago we didn't see them do as much.

You know they really kept to themselves.

You know they would discuss these extremist ideas sort of privately and maybe pump out some online propaganda but we didn't really see this degree of street mobilization that we're seeing now.

And I think they're sensing a more safe operating environment.

Um that's also concerning as well because as Eric touched on, you know, there are violent extremists in the ranks of these organizations.

Uh, in fact, uh, it came out just a couple weeks ago that a Niagara based man named Matthew Althorp, uh, was not only the leader of a southern Ontario-based active act active club, um, but he was in fact, uh, in a leadership role of a couple terrorist organizations, one of which was called Adamoffin Division, uh, which is a late listed terrorist entity in Canada, another of which is called Terror Collective.

And it came out in court actually that Althorp had produced uh several manifestos for the teroggram collective uh which have been cited as inspiration by multiple attackers uh across the world uh in places in North America, South America, Europe, Asia.

Uh so this was an individual who was leading an active club here in Ontario.

Uh that's very concerning now when you're starting to see these individuals come out of the woodwork, you know, mobilizing in the streets and presenting themselves with a, you know, perhaps a friendlier face than they actually have behind the scenes.

Uh that is a huge concern.

>> Stephen, for the average person, these ideologies uh can seem far removed.

And I I'm hoping you can help uh shed some light on sort of the the inside thinking of of some of these people.

Where are they where are they coming from?

This is a complicated question and really speaks to a few trends that are playing out uh not just within Canada but I think globally.

Uh I'm going to touch on a few uh factors that really push people into extremism.

Some of which are not necessarily new but one of which I think is relatively new for our generation.

Uh but there is this sense right now and this growing frustration that you know things aren't as good as they used to be.

you know, there's a lot of economic anxiety.

Uh people are finding it more difficult to afford groceries.

You know, in Canada, there is a housing crisis.

Uh things like that.

There's also been a lot of social progress, which has been very good.

You know, we're seeing different communities represented in leadership and things like politics, business, media.

Uh more diverse people are are coming into power.

That's great, but often results in some rockiness, right?

traditional uh leaders in society or or traditional groups of people who thought that they had the power are now sensing that they're losing their power.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but those things do sometimes lead people to find scapegoats to blame as to why they are experiencing this decline in society.

Now, none of those things are new.

That's that's part of history.

You know, history waxes and waines.

Uh the people in power uh change over time.

What I think is a bit new about this generation is the digital environment that we're operating in.

Uh so social media has really changed the game and I think accelerated the pace at which people adopt these extremist views.

You know, when you're on a social media platform, you are in very much a curated information environment where often some of the most inflammatory and divisive rhetoric is amplified to you because that is the type of material that gains the most engagement on social media and which therefore some of the social media algorithms try to promote.

So, you're already exposed just by extension of that to more extremist thinking and ideas.

There's also the sort of echochamber dynamic of social media where you know it's sort of natural human nature to start following people who share your views and you know who confirm your own biases and that leads to kind of a breakdown in the discussion and the exposure to a diversity of of opinions uh which could then lead people down an extremist rabbit hole.

and that leads to kind of a breakdown in the discussion and the exposure to a diversity of of opinions uh which could then lead people down an extremist rabbit hole.

A a quick followup for you, Stephen, on that.

You know, you talk about sort of the the cost of living, the crisis that we're in.

That seems to be sort of a a blanket uh sort of crisis when you look at Canada.

So, help me understand a little bit sort of the the profile of this person.

Are they looking for identity um over, you know, sort of the economic turmoil that seems to be sort of something that I think a lot of people can relate to.

that seems to be sort of something that I think a lot of people can relate to.

Yeah, this is a complicated question, but there's been quite a bit of research done on the kind of profiles uh that gravitate towards extremism and the reality is it's quite complex.

and the reality is it's quite complex.

So, you're correct when you mention identity.

Uh we do see identity as a major factor that drives people into an extremist group.

You know, to some extent it is a natural instinct to want to build bonds with people who you look like and who who may think like you.

That could be on religious grounds, it could be on racial grounds, uh, and so on and so forth.

The problem though becomes when you're not only identifying with a certain identity group, but you see people outside of that identity group, uh, posing a threat to your survival. And that's where that verges into extremism.

In terms of the profiles though of people who gravitate to these groups, it's not always just based on identity.

You know, often people gravitate to these groups because they have an ideological or political agenda they want to promote, but sometimes it could be because of personal factors.

You know, you might have grown up uh being friends with people who are part of extremist groups and you might not necessarily believe in the ideology, but it just becomes a matter of, you know, having or maintaining your social network to be entrenched in these groups.

Increasingly as well, I'll just uh say one last thing on this.

There is a concerning trend in Canada right now and globally uh that is particularly acute amongst youth and even children who are gravitating towards very extreme groups that uh promote violence and pro uh promote other horrific harms who are doing this for no uh ideological purpose at all.

Uh they are simply trying to gain notoriety online and uh engage in activities that are producing a lot of shock value um to really cement themselves an online legacy.

And that's something that we're seeing uh really proliferate in the past two three years that I think is concerning.

So it is a a conglomeration of factors that really lead people to these groups.

Eric, I want to come back to the investigation.

We talked about sort of the uh the influence of the online sort of culture and sort of being an echo chamber, but also that the the internet was a tool for you guys to track down members of these groups.

help me understand how you were able to figure out uh who was who and try to connect the dots.

>> Yeah, there was a lot of uh soouththing involved.

Um you know, I guess we just have to acknowledge too that there's been reporting on this in the past um that that had, you know, helped propel some of this as well.

But so we did rely on some of that.

We got some a little bit of help from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

Um but what but what we did actually is we were able to use a number of things like and part of what with kind of open source investigations is we take these tools and we we tried to basically forensically analyze you know piece by piece little clues how to how to uh how to identify people or places

but for in terms of like IDing people for like besides the gyms because there are little markers in the gyms that we could match with markers in the southern Ontario area with regards to the people we actually did some you know classic kind kind of journalistic work as well, kind of boots on the ground surveillance work that got us very clear pictures of some of these people which we can cross reference with some of the past photos that might have been posted up online.

And so therefore we could match them with you know having um for example one of the people we put we ided in our story uh and we felt it was very important to ID these people just because we wanted to show that they had connections to either extremist groups or violent extremist groups and that that's why it was not just kind of rhetoric.

and we felt it was very important to ID these people just because we wanted to show that they had connections to either extremist groups or violent extremist groups and that that's why it was not just kind of rhetoric.

It was like hey look there there's some real people behind this.

But one of the people we IDed in our story was a fellow named Brandon Le Point.

He uh has been seen wearing, you know, in previous years Proud Boys uh t-shirts uh you know uh with other Proud Boys and as soon as that was deemed an terrorist organization or extremist organization um they disbanded and look where he ended up.

and as soon as that was deemed an terrorist organization or extremist organization um they disbanded and look where he ended up.

He he ended up at one of the biggest active clubs uh Nationalist 13.

And we were able to do that because we could with the with the surveillance we did, we saw we saw uh tattoos, we saw uh markers on his face, the same he would happen to wear the same clothing in the photos that uh we got of him in other videos.

So, you know, that was one of the ways we were able to do it.

We have a number of also another a number of digital digital tools that we have that uh are becoming much more readily available to the public.

But, you know, for example, uh, everyone's probably been hacked or or or had their data breached in some sort of big big hack in in recent years.

And there are there are companies out there now that just aggregate all that information because it's publicly available. It hasn't been illegally obtained.

And um, you'd be you'd be surprised to find how many people are in a leak for Giant Tiger or, you know, more notoriously Ashley Madison, right?

uh you know so there there's all these tools that we use not just digitally but also like there's that on the ground aspect that we still rely on to kind of kind of marry those things together and and really kind of verify and confirm for us

>> um you mentioned earlier as well you know sort of the importance of making sure you connect the dots with these are not just average citizens there is a a sort of a a track record there you mentioned Diagalon you mentioned second sons in your reporting um can you describe their connections and why the audience may be familiar uh with their names because uh yeah they've they've been around if we talk about uh the freedom convoy as well those names have floated around during that as well

you mentioned Diagalon you mentioned second sons in your reporting um can you describe their connections and why the audience may be familiar uh with their names because uh yeah they've they've been around if we talk about uh the freedom convoy as well those names have floated around during that as well

can you describe their connections and why the audience may be familiar uh with their names because uh yeah they've they've been around if we talk about uh the freedom convoy as well those names have floated around during that as well

>> absolutely and I think they came to prominence during that you know Daglon has according to the CES report that was released they're considered a militia-like organization um and law enforcement are fully aware of them and it was led and founded by a fellow and I said earlier Jeremy Jeremy McKenzie um

you know Daglon has according to the CES report that was released they're considered a militia-like organization um and law enforcement are fully aware of them and it was led and founded by a fellow and I said earlier Jeremy Jeremy McKenzie um

And in the last few months, what's happened actually with with this group is they've he they founded another group or Jeremy McKenzie did called Second Sons.

And what you'll see with this is it's it's very similar to an active club in everything but name.

They train, they get together, they they group with other people, they go across the country, but instead of just being kind of a regional, let's say like nationalist 13 out of Hamilton, the second sons has uh has chapters across the country and from from appearance from from at least from the surface, it seems like they're growing and and and uh you know, they're they're having all these rallies.

and from from appearance from from at least from the surface, it seems like they're growing and and and uh you know, they're they're having all these rallies.

you know, we're about to put out a piece in the next little while showing how that they were training basically in uh cultural centers around the southern Ontario and we geoloccated that um and identified it.

They had this this I guess a tournament there.

Um and again once again these community centers the one we at least we spoke to or or reached out to had no idea they were trained there.

Um but they're but they are active and they're active across the country.

Stephen, uh, I want to come back to social media.

On social media, political polarization seems rampant.

What are some of the factors causing this discourse online?

>> Yeah.

Uh, political polarization is absolutely rampant.

Um, we in our research, we track uh extremist accounts from across the country, really across the ideological spectrum, and we use large language models to track some of the primary narratives that these uh individuals espouse online.

And we find time and time again that uh targeted hate against uh politicians in Canada come up as some of the most uh frequently discussed uh topics amongst these extremists.

Not only that, but they talk heavily about being extremely disillusioned with the political state of affairs in Canada.

And basically, they've gravitated towards this thought that, you know, elections, party politics, platforms, voting, all of these things are essentially frivolous and are not going to lead them uh to the kind of solution and the kind of ideal vision of society that they're really hoping to achieve.

Um, I think the reasons why this is happening are quite complex.

Again, I'll bring up the the idea of social media itself.

Uh you're exposed to a lot of noxious views simply by nature of those algorithms that are are literally putting in your face some of this divisive rhetoric because it tends to engage uh people a little bit more more so than messages that for example offer sort of nuanced opinions and really indepth explanations as to what's going on.

I think that dynamic as well is sort of coinciding with a decline in trust of establishment institutions in Canada.

So it's not just the government for example that people are losing faith in it.

It's it's all sorts of uh segments of society.

It could be our education system.

It could be our media uh law enforcement and courts.

Right?

people feel that these establishment institutions are just not fit or not managing societ societal problems as effectively as perhaps they were in the past.

And so uh that's really leading to a a huge spike in polit political polarization and a huge decline in trust uh in terms of you know our politicians and our government being able to you know pave the way forward and and really manage these problems effectively.

>> Stephen, last question to you very quickly.

Should members of the public be worried?

>> You know, it's important not to uh hit the panic button prematurely.

Um I I think Canadians by and large are welcoming people.

We have a really vibrant multicultural society.

You know, diversity is respected.

Um you know, we we compare ourselves to a lot of European countries and, you know, our neighbors down south.

I actually think Canada is is still relatively doing quite well.

Uh I would say however that we need to be very diligent about monitoring this rise in hate, polarization and extremism.

We can't just simply rest on our laurels because, you know, we think our society is doing relatively well that therefore we we shouldn't be taking this problem seriously.

We we do have to take it really seriously because things can always get worse.

Just because we're not seeing widespread violence on the streets doesn't mean we can't get there.

Um we really need to adopt a proactive posture in uh trying to clamp down on some of this extremism we're seeing in society before it spirals out of hand.

>> We're going to leave it there, gentlemen.

Stephen, really appreciate it.

Eric, thank you so much.

Really great investigation there.

Uh thank you so much for joining us on the program.

>> Thank you.

Thanks for having us.