TORONTO - A rally in support of the “Halifax Five” and free speech was held Saturday afternoon at the north end of Queen’s Park.
A crowd of about 60 people gathered for the event, including representatives of the Proud Boys, Free Bird Media and Students in Support of Free Speech.
The “Halifax Five” are members of the Canadian Armed Forces, who last week, interrupted a gathering of Indigenous people protesting at the Edward Cornwallis statue in Halifax. (To the Mi’kmaq, Cornwallis is a war criminal for his attempts at eradicating their ancestors.)
The off-duty military members identified themselves as Proud Boys, a relatively new group that believes in cultural superiority and free speech. Their Proud Boys Canada Facebook page includes the information that the Proud Boys are, “Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world,” and lists these tenets: “glorify the entrepreneur, venerate the housewife,” cherishing free-speech. And they love their guns, too.
Proud Boys was formed by Canadian right-wing provocateur Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice media. In the United States, same the movement is pro-Trump. Some of their membership requirements seem to have been formed in a tongue-in-cheek fashion.
At the rally Saturday, speakers explained that the Proud Boys are being wrongly painted by the media as being far-right, white supremacists. It was emphasized that the organization is not racist.
It must have been a mistake then, that local white supremacist Paul Fromm was present to show support for the Halifax Five. (more...)
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