Confidential Report by Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress on Ontario school-teacher Paul Fromm See Mr Farber's reference to this in his Witness Statement of January 8, 1999. | |||||||||||||
These are pages 7 to 18 inclusive of a fax sent from 416 635 1408 on 10-DEC-1998 15:52. Bold face and other embellishments are in the original. Spelling errors are left uncorrected. | |||||||||||||
2.2 Paul Fromm by Manuel Pruschi and Bernie M Farber Paul Fromm is a former school board trustee and has been a public school teacher for nearly two decades. But his career as a racist activist stretches back to his own student days at the University of Toronto. There, in the late 1960's he was one of the founders, with Donald Andrews and Leigh Smith, of the Edmund Burke Society. Although nominally conservative and anti-communist, the Edmund Burke Society quickly degenerated into something much more sinister. The group was involved in several violent confrontations with radical left and anti-war groups in Toronto during those turbulent years. But in the early 70's the group forged links with American Nazi and Ku Klux Klan groups and transformed itself into the more extreme Western Guard. Although he resigned from the Guard shortly after the group - and his leadership role in it - became public, belonged long enough to be the opening speaker at a May, 1972 banquet to which the "Reverend" Robert Miles gave the keynote address. Miles was a former Klan leader who'd become a leading ideologist in the racist Christian Identity movement) a viciously anti-black, antisemitic "religion". Soon after his Canadian appearance, Miles spent close to 6 years in jail for his involvement in the bombing often school buses in Pontiac, Michigan and the tarring and feathering of an area school principal. | |||||||||||||
17 Shortly after accounts of that meeting were reported in the Toronto Sun[12] Fromm and several others resigned, effectively leaving the Guard under the control of Andrews. The group lasted a few more years before it disintegrated under pressure from local law enforcement officials. Andrews later served two jail terms, one for conspiracy to create mischief and possession of explosives, and one for wilfully promoting hatred against non-whites. Don Andrews remains the nominal leader of the virtually defunct Nationalist Party of Canada. Today, the NP seems to rouse itself for but one brief burst of annual political activity - the production and mail-out of letters and a poster urging the adoption of a so-called "European Heritage Week". Since his EBS days, Fromm has consistently striven to portray himself as nothing more extreme than a simple conservative. But his views, his actions and his associations have continuously betrayed him. Fromm has borne a long standing animus against minorities and immigrants who do not fit into his profile of what Canada should look like. In one of his publications, "Canadian Population and Immigration Quarterly" the item headings tell the story:
12: Toronto Sun article, May 1, 1972 | |||||||||||||
Fromm's views on minorities and immigration, as early as 1981, disqualified him from mainstream political activity when he was fired as treasurer of the Federal Progressive Conservative party's Metro wing. Early on, Fromm latched on to the freedom of speech issue, defending the rights of hate-mongers, such as Ernst Zundel James Keegstra, Malcolm Ross, Wolfgang Droege and others without ever repudiating or distancing himself from their views, chosing [sic] instead to portray them as martyrs and victims of witch-hunts. On September 26, 1991, Fromm donned his "defender of free speech" cloak once more to defend the white racist Heritage Front at a meeting of the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community, Race and Ethnic Relations. During the meeting Fromm called out "scalp them"[14] apparently directing his remarks at the anti-racism coordinator for the Native Canadian Centre, who was making a presentation on the activities of the Heritage Front. Paul Fromm and his two primary propaganda vehicles, CAFE and C-FAR, have often interacted with Ron Gostick's Canadian League of Rights, perhaps Canada's most durable antisemitic and racist organization. Fromm has also been a member of
13: Canadian Population and Immigration Quarterly Summer 1988 - Aug, 1989 | |||||||||||||
the World Anti-communist League. In a 1986 book, Inside the League, in a list of what is mostly a rogues gallery of extremists is found "Paul Fromm (Canada): Neo-Nazi and historical revisionist."[15] The identification of Fromm as a revisionist squares with his sponsorship of lectures in Canada by Holocaust denier David living and his introduction of a number of Irving's speeches. Definitive links between Fromm and Wolfgang Droege and the Heritage Front have also been uncovered. The December 9, 1990 "Martyr's Day Rally" was a kind of "coming out" for Paul Fromm. Fromm, as a video tape attests, spoke at the event which was held at the Latvian Hall. The tape shows an audience replete with racist skinheads and other extremists of various stripes. Periodically right hands cut through the air with the Nazi salute and the hall reverberated with the shouts of "Zeig [sic] heil", "white power", "hail The Order" and "nigger, nigger, nigger, out out out."[16] Fromm addressed the gathering from a podium bearing the Heritage Front insignia and its motto "Our Race is our Nation". Behind him and to the sides, the stage was ornamented with huge banners including the Nazi swastika flag of Hitler's Third Reich, the emblem of the violently racist (and now virtually defunct) Church of the Creator, and some other flags appropriated by various racist groups such as the flag of the Confederacy (Klu Klux Klan) [sic] and the Celtic cross (often worn by racist
15: Inside the League Scott Anderson, Jon Lee Anderson, McLellan Stewart, 1986 | |||||||||||||
skinheads as a shoulder patch or tattoo.) At the rally, Fromm reminisced about the Latvian Hall bringing back memories of the good old Edmund Burke Society days. The hall, for a quarter of a century in fact, has given meeting space to rabid racists. Even up to late 1993 and 1994 the Latvian Hall was a preferred site of groups like the Heritage Front amongst others. In 1992, it was a venue for a secretive Hitler birthday bash attended by more than 100 racists. Fromm's "Martyr's Day" speech provided some specifically Canadian content. It paid tribute to the late John Ross Taylor, whom Fromm praised for "60 years of dedication to his beliefs" and described as a "Canadian hero".[17] Taylor, whose Nazi career in Canada dates from the 1920's, had been jailed twice for contempt of court for his refusal to terminate racist telephone messages attacking minorities. "We ate all on the same side"[18] Fromm told his listeners adding: "We are up against ....an army of occupation, where we the majority have no rights and the only way that we are going to regain our country is through unity, unity, unity".[19] Fromm of course was not speaking of Canadian unity, but of unifying the radical racist right.
17: From unauthorized video of Martyrs Day Rally, December 8, 1990 | |||||||||||||
Tellingly, Fromm continually disavowed any association with the "Martyr's Day Rally". He outrightly denied giving any speech at the rally until challenged by a Toronto Sun reporter who confronted him with a copy of the video showing Fromm addressing the rally.[20] Although Fromm later claimed to have been disturbed by what he saw at the Heritage Front's Martyr's Day rally, his involvement was no aberration. Less than one year later, on September 5th 1991 Fromm was the keynote speaker at the Heritage Front's so-called "Open Forum on Canada's Immigration Policy", its first "public" meeting. A television report of the meeting showed that among those cheering him in the audience were a number of racist skinheads. During the 80's Fromm appears to have attempted to recruit young skinheads with a white supremacist bent, with some newspapers reporting skinheads provided security for speakers involved with Fromm in his speaking tours across Ontario and the rest of Canada. And in March 1990, Fromm spoke at a gathering in Guelph, Ontario, organized by an upcoming young neo-Nazi skinhead star, George Burdi. Under the false name George Norriss, Burdi was trying to start up a Guelph University chapter of Fromm's C-FAR and had rented a roam at the Albion Hotel for an introductory speech by Fromm. When Burdi's rally was publicly reported a series of student protests were
20: Toronto Sun article Teacher Taped at Hate Rally, by Bill Dunphy April 12, 1992 | |||||||||||||
organized. In fact, a students' group purchased almost all the tickets and during Fromm's speech, turned their back and spoke loudly to each other as a piece of "Street Theatre" denouncing Fromm and Burdi. Later both Fromm and Burdi required a police escort to leave the Hotel. But of late Fromm's audiences seem to have shrunk to a core of mainly older men and women. As a result of his activities in the early 1990's, complaints were made to the Peel Board of Education (his employer) and to the Ontario Ministry of Education regarding Mr. Fromm's suitability to be a public highschool teacher. Following interventions by a range of groups including Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region, the Native Canadian Centre, the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, B'nai Brith Canada amongst others, the Ontario Minister of Education called an inquiry appointing J.G. Cowan, a lawyer with Weir and Folds to adjudicate. In a wide ranging report Mr. Cowan noted of particular interest that Mr. Fromm's publications from CAFE and another of his organizations C-FAR. "...pandered to those who view crime and social problems as a consequence of admitting visible minority persons as immigrants or refugees ... (the) Crime Watch section has the potential to develop or reinforce racist attitudes towards visible minorities."[21]
21 Report to the Minister of Education re. Paul Fromm by J.G. Cowan, Feb. 9, 1993 | |||||||||||||
As a direct result of Mr. Cowan's report, Paul Fromm was removed as a high school teacher and reassigned to teach adult education. Fromm continues, well into 1996, to make common cause with - and give succor to - some of Canada's most notorious racist extremists. In March 1996 he was to have appeared at the Surry Inn, in British Columbia as a guest speaker for the Second Canadian Free Speech Conference which was being sponsored by one of Fromm's organizations, CAFE. Amongst those who were scheduled to speak wcre Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel, Northshore News columnist and Holocaust denier Doug Collins, as well as fellow "teachers" and antisemites Malcolm Ross and James Keegstra, Also in March 1996 a planned speaking engagement by Paul Fromm in Edmonton was thwarted as a result of demonstrations held by anti-racist protesters in front of the hotel. Even as late as September 1996, Paul Fromm was seen to be supporting Ron Gostick of the Canadian League of Rights who was seeking a hotel to hold what ostensibly was to be a discussion on the pros and cons of Quebec separation. Once again as a result of pressure brought to bear by anti-racist groups in Edmonton, the hotel in question canceled the group's contract Fromm came immediately to the defense of his colleague in a letter he wrote to the hotel, attempting to discredit Professor David Lethbridge of the Salmon Arms Coalition Against Racism.
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In his letter, Fromm said: "I am also sending you excerpts from our recent Free Speech monitor (a series of pamphlets produced by Paul Fromm supporting the rights of neo-Nazis to free speech) on activities and statements by Lethbridge who incidentally refuses to debate with such distinguished supporters of freedom as British war hero Doug Collins of the North Shore News in Vancouver."[22] Collins is presently facing a human rights complaint in British Columbia stemming from his outspoken support of Holocaust denial and deniers. Paul Fromm continues to run into trouble. On December 11, 1996 at a public forum to commemorate "International Human Rights Day" B'nai Brith Canada's League of Human Rights, accused Paul Fromm of: ''. . . continuing to associate with known white supremacists, and to make speeches against Canada's multicultural/multiracial society, in blatant violation of a Peel Board (of Education) ruling that prohibits such conduct."[23] During the course of the forum, audience members were shown excerpts from an appearance by Paul Fromm at the "Revilo P. Oliver Memorial Symposium" in November 1994. The symposium was organized by the National Alliance, a large U.S. Nazi propaganda organization, whose leader William L. Pearce was the author of the
22: From an unpublished letter to the manager of the Coast Terrace Inn, Edmonton, AB., 1996 | |||||||||||||
infamous Turner Diaries, The novel about guerrilla warfare waged against Blacks, Jews and and [sic] the U.S. government, is billed "a handbook for white victory". Tragically it appears as though the bombing of the Oklahoma City Alfred P. Murrah building in April 1995 mirrors a fictional episode written about in the Turner Diaries, In its book Extremism on the Right the Anti-Defamation League describes the National Alliance as a "neo Hitlerian, racist, and antisemitic extremist group."[24] Revilo P. Oliver was one of America's most notorious fascists and, according to B'nai Brith Canada a "long time proponent of antisemitism".[25] An advertisement for the video appeared in National Vanguard, house organ for Pearce's National Alliance group. The ad had this to say of the symposium's namesake: Dr. Revilo P. Oliver was one of this centuries greatest thinkers and writers . . . he was one of the very few academicians to fully perceive the threats to America and to western man. He was one of the founders of the John Birch Society when he realized that conservatism was a lost cause in America, he appealed to Americans to make a final and uncompromising stand for survival of America's founding race, a cause he championed until his death ... These speakers are speaking from the heart and speaking of the greatest issue -the survival of the European race - of this or any other century.[26] Fromm himself seemed well in tune with the symposium's sentiments. Excerpts
24: Extremism on the Right: a Handbook, Anti-Defamation League, New York, N.Y. | |||||||||||||
from Fromm's speech were read aloud at the International Human Rights Day forum: "If we are going to be true to our Aryan spirit, to the very best of our people, which is reason [for] doing what Aryan man has always done... facing reality [it was necessary] "to recapture the greatness of our race's spirit and then we can retake this continent."[27] Amongst other honoured guests at its symposium were former Ku Klux Klan leader and well known right-wing extremist David Duke. The Revilo P. Oliver Memorial Symposium concluded with the singing of "Deutschland Uber Alles." Karen Mock, B'nai Brith Director of the League of Human Rights, reiterated the earlier call of the CJC and the Native Canadian Center for the Peel Board of Education to fire Paul Fromm as a teacher: "If he must continue his racist 'free speech' campaign, let him not do it as teacher."[28] Both Fromm, the propagandist, and Droege, the movement leader, are linked, not just through their attendance at each other's meetings, but also through a mutual associate and friend - Ernst Zundel. (As this report was being printed, Ernst Zundel revealed on his internet site that Fromm has been notified of the termination of his employment with the Peel Board due to his continued association with racists and antisemites Fromm has indicated he will fight the dismissal.)
27: B'nai Brith Press Release Dec 11, 1996 | |||||||||||||
