Front Burner - How Hamilton became a 'cautionary tale' for hate

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

Hamilton, Ontario, has the most hate crime per capita in the country. Along with that, it has ongoing weekly protests at city hall by members of the yellow vest movement and far-right groups. CBC News reporter Samantha Craggs has been covering this story in Hamilton, as part of an ongoing series called “Exposing Hate”. Today on Front Burner, she explains why Hamilton has become a flashpoint for hate in Canada.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. How did you find Nazi? I defined Nazi as people that try to whip up hatred. Hamilton, Ontario, has a serious problem with hate right now.

Along with months of weekly far-right protests at City Hall that have at times turned shockingly violent, Hamilton is home to Canada's highest per capita of hate crimes. Just last weekend, anti-Semitic graffiti was drawn outside a local synagogue. CBC News reporter Samantha Craigs has been covering the story in Hamilton as part of an ongoing series called Exposing Hate. And she's here with me now to explain why Hamilton has become a flashpoint for hate here in Canada. This is FrontBurner. Samantha, thank you so much for joining me today. Well, thanks for having me. So can you tell me what the heck is going on in Hamilton?

today. Well, thanks for having me. So can you tell me what the heck is going on in Hamilton? I would say in a nutshell, there are increasingly headline grabbing incidents here in Hamilton around the issue of hate and hate crime for various reasons. They've culminated in weekly demonstrations in front of our city hall. When you hang out with Nazis, you become one. Okay, you choose your friends. So do I. That's why we're standing here telling you to get out. We want to see Canada free and great again the way it used to be, before Trudeau got in power. That's what we want to see. Between people of various factions and friction increasingly between police and the LGBTQ community.

And I mentioned in the intro that Hamilton is the highest per capita of hate crimes in the country. What do the numbers tell us? We have been number one for three out of the last five years, according to Statistics Canada, which collects these numbers from various police departments across the country. And when we're talking about hate crimes in Hamilton or alleged hate crimes,

what are we talking about? What do they look like? A variety of ways. I mean, obviously, there have been assaults, there have been some recent events that we've seen. For example, there is a synagogue in the west end of Hamilton. And someone took chalk and drew the word Jews and a line through it, for example. And we actually spoke to an LGBT person of color who said that somebody etched a slur on his car, followed by the word die in the snow last year. I noticed the words. I literally just froze. Were you looking over your shoulder for the next days and weeks? For weeks to months, I would literally come out and do my own little visual inspection.

And so these incidents crop up on a fairly regular basis, and each one is very upsetting to people. Why do you think it's happening in Hamilton? Why there? That is a really good question and a question that I have asked as a reporter in a lot of different ways. And it's very complex and hard to put our finger on. We had, for example, one sociologist, Tina Fettner from McMaster University. And she has said, for example, where you have economic inequality, it sort of creates a vacuum for issues like this to fester and Hamilton in fact does have we have higher poverty rates than the rest of Ontario we have a particularly high level of

working poor people people who have jobs and are working but are low income at the same time we have a situation where people are having a more difficult time making ends meet than they used to so we have that it's it's an industrial city where there's been a lot of manufacturing jobs lost. So she hypothesizes that maybe it's that, but overall it's really, it's hard to tell. I would not say that that's producing the kinds of problems that Hamilton is seeing. I think that it just means that Hamilton is vulnerable to a problem that is facing a lot of communities in Canada and in North America and throughout the world. You mentioned these weekly protests and can you tell me what they look like? Like where

does this all start? Well when they started in December it was just a handful of people. It started with I would say six or seven people in yellow vests. They would show up with signs, a lot of them against Trudeau, a lot of them against M103, which is an anti-Islamophobia. And a lot of Canadian flags, a lot of things about being proud to be Canadian, and they would basically mill around for about three hours, drink coffee, stand out by the road with their signs. People would honk or not. That's how it started. Nice Antifa flag. Oh, guys! I'm sorry! We didn't like it! We're burning your coffee! And of course, they were inspired by the Yellow Vest movement that we saw in France,

but it took on a different meaning here. And then how does this change from week to week? Well, the crowd started to grow as word got out that these were happening. Pretty soon people from Soldiers of Odin, Wolves of Odin, Proud Boys, they started to show up. When I spoke to a Yellow Vestor last week, he said they show up for security. The reason for that is because of the attacks by Antifa, Soldiers of Odin, Wolves of Odin, Proud Boys,

the different patriot groups like that, that's 90% of what they do is just to provide volunteer security for peaceful protesters. But regardless, they started to show up. They had patches. They had signs of their own. People started to get increasingly nervous about it. Okay.

And soldiers of Odin, Proud Boys, these are all far right groups. They have been called hate groups by many people. They have, yeah. Who in society are you speaking for, do you think? Many Canadians. Canadians that are just fed up with the corruption in the government corruption from uh the UN migration pact and what the UN is trying to do to our country I mean there are many fed up Canadians that just want change or want some accountability from our government these protests I understand that they've sparked a counter protest

in response and what does that look like? Yeah people were increasingly worried about the yellow vest group I'm going to call them the yellow vest group even though they encompassed other groups they started to grow in numbers at their peak I think they've probably had about 40 and people got increasingly uncomfortable with this and started to I would say around June after some incident at our pride festival they started to show up themselves. With rainbow flags, with signs that say things like Hamilton is for everyone, diversity is our strength, pro-immigration signs. And they started to meet in the same place, which is the forecourt in front of our city hall. I am one white, gay male who just doesn't like to see violence or hatred in our city.

I don't belong to any group. I'm just a guy with a sign spreading love. I was hoping that there might be an opportunity for some conversations to sort of quell some of the anger that seems to be rising from the ground. And who makes up this counter-protest group? It's truly a wide variety of Hamiltonians. We've talked a lot about people who describe themselves as anarchists, but in fact, a lot of the counter-protesters have been very, I would say, mainstream. You know, business owners, a lot of people who have at some point run for office, run for council. Even the councillors themselves have come out.

The mayor came out one day to a counter-protest. But there are city councillors who show up every Saturday now and hold signs. You mentioned an incident at the Pride Festival. Tell me more about that. That really was the incident that brought it all to the forefront. It was June 15th. There was a festival in Gage Park with some tents, with some bands. There was a festival in Gage Park with some tents, with some bands. And a group showed up with some homophobic signs and a loudspeaker that they used to distribute their message. You don't respect Jesus Christ. Jesus called sinners to repentance. Jesus said, go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. You are openly promoting sin. So these giant signs, this loudspeaker, they showed up probably about 20 of them,

including a couple of people in yellow vests. And so what happened were there were some people, some self-described anarchists, in pink masks, and they had a great big portable barrier. It almost looks like a great big curtain. And they anticipated this group, and so they went over and stood in front of this group and sort of maneuvered themselves tactically to prevent this group from going to the festival. So it was a real face-off.

Yeah, and it got increasingly fraught, you might say, and there were some punches thrown, some people thrown to the ground. Violence erupted. Several people were hurt. Hey, hey, watch it! And how did the police respond to this? Well, all of this was posted online. So violence erupted and police didn't intervene right away. Why?

Well, they eventually did intervene. Where's the white subscriptions in Canada? The criticism is that they didn't intervene fast enough. And when I say criticism, I mean on behalf of Pride Hamilton, on behalf of a lot of people who are there, LGBTQ people. All these months later, the former head of Pride can't bear to watch the attack. No, no more. I don't like walking around like I'm a victim 24-7.

But that's how you feel. You feel like there's a target on your back and there aren't going to be people coming to help you who should be coming to help you. The chief, Eric Gert, has said on the radio that part of the reason police didn't deploy faster, or that they deployed differently in his words, is because they were told not to patrol inside the event in uniform and not to have a recruitment booth. He's saying if those things had happened, they would have responded faster. We would have had people in the crowd pretty much the whole time. You're trying to balance the requests of certain groups.

They stated they didn't want us there for a particular reason, whether people didn't feel safe or otherwise, which I don't particularly agree with, but that's okay. We have to respect the request too. So it's kind of a no-win situation where you're asked not to be there. And then when you're not there, how come you weren't there? But police did eventually respond, but how fast they responded has been the subject of contention and in fact is the subject of investigations now. Wow. And I understand that Hamilton's chief of police generated his own bit of controversy as well, because he made some other very controversial

comments. He did recently, actually, when he was asked on a radio show about his relationship with the LGBTQ community. He talked about the Human Rights Code, and he was giving sort of a nuanced answer, and he mentioned sex in public washrooms and anal sex. I'm obligated to uphold the Constitution. I don't determine the Constitution, nor do I determine the case law from the Supreme Court of Canada. I am guided by it. If you're going to have change in the process, and we've seen some of that change. For example, we've had recent amendments to the Criminal Code that have finally removed anal intercourse as a prohibited activity. Finally.

Okay. And those two references upset people and he actually ended up issuing an apology. Okay. We understand the hurt to this community. It's the reason I apologize for the comments. I'm not looking to hurt the community anymore and we want to move in a positive direction. So essentially, we have these yellow vest protests that started in December of last year, and they start to grow throughout the year. There are people who become concerned about this. There are small counter protests. This whole thing seems to come to head in June at Pride when there's a face-off between two groups.

And this is where also criticism of the police really starts to mount as well. Yeah, that's true. What's local leadership been doing this whole time? Well, Hamilton's mayor, been doing this whole time? Well, Hamilton's mayor, I think this has been an interesting issue for him. He wasn't at the Pride Festival. And he did tweet something within the next 24 hours saying that he denounced the violence.

And he issued a formal statement about 10 days later. But there's been a lot of criticism that he hasn't acted fast enough. And there has been a lot of scrutiny on city council, including the mayor, in regards to, I'm going to call it the both sides narrative. The Yellow Vestors claim that, you know, I'm not supporting them and they have issues. The anarchists are saying similar things. So, you know what, these are complex issues, and they don't have any easy answers. There was a perception that he wasn't speaking strongly enough or fast enough.

Stop the council meeting. We will vacate the gallery for a moment. Council will. Your active violence is removing the people of your public. No, Fred Hurst's people are silent. Silence equals death. And this culminated when there was a day where a bunch of, I'm going to say self-described anarchists, likely a lot of the same people who had been in pink masks, showed up at his house and covered his lawn with signs that says, Hamilton's mayor doesn't like queer people.

lawn with signs that says Hamilton's mayor doesn't like queer people. Mayor Fred Eisenberger and his wife woke up to this racket at around seven this morning. He says people in masks were hammering on his door violently while others played instruments and banged drums. And someone, in fact, allegedly stole the Canadian flag off his house. And there were arrests made, even though there was frustration from the LGBTQ community about how long it had taken to have arrests after Pride. It actually took 10 days for anyone to be arrested from, I'm going to say, the anti-Pride side. Someone was arrested for stealing the flag off the mayor's house by noon that same day. And how has the mayor defended himself? The most recent thing he said to us is he said, I know in my heart how I feel.

I know in my heart that this is a good city. This is a welcoming city, which I'm not certain is the message that people, when they're distressed and they're upset, totally want to hear. But he says that he has denounced hate over and over and over. We denounce them all. I'm not categorizing one group against another. Never have done that and won't ever do that. And he also has said in the past that a lot of the anger towards him

from the LGBTQ community or even the group of self-described anarchists, he says they're not really the LGBTQ community and that most people are okay with what I'm saying and what the city is saying. Some are pretending to be representing the queer trans group. I don't know. I'm not prepared to label them. I know that they're agitators and they should stop.

And he called the criticism of them a false narrative. Okay. He's essentially trying to say that this is coming from a very small group of people. Yes. Okay. Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. There's a bit more of a backdrop here, right? I remember in early 2018, there was a group that called themselves the Ungovernables. They were described as anarchists.

And didn't they cause quite a bit of damage to downtown Hamilton? I happened to come by the store last night because we had been working at another event and I heard fireworks on the street. Went quickly into my store, came out and all of a sudden there were about 30 men all in black. Yeah, Lock Street actually which is just west of downtown Hamilton. It's an area that's seen some gentrification over the years and has a lot of little restaurants and shops and boutiques. And there was a group of people who wore black and had black masks and carried a sign that said, we are the ungovernables and broke some windows, some car windows. So that got a lot of headlines. A group on a mission to wreak havoc, causing thousands of dollars in damages.

And do you think that this might have also influenced the police response here, sort of animosity towards this group for past incidences? That is what a lot of people have speculated because the first, in fact, the first arrest after the Pride violence was someone named Cedar Hopperton. Someone who is transgender and self-identifies as an anarchist and was in fact convicted of mischief in the Longstreet event. Okay. And so when the Pride violence happened, within a week, Hopperton had been arrested for violating their parole, the police said. And the reason that the police gave to the media, to the public, was that Hopperton had been at the event and been one of the people in the pink masks.

Yes. And it turns out that Hopperton wasn't at Pride. A parole board heard the case and actually ruled that Hopperton wasn't at Pride. Okay, so there are criticisms here that the police are focusing on the wrong side. That's exactly it, yeah. You know, it feels to me like this growing face-off was on display very much so recently at a Maxime Bernier rally for the People's Party of Canada. An elderly woman was prevented from walking across the street by young people in masks who were dressed in black, who were part of this Antifa movement, right? Right. That happened in Hamilton.

And that certainly grabbed us more headlines. Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! So there was a large contingent who showed up to protest that Bernier event. Plenty of people who weren't wearing masks, who were just moms, dads. But there were a couple of people who were wearing black masks, and there was an elderly woman who was attempting to enter the college to go to the event, and she had a walker. There was video of it.

She appeared rather frail, and there were a couple of people who stood in front of her and yelled. Nazis come on our streets! Nazis come on our streets! Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy and can never and will never be denied. And Bernier's party has received quite a bit of criticism for pushing some of the same narratives that, you know, these Yellow Vest protesters have been pushing in the anti-immigration narrative. That's certainly the association that people are saying anyway. Right. Against the UN Migration Pact, you know, anti-multiculturalism, we could go on. So, so look, we've seen now almost a year of these protests. It feels like every once in a while,

it erupts in violence. Where does this leave the city of Hamilton? Has any substantial action been taken to calm the city and discourage all of this? As you mentioned, we're also seeing all these incidences of hate happening in the city as well, right? Well, local organizations, local residents, I think would be quick to tell you that Hamilton is actually a pretty great place to be. There's a campaign that's been launched recently called No Hate in the Hammer by a bunch of local organizations. I know that the Hamilton Center for Civic Inclusion has launched a campaign called Hamilton for All recently. There's going to be a conference, an anti-hate conference in February. There are various efforts going on in the community. As for the city, they voted this

summer to try to get a court injunction to prevent these demonstrations from happening in front of City Hall. But legally, it's tougher than it sounds because freedom of expression is a very powerful right that everybody has. And so city lawyers are still looking at whether that's possible. I understand you've spoken to some experts who say that Hamilton's response is almost what not to do when faced with a rise in hate activity. What are they saying? Tina Fetner, a McMaster University sociologist, said that hate is growing. She said hate is growing online. And, in fact, we found that the number of hate crimes is on the rise, generally on an upward trend.

Across the country. Yeah, and she says particularly online, but it is turning into pockets of physical groups. I think it's very important for Hamilton to be a cautionary tale for other cities. I'm very certain that this is going to be knocking at the door of other cities across Canada. That's her argument. And that Hamilton is a good example because it shows that you have to denounce hate quickly, assuredly, and that there are some lessons to be had in terms of how the city has handled it and how the police handled it. counter-protest to make it very clear that hate's not welcome in your town, then you may risk being a place where people gather like Hamilton has become. Okay, interesting. Samantha, thank you so much.

Thank you. A few minutes ago, Samantha and I were talking about the Maxime Bernier event in Hamilton, where a woman in her 80s was confronted while trying to attend. Well, a Toronto Syrian restaurant called Sufis has now become part of this story. Sufis is run by Syrian refugees. Its owners say their son was one of the people who confronted that 81-year-old. And since that revelation, they say they were targeted with death threats and have decided to shut down the business out of fear that people could be hurt. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and see you tomorrow.