| Diagolon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founding leader | Jeremy MacKenzie |
| Foundation | 2020 |
| Country | Canada |
| Ideology | Accelerationism |
| Slogan | "Gun or rope" |
| Website | diagolon.org (2022 archive) |
Diagolon is a Canadian alt-right organization, conceived by podcaster Jeremy MacKenzie. The US Department of State's Bureau of Counterterrorism has called it a far-right extremist group. [1] It was mentioned in news coverage of the Canada convoy protest.
Diagolon is a right-wing, [2] alt-right, [3] extremist [4] militia network with chapters throughout Canada. [2] A House of Commons of Canada report called it a "violent extremist organisation." [5] According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the "neo-fascist militia" [6] believes that "a violent revolution is coming," [2] and is an "accelerationist movement that believes a revolution is inevitable and necessary to collapse the current government system". [6]
Diagolon associate Alex Vriend has promoted the neo-Nazi propaganda film Europa: The Last Battle in chatrooms. [7] Barbara Perry, director of Ontario Tech University's Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism, described Diagolon's ambition to create a "white ethnonationalist state" [8] as irony poisoning to normalise hateful rhetoric through humour. [4] The group's motto is "gun or rope". [7]
The group emerged from the Plaid Army, according to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. [9]
The group's flag was seen at the Canada convoy protest in Ottawa. [10] One piece of body armour seized along with weapons and ammunition at the property of a murder conspiracy suspect during the protest blockade of the Sweetgrass–Coutts Border Crossing reportedly had a Diagolon patch. [11] [2] In February 2023, Paul Rouleau described Diagolon's presence at both the Ottawa and Coutts protests as "the most troubling connection between protest locations" in his report following the Public Order Emergency Commission into the use of the Emergencies Act. [12]
In 2022 Pierre Poilievre called Diagolon members "losers" and "dirtbags" after they suggested raping Anaida Poilievre, his wife, on a podcast. Poilievre had previously been photographed shaking hands with Jeremy MacKenzie. [13] Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino stated that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were "reviewing" the rape statement. [14] Despite this, in 2024, Poilievre was seen leaving an RV with a drawing of the Diagolon flag visible on the door while being filmed attending a convoy-style protest on the Nova Scotia–New Brunswick border. He would endorse the protest as "a good, old-fashioned Canadian tax revolt." [15]
The Emergencies Act is a statute passed by the Parliament of Canada in 1988 which authorizes the Government of Canada to take extraordinary temporary measures to respond to public welfare emergencies, public order emergencies, international emergencies and war emergencies. The law replaces the War Measures Act passed in 1914. It asserts that any government action continues to be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights.
Pierre Marcel Poilievre is a Canadian politician who has served as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the leader of the Official Opposition since 2022. He has been a member of Parliament (MP) since 2004.
Jean-Guy Dagenais is a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was appointed to the Senate of Canada on January 17, 2012, by Stephen Harper after losing in the 2011 Canadian federal election running as a Conservative candidate in Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. He represents the Senate division of Victoria (Quebec). In 2019, he left the Conservative Senate caucus to sit with the Canadian Senators Group, and left the Conservative party in 2022 shortly after Pierre Poilievre was elected as leader.
Paul S. Rouleau is a justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Canada. He was the commissioner of the Public Order Emergency Commission that conducted the Inquiry into Emergencies Act mandated by law to study and report on the circumstances that led to the invoking of the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022 by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the Canada convoy protests.
Artur Pawlowski is a Polish-Canadian evangelical street preacher and political activist. He is pastor of the Cave of Adullam congregation in Calgary and previously led the Kings Glory Fellowship (KGF). Pawlowski is also founder and pastor of Street Church Ministries (SCM), a group no longer recognized as a religious or charitable organization by the Canadian government.
Leslyn Lewis is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Haldimand—Norfolk since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, Lewis contested the party leadership in the 2020 leadership election, placing third. She was the first visible minority woman to run for the federal Conservative Party leadership. She is known for her socially conservative views.
The 2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election was a leadership election held by the Conservative Party of Canada to elect the successor to Erin O'Toole. He was removed on February 2, 2022, as leader by the party's caucus in the House of Commons of Canada by a vote of 73–45. Candice Bergen was chosen as interim party leader and served until a permanent leader was elected.
Randy Alexander Hillier is a Canadian politician who served as a member of provincial parliament (MPP) in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2007-2022. Hillier represented the riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston as an independent MPP from 2019 to 2022. This riding contains much of the dissolved riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, which he represented from 2007 to 2018. Hillier was initially elected as a Progressive Conservative (PC) Party MPP, remaining a member until he was removed in 2019. Despite announcing that he would run for election under the banner of the Ontario First Party in November 2021, Hillier announced in March 2022 that he would not seek re-election.
The COVID-19 protests in Canada are protests that began in April 2020, with protests in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, and Ottawa against the Government of Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent measures.
GiveSendGo is a Christian crowdfunding website. GiveSendGo has attracted controversy for allowing far-right extremists to fundraise, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists and hate groups.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) is a Canadian nonprofit organization that monitors hate crime and far-right groups. It was formed in 2018 in Toronto, Ontario and has received funding from the Government of Canada. CAHN provides information to journalists and the media, researchers, law enforcement, policy makers, and community organizations. The organization is modelled after and supported by the American Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Its chair is Sue Gardner, former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
A series of protests and blockades in Canada against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions, called the Freedom Convoy by organizers, began in early 2022. The initial convoy movement was created to protest vaccine mandates for crossing the United States border, but later evolved into a protest about COVID-19 mandates in general. Beginning January 22, hundreds of vehicles formed convoys from several points and traversed Canadian provinces before converging on Ottawa on January 29, 2022, with a rally at Parliament Hill. The convoys were joined by thousands of pedestrian protesters. Several offshoot protests blockaded provincial capitals and border crossings with the United States.
The yellow vests movement was a series of protests in Canada inspired by the yellow vest protests that began in France in 2018. Unlike the French gilets jaunes protests in 2018 and 2019, the Yellow Vest Canada movement incorporated xenophobic rhetoric in their messaging, and have been described as "frontline extremists, hate group, alt-right, and far right.
The following article is a broad timeline of the course of events surrounding the Canada convoy protest, a series of protests and blockades in Canada in early 2022. The protest, which was called the Freedom Convoy by organizers, was "first aimed at a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers" when the convoy of hundreds of vehicles, including semi-trailers, headed towards Ottawa, Ontario the nation's capital, starting on January 22. The protesters quickly changed their messaging to include demands that all COVID-19-related public health restrictions be lifted.
Tamara Lich is a Canadian activist who has organised for the right-wing Maverick Party, the far-right Yellow Vest protests, and the Canada convoy protest in Ottawa.
Jeremy Mitchell MacKenzie is a Canadian right-wing activist, military veteran, Plaid Army podcaster, the founder of far-right group Diagolon, and a Canada convoy protester.
The Plaid Army is a group of Canadian internet live streamers known for their far right politics. The group has been accused by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network of Islamophobia and anti-semitism.
In February 2022, four Canadian men were arrested on allegations that they conspired to kill Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers. The arrests occurred during the Canada convoy protest on the Coutts, Alberta, side of the Sweetgrass–Coutts Border Crossing. According to police, the plot was part of a wider plan to alter "Canada's political, justice and medical systems."
Anaida "Ana" Poilievre is a Canadian political staffer, online magazine publisher, and the wife of Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre.
The Public Order Emergency Commission, also known as the Rouleau inquiry or the Inquiry into Emergencies Act was a public inquiry in Canada that investigated the invoking of the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022, by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the Canada convoy protests. It was the first time the Emergencies Act had been invoked and it remained in place from February 14–23, 2022, the POEC investigated the rationale for invoking the Emergencies Act and the measures taken for dealing with the emergency". The inquiry was led by commissioner Justice Paul Rouleau, who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on April 25, 2022. Justice Rouleau had a surgical intervention which delayed the inquiry from September 19, 2022, to mid-October. The inquiry is independent of the parliamentary review committee.