Far-Right Antisemitic Groups, Neo-Nazi Man Among New Additions to Canada’s Terror Blacklist

The Canadian government added last week an array of new organizations and individuals to its terror blacklist, including two far-right groups that promote antisemitism and one individual with a recent history of encouraging violent attacks on Jews.

The individual, James Mason, is a senior member of the notorious American neo-Nazi group “Atomwaffen Division,” which has been linked to a string of murders, one of which was the 2018 fatal stabbing in California of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a Jewish student at the University of Pennsylvania.

According to the Canadian government, Mason’s writings have “served as the ideological grounding” for neo-Nazi groups including the Atomwaffen Division, where he specifically trained members on propagandizing racist murders and genocide.

Another entity, the UK-based “Ayran Strikeforce,” was also added to the list. Canada described the group as seeking to “start a race war and eradicate ethnic minorities,” and according to UK-based antisemitism monitor Community Security Trust (CST), it has a long history of extreme Jew-hatred.

In 2010, one prominent member of the group, since convicted on terror charges, stated: “I would encourage any religion or race that wants to destroy the Jews — I hate them with a passion.”

Canadian Public Safety Minister Bill Blair stated on Friday, “Intolerance and hate have no place in our society and the government of Canada will continue to do all we can to keep Canadians safe from all threats, including terrorism and violent extremism.”

The latest additions to the terror blacklist come amid an alarming rise in antisemitic hate crimes in Canada.

Even prior to the recent spike, crime data from 2019 showed that Jews comprised 15% of hate crime victims, despite being only 1% of the Canadian population.