Derek "Rants" Harrison
I do a podcast every Sunday night and I also create videos
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Wednesday 22 November 2023
I just called Jeremy Mackenzie (639 318 9073) and his lawyer Mr Foda AGAIN Correct?
Yesterday at 2:30 PM
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Saturday 6 January 2024
The Canadian State of Affairs according Jason Lavigne and his buddies Jeremy MacKenzie, Thomas Zaugg and Kevin J. Johnston
Season Four w/ Jeremy MacKenzie
Welcome to a new episode of The Lavigne Show titled "Season Four” with special guest Jeremy MacKenzie.
In this episode, we're joined by Jeremy, dubbed "The most controversial, lied about, and banned man in Canada." Jeremy's story is a fascinating and complex one. He became a central figure of national attention and the target of the Canadian intelligence community, especially leading up to and after the invocation of the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022.
Our conversation will delve into the depths of the #HateGate scandal and examine how a nation was captivated by the narrative surrounding Diagolon—a narrative many believed unquestioningly. We'll explore the mechanics of misinformation and how easily public perception can be swayed.
This episode isn't just a retrospective look at the events of 2023. We're also setting our sights on what's ahead in 2024. Are you a member of the Plaid Army? Do you fly the flag and seek camaraderie amongst like-minded individuals? This discussion is for you.
Join us as we dissect these critical issues with Jeremy, (and maybe Phillip) offering insights and stirring debate that promises to challenge your perspectives. If you haven't started raging yet, this might be the moment you do.
CPC Leader Condemns Jeremy MacKenzie for Comments About Sexually Assaulting Anaida Poilievre
“The kind of garbage has no place in Canada. No one should face this abuse.”
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Left: Jeremy MacKenzie/Telegram; Right: Pierre Poilievre
Live streamer and Diagolon creator Jeremy MacKenzie was condemned this week by the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada after joking about sexually assaulting Pierre Poilievre’s wife.
“These men are dirtbags,” Poilievre wrote in a statement on Monday. “Frankly, like most Canadians, until about a month ago I had never heard of Diagolon and these losers. They are all odious.”
He adds that after becoming aware of the comments over the weekend he has been in contact with the RCMP to assess whether criminal charges should be laid.
“The kind of garbage has no place in Canada. No one should face this abuse.”
The comments came during the unrecorded after-show of MacKenzie’s Raging Dissident live stream, recorded by Twitter user John Thibeau. MacKenzie appears alongside Alex “The Ferryman’s Toll” Vriend and an American follower who typically calls into Vriend’s stream.
Content warning: Mentions of sexual assault.
When the conversation turned to Poilievre’s wife, Anaida Poilievre, MacKenzie made jokes about her national origin and explicitly mentioned sexually assaulting the leader’s wife.
“People can attack my politics, they can call me names, they can protest my ideas and what I stand for,” Poilievre said in his statement. “But threatening my wife and family is appalling and I will not tolerate it. Leave my family alone.”
“Who?”
The current situation is not the first time MacKenzie and Poilievre have crossed paths. During a campaign stop in Nova Scotia, MacKenzie used a meet and greet to not only talk with the CPC leader but also to pose for photographs.
Shaking hands, MacKenzie captioned the picture on August 20, “Sometimes you just gotta tell em what's up.”
When national media picked up on the pictures, Poilievre reiterated that he denounces racism, adding that “I didn’t and don’t know or recognize this particular individual. Likewise, I can’t be responsible for Justin Trudeau’s many racist outbursts just because I’ve met him or shaken his hand.”
In Dartmouth NS today, a person federal security agencies say is a “key individual” associated with “ideologically motivated violent extremist” groups went to a @PierrePoilievre event and was photographed with the #CPCLdr candidate. Statement from Poilievre to @globalnews : pic.twitter.com/EE02wrbKfP
— David Akin 🇨🇦 (@davidakin) August 20, 2022
MacKenzie has appeared on live streams categorizing Poilievre as the best hope to “gut” the media. Despite this, he has told his followers that Poilievre, and the CPC writ large, are “part of the [World Economic Forum], no matter what he says.”
During the time the photographs were taken, MacKenzie and other members of the Diagolon network were also in a war of words with several journalists, including Global News’ Rachel Gilmore. Gilmore and numerous other mainstream reporters– the majority of whom are female, people of colour, or both – became the targets of a racist online harassment campaign, including physical threats.
MacKenzie and other streams from the “Plaid Army” streaming collective released statements and videos at the time telling their followers that members of the media “deserve to be hated.”
Legal Troubles
MacKenzie, a live streamer andaccelerationist influencer responsible for the creation of Diagolon, has faced a series of legal troubles and negative publicity over the past year.
While no charges have yet been borne out in court, the former member of the Canadian Armed Forces is facing a number of charges in different provinces across the country. The most recent were for alleged offences in Saskatchewan, including four new charges, including assault, mischief and two new gun offences.
According to a statement from the RCMP on August 25, there is a Saskatchewan-wide warrant for Mackenzie’s arrest, though "no evidence he is in Saskatchewan." Based on his own statements and other reporting, it appears as though he currently resides in Nova Scotia.
MacKenzie did not respond to a request for comment from CAHN for this story, but told iPolitics he was not in Saskatchewan during the time an alleged “shooting party” took place – the supposed source of the charges.
He added that “a lunatic on a vendetta” is behind the allegations.
MacKenzie has also been charged with harassment and mischief related to a March 2022 protest outside the home of the province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Robert Strang.
Other charges from the same incident include intimidation of a health professional and making harassing phone calls. Another individual, Morgan May Guptill, a COVID-conspiracy activist and MacKenzie’s partner, has been charged with the same offences.
In January 2022, shortly before MacKenzie would travel to Ottawa to support the blockade protests that snarled the city’s downtown, police raided his Nova Scotia home. RCMP allegedly found five restricted firearms, prohibited magazines, body armour, and ammunition.
According to the search warrant and a statement by police, an investigation began “after a video was posted to social media of a man, in a business, waving a handgun around in a reckless manner and allegedly having an overcapacity magazine.”
Police said they determined the incident occurred at a business in Whycocomagh, Nova Scotia.
MacKenzie hassince been charged with 13 firearm offences, including three counts of careless use of a firearm and three counts of unauthorized possession of a firearm.
“On January 26, as part of the investigation, police executed a search warrant at a home on High St. in Pictou,” the RCMP say in their release. “During the search, police located and seized five restricted firearms including rifles and handguns, one unrestricted firearm, prohibited magazines, ammunition, body armour, a duty belt with attached holster and magazine pouches and cellular phones.”
According to law enforcement, the suspect, “a 35-year-old Pictou man,” attended the Pictou RCMP Detachment prior to the search warrant execution and was arrested without incident. He was later released on conditions, which include that he does not possess any firearms, weapons, ammunition or explosive substances.
In February, at least twomembers of the Diagolon community were among those arrested in Coutts, Alberta during the region’s border blockades. The RCMP allege that a cache of firearms and body armour seized during the arrests were intended to be used against law enforcement if they attempted to disrupt the protests.
“The group was said to have a willingness to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade,” Alberta RCMP wrote in a press release. “This resulted in an immediate and complex investigation to determine the extent of the threat and criminal organization.”
Police note seizing 13 long guns, an unspecified number of handguns, multiple sets of body armour, high-capacity magazines, and a machete. One set of the pictured armour displays the white and black flag of Diagolon and MacKenzie previously appeared in a picture with Chris Lysak, one of the men charged in the plot to attack police.
"I was made aware someone unknown to us was handing them out (patches). I have no idea who they belong to," MacKenzie told CAHN at the time when reached for comment. "Our guy that makes and sells them sent them all over the country to anybody that wanted them, they could literally have come from anywhere. That's the truth."
A Holocaust Denier Is Travelling Across Canada Building Up The Country’s Newest Far-Right Militia Movement
Under the moniker “The Ferryman’s Toll,” Alex Vriend has travelled across Canada trying to unite a growing number of “Diagolon” supporters – a conspiracy-based network of preppers waiting for violent revolution.
Peter Smith
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Source: Alex Vriend/Telegram
In Summer 2020,Alex Vriend began travelling and networking within the neo-fascist Diagolon movement under the name “The Ferryman’s Toll.” The Plaid Army streamers,
and their Diagolon community, regularly push far-right and conspiracy
content and detail their fantasies of an inevitable and bloody
revolution.
Diagolon is increasingly becoming a militia network. Their goals are ultimately fascist: to use violence to take power and strip rights away from people who do not meet their purity tests based on ideology, race, and gender. With power or permission, they would execute their perceived enemies. Their motto is “gun or rope.”
Vriend has become one of the more outspoken and influential members of this growing national network, and runs many of their chat rooms. Like many of Diagolon’s supporters, he is rarely shy about pushing antisemitism and, more recently, outright Holocaust denial. His violent rhetoric was one of the reasons a PPC rally in December was cancelled.
Vriend remained anonymous while he travelled across Canada. Reportedly selling many of his possessions, he took his van and dog on the road to meet other “bigots” – the tongue-in-cheek moniker adopted by members of the Diagolon network to refer to themselves.
The concept of Diagolon started as a joke among the Plaid Army streamers. Running southeast from Alaska, capturing most of the western provinces, and ending in Florida, it envisions absorbing the “sane” regions of North America into a new country in the shape of a slash. It’s become the symbol and identifier for Plaid Army fans who push each other to train and prepare for a coming conflict. They are especially animated by their belief that there’s a sinister plot behind COVID-19 and public health measures.
Vriend said in live streams that he is a trained draftsman, originally from Ontario, and was regularly referred to as “Alex” by other members. He says he studied political science in university and allegedly had given up building his own home prior to moving to Alberta.
His full name was revealed during a spate of infighting within Diagolon by Bryan Trottier, a far-right troll known for his harassment campaigns which, even for the far-right, are notably disgusting and vicious. He also has a tendency to burn bridges on his own side.
A longtime member and booster of the Plaid Army, Trottier was banned from the Diagolon controlled community spaces after launching into a sexually explicit smear campaign against one of its female members. As the conflict spread, Trottier took aim at some of the group's most popular streamers, eventually landing on Vriend, who he decided to name.
After Trottier called Vriend and Plaid Army’s de facto leader Jeremy Mackenzie, AKA Raging Dissident, “controlled opposition” and a federal agent, Vriend posted links to social media threads naming Trottier’s family members. Another member posted Trottier’s home address in Wakefield, Quebec.
All three men claimed to have incriminating evidence on the other that they could take to law enforcement or “antifa,” though none was offered.
Don’t Pay The Ferryman
As The Ferryman’s Toll, Vriend regularly boosted the work of the originator of the Diagolon concept, Jeremy MacKenzie. MacKenzie is a former combat veteran turned conspiracy streamer, antisemite, and accelerationist – meaning he believes a revolution is inevitable and necessary to collapse the current system.
With MacKenzie streaming less frequently, Vriend has stepped in to fill the void. Sometimes hosting his own streams, and now regularly holding an “after-party” video call after MacKenzie finishes his own program, Vriend ventures down much of the same path as the Raging Dissident, regularly introducing historical revisionism and outright Holocaust denial into his streams and chats.
Vriend has shared the 10-part documentary series “Europa: The Last Battle” on his channel. The film is a spanning piece of propaganda that blames Jewish people for starting the Second World War as part of a larger plot to lead to the foundation of Israel, erstwhile Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party were merely defending themselves and Europe.
Within the chats, Vriend defends the documentary’s message, posting links to newspaper headlines that allege to refute that six million Jewish people died during the Holocaust. When one member of the chat said “everything [the Nazis] stood for was lunacy and the world is a better place because they were wiped off the face of the earth,” Vriend responded first with “You’re an idiot.”
He added that the gas chambers that were used during the Shoah in German death camps had “wooden doors,” a common trope used in Holocaust denial.
“He did a lot of great things too,” Vriend said about Hitler. “Times Man of the Year, 1938. That must have been because he was so tyrannical and oppressive.”
When another posted a meme reading “Hitler did nothing wrong,” Vriend again jumped in.
“Yes, he did. He invaded Russia without a winter strategy.”
In the same conversation, he posts a quote from Adolf Hitler outlining the difference between the “Marxist socialism” Vriend feels is promoted by every major Canadian political party and National Socialism, the ideology embraced by the Nazis.
When People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier and Ontario First MPP candidate Randy Hillier announced they would be attending a rally at X University – formerly known as Ryerson University – Vriend was one of several members who publicly called for violence during the event against counter-protesters.
“You’ve heard me talk about protests before, I don’t think they’re viable,” he said about the event. “You know what I do think is viable? This Saturday at Ryerson University, a bunch of communist and antifa fucks are going to show up to confront the people at the Randy Hillier/Maxime Bernier rally. There’s someone to confront. You can go make a statement. Get in their face, be like fuck you.”
Vriend, then safely in Alberta, asked his audience to assault the opposition.
“You know those Proud Boys videos we all love to see where they just march down antifa and start cracking them? Don’t you want to be one of those guys? It’s your chance. If you can go, go. It's a prime propaganda opportunity for us."
He also encouraged attendees to wear armour, saying, “If you don’t have knuckleduster gloves, like the padded gloves, you can get them at the dollar store. If you don’t have those, get them because you know what? Punching people in the head hurts your fucking hands.”
“Put lead in them,” someone responds, laughing.
“We’ve been saying the same thing this whole time,” he commented to others joining him through audio and video, “that these mother fuckers need to die.”
After the Canadian Anti-Hate Network exposed these incitements to violence, The Ryerson Conservatives, a former campus club that saw its charter revoked by the university, said they would no longer host the event.
“The Ryerson Conservatives do not associate with any other political groups, especially Tyler Russell and “Canada First” or the “Plaid Army,” the organization wrote.
The statement adds, "we will never tolerate threats of violence at our event and will never associate with those that seek to cause violence."
The PPC cancelled the event altogether shortly afterwards, but blamed The Ryerson Conservatives for “caving to the woke mob.”
Members of the Diagolon network are ardent supporters of both the PPC and the entire Hillier family. Diagolon threw its full weight behind the PPC during the last federal election, including Randy Hillier’s daughter Chelsea Hillier, who ran for the party in Elgin-Middlesex-London.
The River Styx
The Diagolon community is unique in how it has transitioned from a few dedicated content producers pushing well-worn antisemitic theories and their fans, into what is now an increasingly offline network of in-person local groups. This is in no small part thanks to Vriend.
While popular among the online and offline followers for his van trip across the county, he has been guarded about his identity, revealing personal details slowly over the course of a series of live streams. This tour included meeting his eventual exposer, Trottier. During the ensuing arguments, both men would say that Vriend had visited Trottier’s home in Wakefield, Quebec.
“I used to plan things for a living and now I find it very difficult to plan two days ahead of myself,” he said in a short video recorded from the road.
Rarely shy to show his face, Vriend has also exposed other members that he has met along the way. Photos posted in some areas show the faces of the people that he has linked up with, while others have faces covered by a skull containing the white slash of Diagolon or a ram’s head.
Vriend has not always been careful. In posts to Diagolon chats late last year showing images of multiple meet-ups across the country, Vriend would upload pictures in one space with the faces of some of his friends covered, only to later post video of them exposed.
Images from a video upload from Vriend. Source: Telegram
Before his time among the plaids, however, much of Vriend’s biography appears to line up with the details he has given to his compatriots. Claiming to be from rural Ontario, local newspaper reports show a young Vriend taking a babysitting certification course in 2001 in the Greely area.
Source: Algonquin Times
Flash forward to over a decade later, Vriend was enrolled as an architectural technology student at Algonquin College. Written up in the school’s paper for his part in a winning team awarded for a project involving green small houses in 2015, he also claims to have attended the University of Guelph where he played defensive end in football and studied political science.
In 2017, he was the owner of a company named Imersiv Virtual Models that offered 3D and virtual reality modelling for real estate, allowing viewers to take a complete “walk” through commercial and residential properties for sale.
Vriend says he discovered MacKenzie after finding “his video from the aftermath of the Nova Scotia shooting” in 2020. Other posts under the Ferryman moniker in other places on the internet show an interest in buying and trading silver. By July 2021, he had a small side business selling Diagolon themed t-shirts until the store was shut down by the online retail platform.
Alex Vriend declined to provide comment for this story.
RCMP investigating rape threat against Pierre Poilievre's wife
Far-right activist Jeremy MacKenzie made the comments in an online stream
Warning: This story contains sexually graphic details that may be disturbing to readers
The RCMP confirmed Monday that it is looking into a threat of sexual violence directed at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's wife, Anaida Poilievre.
Poilievre denounced the threat from far-right political commentator Jeremy MacKenzie and said his office contacted law enforcement about the matter.
An RCMP spokesperson told CBC News Monday that it's looking into the report.
"We can confirm that the matter has been referred to the RCMP and we are reviewing the information provided," they said in an email.
"Only in the event that criminal charges are laid would the RCMP be in a position to confirm the nature of the complaint or any individuals allegedly involved."
Jeremy MacKenzie, the leader of the Canadian far-right group Diagolon, made the threats over the weekend in a stream on the social media app Telegram while speaking with a guest, Alex Vriend.
"Let's rape her," MacKenzie said. "It's not really a sex thing. It's like we just want to show people that we can do things to you if we want to. It's a power move."
MacKenzie made several racist and derogatory remarks about Anaida Poilievre's Venezuelan background in the stream.
Anaida Poilievre was born in Venezuela and grew up in Montreal. Pierre and Anaida married in 2017 and have two children. Pierre Poilievre was elected Conservative leader earlier this month and Anaida Poilievre works as a political staffer on Parliament Hill.
In a statement posted to Twitter Monday, Poilievre said his office has contacted the RCMP about the comments.
"My office has referred these comments to the RCMP to assess whether criminal charges should be laid," he said in the statement.
Jenni Byrne, the head of Poilievre's transition team, told CBC News she called the RCMP on Saturday after she was made aware of the threat. Byrne said she would be meeting with the Mounties to discuss the situation.
"These men are dirtbags," Poilievre said in the statement. "Frankly, like most Canadians, until about a month ago I had never heard of Diagolon and these losers. They are all odious.
"This kind of garbage has no place in Canada. No one should face this abuse.
"People can attack my politics, they can call me names, they can protest my ideas and what I stand for. But threatening my wife and family is appalling and I will not tolerate it. Leave my family alone."
In an interview with The Canadian Press, MacKenzie said he was drinking when he made the comments and meant no harm by them.
Politicians, journalists and other public figures — especially women and people of colour — have been facing an increase in acts of harassment and threats in recent months.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced threats and hatred in response to a reporter's question Monday. He didn't mention Poilievre specifically.
"No one should ever be subject to threats of violence or the kind of hatred that we've seen increasingly in the public discourse, in the public sphere," Trudeau told a news conference.
"It's important that we all stand up and condemn that, and we all look for ways to ensure that everyone feels safe in this country."
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also denounced the threat.
"No one should be threatened with sexual violence. Not journalists, not politicians, not anyone's family, not anyone," Singh said in a tweet Monday.
He called on political leaders to work at stopping violent extremism.
"The rise of violent extremism in Canada should be a concern for all leaders. If there's political will, we can do something to stop it," he said.
Mark Gerretsen, a Liberal member of Parliament representing Kingston and the Islands, tweeted Monday that he also received a sexual assault threat directed at his wife. He posted the message in his tweet and said both Kingston Police and the Parliamentary Protective Service have opened files on it.
"I 100% agree with Pierre Poilievre on this," Gerrettsen said in the tweet. "Attack me all you want. Leave our families out of this."
Who is Jeremy MacKenzie?
MacKenzie, who is 36, has attracted attention for his support of the anti-vaccine mandate convoy protest which occupied Ottawa earlier this year, and for his leadership of far-right group Diagolon.
A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence told CBC in an email that MacKenzie served in the Canadian Armed Forces. They said MacKenzie enrolled in 2003 and released in 2017, adding he was an infantryman with the Royal Canadian Regiment and that he had one deployment to Afghanistan.
An Instagram account bearing MacKenzie's name describes him as a "Sub-Standard podcaster, Sit-down comedian Super Villain, Sardonic Emperor of Diagolon, Very Scary."
The Saskatchewan RCMP charged MacKenzie in July with assault, pointing a firearm, using a restricted weapon in a careless manner and mischief. Nova Scotia RCMP charged MacKenzie with 13 gun-related charges in June.
Barbara Perry, director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, said that Diagolon aims to establish a "white ethnonationalist state" which would run diagonally from the Pacific Northwest through Canada to Florida.
Perry said her group started to look into Diagolon after police in Coutts, Alta., found the group's patch on body armour while executing a search warrant. Two men arrested in relation to border blockades in Coutts in February have ties to MacKenzie and Diagolon.
Barbara
Perry, director of the Centre for Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario
Tech University, said Diagolon aims to establish a "white
ethnonationalist state" stretching from the Pacific Northwest to
Florida. (CBC)
"So the idea is ... to accelerate some form of civil war," Perry said. "[MacKenzie] feels, and some of his followers believe, that we are already in the midst of a racial war in which white men, in particular, are losing, so it's time for them to stand up and fight back.
"So they would like to 'accelerate' that civil war, if you will, and replace the current order with this white ethnonationalist state."
Perry said that while Diagolon lacks concrete plans, the group's narrative is violent and aggressive — and may inspire violence.
"The narratives themselves are dangerous because of the potential consequences," she said.
Perry said that MacKenzie may have seen Anaida Poilievre's ethnicity and gender, as well the fact that she has children with Pierre, as an opportunity to highlight his racist, misogynist narrative.
Poilievre shook hands with MacKenzie at an event in August. In a statement issued to Global News, he denied knowing MacKenzie.
"My campaign events are public. There is no registration and anyone can walk in ... It is impossible to do a background check on every single person who attends my events," Poilievre said in the statement. "As I always have, I denounce racism and anyone who spreads it."
Perry said MacKenzie also may have threatened Poilievre because of Poilievre's new status as leader of the opposition.
"So now, to the extent that Poilievre is the leader of a primary political party in Canada, he is now part of the machinery. He is, because of that leadership role, part of the state to which [Diagolon is] so opposed," Perry said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from CBC's Hannah Thibedeau and David Fraser of The Canadian Press