| 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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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
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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
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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:
Fromm of course was not speaking of Canadian unity, but of unifying the radical racist right.
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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
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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.
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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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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:
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
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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:
Fromm himself seemed well in tune with the symposium’s sentiments. Excerpts
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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:
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.)
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