Posters promoting a relatively new Euro-Canadian nationalist movement have been appearing around Sudbury, as a smattering of posters from an organization known as Generation Identity have been spotted on light posts in the city.
According to the group's website the "Identitarian" movement originated in 2002, in France, but only took up roots in Canada in 2014.
Generation Identity Canada was created, according to the mission statement posted on its website, "as a response to Canada’s decaying identity, increased third-world immigration, and rising crime rates.
"We refuse to re-write history and pretend like this nation existed before European colonization, and that Canada is a 'Nation of immigrants'."
Sudbury.com reached out to the group through its Facebook page and spoke by text message with a person who refused to provide his or her name, but said they were a page moderator.
The person took responsibility for the posters and said its members are activists representing a wide swath of Canadian society united around a cause.
"We classify ourselves as an activist organization," the moderator said. "We can't speak for all our members: they are students, business owners, workers; we are diverse, but united by our beliefs."
Who is Ricardo Duchesne?
The person also said the posters were meant to promote a book by a University of New Brunswick sociology professor named Ricardo Duchesne. His connection to Generation Identity Canada is unclear, but the group seems to be big supporters of his point of view.
Duchesne holds some pretty controversial opinions regarding multiculturalism, views he has expressed in various publications and in two books, Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age (Arktos, 2017), and his most recent Canada in Decay: Mass Immigration, Diversity and the Ethnocide of Euro-Canadians (Black House Publishing, 2017).
Multiculturalism, Duchesne argues, puts this country's "Euro-Canadian population" at risk of extinction, questioning policies of mass immigration and racial diversification as undemocratic.
"The first myth this book demolishes is the claim that immigration into Canada 'enriches the country', by demonstrating that mass immigration is not only leading to Euro-Canadians becoming a small minority in their own homeland, but because of the disparity in the birth-rate, the Euro-Canadian population is likely to become almost extinct," the book's Amazon description reads.
"This book also exposes the rewriting of Canada’s history in the media, schools, and universities, as an attempt to rob Euro-Canadians of their own history by inventing a past that conforms to the ideological goals of a future multiracial and multicultural Canada."
Duchesne isn't a household name in Canada, but his name has popped up in the media. Back in 2015, he made headlines when he said Asian immigration was damaging Vancouver.
Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason penned a column about Duchesne, following the professor's comment on Asian immigration.
While he criticizes multiculturalism, Duchesne claims to be of Puerto Rican and British descent.
Anti anti-immigration backlash
While most people likely took little notice of the Generation Identity posters, they didn't go unnoticed by everyone in Greater Sudbury.
On Oct. 16, Sudbury rock band The Almighty Rhombus tweeted an image of a downtown utility pole with one of the Generation Identity posters on it, which a member of the band tried to remove.
"Pretty ridiculous that @GreaterSudbury pays people to tear down concert posters when there is racist propanganda wheatpasted to lamp poles," the tweet reads.
In a follow up tweet, the band member said he'd gone around removing as many of the posters as he could find.
Two days later, on Oct. 18, Sudbury comedian and performer Shawn McLaren took to Facebook to challenge whomever is behind the poster campaign to a live debate.
"I am looking to find a Sudbury representative for Generation Identity Canada so we can have a live debate," McLaren wrote. "Please send any contacts my way or are the 'Patriots' afraid to show their faces in public. We can do it at night time if you are more comfortable doing it when you put your posters up.
"I am 100% serious about this. If anyone who knows anyone from Generation Identity - Canada, let's set this up."
As well, in the wake of the poster campaign, a satirical Facebook page has cropped up, under the name Generation Identity Squad - Sudbury.
The Facebook page has taken some tongue-in-cheek jabs at Generation Identity Canada with posts that read, "Good morning True Believers and Jigglypuffs. Keep on Keeping on in the Face of Diversity and if someone tells you that it is wrong to be white, you keep that buzzcut tight and march on to the dulcet sounds of the alt-right. Turn up that classical banjo music and goosestep towards your glorious whitewashed future!"
Moderators of the Generation Identity Canada page have responded to the page, saying the group plans to pursue legal action and get the satirical page shut down. They claim the backlash to the posters is part of a plot by anti-fascists groups (antifa) to discredit them.
"Hi everyone, This is a notice that we are the ONLY Generation Identity Facebook page in Canada. The rest ... are pages created by AntiFa to try and deceive the public. The same person responsible for Generation Identity (Squad) Sudbury is also the same person running Sudbury Soldiers of Odin," said an Oct. 20 Facebook post.
"We will not name them as there will be a pending lawsuit. We have our information on the people responsible for this, and are completely aware of who is doing it. We will have our lawyer prepare a cease and desist, but for the time being please be aware that it's not an account/page run by any member of Generation Identity Canada. This is the only page to be trusted for anything relating to Generation Identity Canada."
The Generation Identity Squad Sudbury Facebook page remains active, and posts have been made as recently as 10 a.m. on Oct. 26.
When contacted by Sudbury.com, the person who runs the satire page said the goal is to intercept Generation Identity's followers and, hopefully, get them to think differently.
"Well I'm not sure they have much grounds for shutting down this little page. We haven't used any of their material, and I've altered the title enough to hopefully avoid that kinda thing," Sudbury.com was told. "I think the idea of this page is to intercept their followers, who will see posts promoting the irony of white supremacy. It's comical, it's sad, but maybe one kid who accidentally stumbles on this page will be able to give their head a shake."
Generation Identity Canada continues to post to Facebook as well. An Oct. 25 post was in response to newly released census data, stating that one-fifth of Canada's population are immigrants.
Greater Sudbury is seeing a similar trend, as the immigrant and visible minority population is on the rise, while still lagging behind other major cities.
"This is the result of our parents generation," the post reads "The boomers are responsible for this mess, and it's OUR #Generation that must save this country from seemingly inevitable collapse. Don't be known as the generation that didn't stop it."
