A judge ruled that the streamer and Diagolon influencer will be held in custody until his upcoming trial.
Peter Smith
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Source: Canadian Anti-Hate Network
A Saskatoon courtroom went from a handful of lawyers and individuals appearing in court to nearly filling with a smattering of plaid shirts, sweaters bearing a black flag with white lines, and journalists frantically writing into notepads.
Behind wood and plexiglass sat Jeremy MacKenzie, an accelerationist influencer and concept creator of Diagolon. Friday marked his first court appearance since his arrest last week on a Canada-wide warrant in Saskatchewan.
Facing four charges including assault and pointing a firearm, the 36-year-old live streamer was denied bail by Provincial Court Judge Bruce Bauer.
Security was tight during the event, with a heavy police presence in and outside of the courtroom.
We attended the hearing, but a publication ban prevents reporting on the evidence and events presented in the courtroom.
His next date was scheduled for October 13, at 9:30 am, for case management. A trial date has not yet been set.
Among the attendees of the hearing was former PPC candidate, and a perennial fixture on a number of ballots, Mark Friesen. Friesen was an early member of the streaming collective that eventually gave birth to the Diagolon community.
Despite previous claims by other streamers that Friesen ended the association due to the appearance of antisemitic guests like E. Michael Jones and Ryan Dawson, he and MacKenzie have remained friends and appear publicly together.
After the announcement of the initial Saskatchewan charges, MacKenzie did not respond to a request for comment from CAHN, 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.
Speculation initially flew within Diagolon online space that the arrests were related to recent statements by MacKenzie about Anaida Poilievre, the wife of Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre.
MacKenzie was recorded joking about sexually assaulting Anaida Poilievre during another live stream that serves as an “after party” to his own. The opposition leader responded with a statement condemning MacKenzie, adding that he would be contacting the RCMP.
“People can attack my politics, they can call me names, they can protest my ideas and what I stand for,” Pierre Poilievre said in his statement. “But threatening my wife and family is appalling and I will not tolerate it. Leave my family alone.”
MacKenzie, known online as the Raging Dissident, has faced a series of legal troubles and negative publicity over the past year.
The former member of the Canadian Armed Forces has 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 on Whycocomagh Mountain Road in Whycocomagh, Nova Scotia.
MacKenzie has since 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 two members 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."
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