Tyler L. Russell, the embattled leader of the white supremacist group Canada First, is gearing up to host CFPAC, an event featuring three ex-PPC candidates, despite leaked messages showing him trash talking the party and its leadership.
Sébastien Roback
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
A day after the publication of an article exposing his group’s plan to “infiltrate” Canadian politics and create a white ethnostate in Canada by recruiting teenagers, Tyler L. Russell is pushing forward with an event in Canada’s capital.
Wednesday’s CFPAC is modelled after AFPAC, a white nationalist and Christian nationalist conference held in Florida in February 2021, and organized by white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes is the leader of the Groyper movement, and whose style, aesthetic and parlance Russell rips off, repackaging it for a Canadian audience.
Russell has worked to make his mark in the Canadian “dissident right” by hosting the “Russell Report,” an online livestream show so crude it cost him his job at a Toronto-area Urban Outfitters, and led classmates to write a petition asking for him to be expelled from Ryerson University, where he studied political science.
While AFPAC featured previously and presently elected political figures like Steve King and Paul Gosar as guest speakers, CFPAC is hosting Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, Mark Friesen and Greg Wycliffe, three failed ex-candidates of Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada.
Tyler Thompson, who is now the leader of the British Columbia Canadian Heritage Party, ran for the PPC in 2019, ranking fourth in a byelection in the riding of Burnaby South. She ran on a platform to “oppose the trans agenda” in Canada.
Friesen and Wycliffe both ran for the PPC in 2019, in Saskatoon-Grasswood and Parkdale-High Park respectively. Neither candidate earned more than a thousand votes.
The inclusion of past PPC candidates at CFPAC comes as a surprise, given statements made by Russell and his supporters about the party on their Discord server.
“Don’t be fooled by the PPC, they’re completely incapable and the people there don’t give a fuck,” said Russell to group members in the chat.
Russell also frequently refers to PPC supporters as “ret*rded boomers,” and has said that the party has been “hijacked” by “neo cons and libertarians.”
Chat members are especially critical of Maxime Bernier, who Russell says is “incapable of running a party, let alone a Twitter account.”
“Bernier needs to be challenged for PPC leadership. He’s been posting way too much cringe and his rhetoric is the opposite of what it needs to be right now. It’s almost like he has zero political instincts,” argued a member of the group, receiving support from his peers.
The Canada First Discord chat is rife with violent racism. Enemies of the group to are referred to as “future wall facers” and Russell himself has stated he is willing to do “WHATEVER it takes” to win.
Most concerningly, fascist and neo-Nazi figures -- including convicted mass murderers -- are hailed by many chat members as role models.
Mark Friesen and Greg Wycliffe both reportedly stopped collaborating with members of the Plaid Army streaming collective after its content became more overtly antisemitic, according to a previous Plaid Army livestream.
“These PPC guys, do they know what this Raging Humanist guy is talking about?” one streamer asked, referencing Jeremy Mackenzie, the most well-known member of the vlogging collective.
“I honestly think they do,” the second streamer replied.
“Once [Mackenzie] got open about it, when he was having E. Michael Jones, he was having Ryan Dawson on, I think they’re like ‘okay, respectfully, we’re out’ ... I understand Mark (Friesen) bailed, and Greg (Wycliffe), Greg’s a young guy. These are two people who left our community, and I understand that.”
E. Michael Jones is a well-known antisemitic author who includes elements of Catholicism in his writings. His work is frequently promoted in Canada First. Ryan Dawson is a prominent Holocaust denier.
Friesen did not provide an answer when asked why he stopped collaborating with Plaid Army, but chose to remain on the speakers' list for CFPAC.
A website owned by Tyler L. Russell’s father, Dave Russell, identifies the former as a member of the Plaid Army.
When reached for comment, Mark Friesen told CAHN he does not “have to agree with people and their views in order to address them,” and that “nobody feels comfortable speaking truth” because of antifascist activists.
When pressed on follow up whether he believed members of Canada First were “speaking the truth,” or whether he was comfortable speaking to a group with members who refers to Jews with antisemitic slurs, who deny the Holocaust and praise neo-Nazi mass murderers, Friesen did not respond.
Greg Wycliffe did not provide a substantial response to our request for comments. Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson did not respond to our request.
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