Neo-Nazi School Bus Driver Identified

Canadian Anti-Hate Network

Source: Instagram (L)/Telegram (R)

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has identified the neo-Nazi who claimed in 2022 to have started a job driving a school bus outside Oshawa, Ontario.

First exposed in an article published by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network in 2023, Clarysha Barry used many names online: “Claudia Lives,” “Aryan Aurelia,” “Vicky Ruby Weaver”—a reference to white supremacist Vicki Weaver who was killed at Ruby Ridge—and “Mothers Against Joggers.” 

Jogger is a stand-in for the n-slur referencing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man murdered while jogging. 

Uncovering “Claudia”
 

All the accounts attributed to “Claudia” post content promoting national socialism, militant action, and extreme hate speech. There are no shortage of pro-Nazi accounts on most major social media platforms, but it was posts about Claudia’s employment and homeschooling her children with Nazi imagery that led to CAHN’s interest in her—as well as Barry’s eventual identification.

While often posts were images found elsewhere on the internet, some of them include images of Barry’s children, residence, and home life. 

In 2022, the “Mothers Against Joggers” account posted an image of a school bus outside a Hampton, Ontario, home on Instagram. 

“School starts Tuesday. Sorta hilarious that I homeschool my own kids, but drive everyone else's to school,” the post’s caption read. 

Barry, who also goes by Rysha, maintained a limited public social media presence under her real name where she uploaded images of herself, her family, and her home. Based on images posted online to those accounts, CAHN determined that Barry's residence and the one shared by Claudia are the same based on unique architectural details of the house. Images of Barry posted to those accounts also match the images posted to the various neo-Nazi social media accounts connected to Claudia. 

Claudia would regularly post about her family, including her four children and her husband, though never a clear photo of his face. “We have a family of six on my husband’s average wage…there’s NOTHING I wouldn’t do to ensure our survival,” she posted to Instagram. 

Barry’s personal social media account was identified through her relationship to another Facebook account using the name Jason Villeneuve. The Villeneuve account was selling seasonal fall and Halloween decor—marketed under the brand “88 Homestead Decor.” Among neo-Nazis, 88 means “heil Hitler.” An ad for 88 Homestead Decor had been previously posted to Kijiji by a user named “Claudia,” using the same images as the one on Facebook Marketplace.

Sources familiar with Barry’s property have noted two different school buses parked outside of the residence, both with license plates registered to the same company. Images provided to CAHN of the buses were geolocated to the same house shown in the string of connected social media accounts. 

CAHN contacted the school bus company at the address the buses are registered to, First Student, to verify if Barry is or was an employee. A representative from First Student told CAHN over email, “our company has conducted their own internal investigation, and we consider the matter to be closed.”

Follow up requests asking First Student to confirm if Barry is or was ever an employee were not answered. 
 

“Zyklon wasn’t strong enough.” 
 

Many of Claudia’s posts deny or outright celebrate the Holocaust, while others invoke violence towards people from minority groups, especially 2SLGBTQ+ people, racialized people, Muslims, and Jews. In response to a video showing a water hose being used against a man holding an Israeli flag, she asks, “Can we get one of these that expels them completely, permanently? Clearly, the Zyklon wasn’t strong enough.” 

Zyklon is a reference to Zyklon-B, a chemical compound used to kill Jews en masse in death camp gas chambers during the Holocaust. 

The Claudia account also posted propaganda images featuring the catchphrase “Total N****r Death,” a call for the extermination of Black people, and has said that comparing Black people to monkeys was “insulting to the monkeys.”

In selfies posted to her public channels, she has shown herself initiating Nazi salutes, posing with rifles, and making the “okay” hand gesture while wearing a skull mask — a popular, unofficial uniform of neo-Nazism. 

As is the case with many white supremacist social media accounts operated by women, many of her posts also revolve around “tradwife” (traditional wife) content. Food preservation, homesteading, and firearms are recurring themes, as is the promotion of homeschooling in an insular environment.

Barry’s four young children are regularly included in the propaganda she produces. Her posts indicate that she incorporates neo-Nazism in their lesson plans.

In one post she made to Instagram, she poses for a photograph while performing a Nazi salute in a park between two swing sets on either side of her, where her children are playing. Though her face is covered by an emoji, the childrens' faces are not.

Photograph from Claudia’s social media. Childrens’ images censored by CAHN.

In one post, she gives a Nazi salute with her child in her lap while riding a small tractor. The caption reads “Panzer Mode Activated.” Panzer—meaning armour—- is part of the German word for tank and typically refers to the series of tanks used by the Nazis during the Second World War.

In a separate Instagram post, we see a colourful swastika drawn on a chalkboard, alongside childlike scribbles, shapes, and a drawing of a carrot.

Image posted to Clarysha Barry’s Telegram account. Source: Telegram

Alongside one video of her child — who appears to be around kindergarten age — playing with a toy Jeep, is the caption “They grow so fast. First it’s Jeeps then it’s commies from copters. WBS (White Boy Summer).” The caption references fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime, which killed political dissidents by dropping them from helicopters mid-flight. “White Boy Summer”, which Barry follows with a sunglasses emoji and a pale, open hand emoji to signal a Nazi salute, was appropriated as a white supremacist meme in 2021.

Barry was vocal online about her reasons for homeschooling and her ideological influence on her children, often alluding to what she believes is a mass indoctrination of children by school systems. In a poem posted to social media, she said, “In school they're taught premarital sex and how to be gay / When they just want to go outside, be kids and play.”

In a recent Telegram post, she boasted that her influence had worn off on her children’s behaviour in public. She says her daughter said, “That’s gay” to a store cashier over an inconvenience.

Barry’s children also appeared in propaganda photographs used by a Canadian whites-only “Active Club”. The Active Club is one of many branches associated with American White Supremacist Robert Rundo’s media company Will2Rise. In 2022, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network exposed Canadian Active Clubs as initially being founded by the Vinland Hammerskins, a massive international Nazi skinhead network.

Specific architecture such as a homemade brick fire pit appeared in both Active Club photographs and in Barry’s social media posts as Claudia. 

Images were taken and posted online of a barbeque and overnight camp out for Active Club members and their families, including children, on her property in Durham. The event was referenced in posts recruiting potential new members.

CAHN contacted Barry through registered mail prior to publication, with confirmation of receipt. No response has been received at this time.

If you have any information about Clarysha Barry, Jason Villeneuve, or the Active Clubs, email us at [email protected]. 

With files from Dan Collen.