Kellie Leitch Among The Haters

Forget the alleged nazi-era gun.  Her meeting with Ron Banerjee's Rise Canada and other assorted nutjobs is probably the more important story.  My readers will know Ron; he is let us say special. His greatest hits can be found through this link.

Criminal Complaint Filed Against Ron Banerjee

...for acting up at Ford Fest.  Don't have details as yet, other than its been filed with 41 Division, but it is more than a rumour.  Will update when I hear more.

Is That Ron Banerjee Choking The Gay Protester At Ford Fest?

Sure looks like it, and the folks at ARC Canada have a clearer shot, and links to video of the guy in the picture yelling anti-gay slurs.

Ron Banerjee, if you don't know, is both the leader and a large portion of the membership of Canadian Hindu Advocaacy (CHA), a hard right group of at least one Hindu (Ron) and maybe one or two other guys, also presumably Hindu.  He's done some pro-Ford proselytizing before.

Now, the guy really, really looks like Ron...here's another shot:

And even a few of his usual allies think its him:

And I hear a few reporter-types have been trying to get hold of Ron.  But it hasn't yet been confirmed as far as I know.  For my part, I've emailed one of CHA's contact email for a response, and received none.

PS.  Here's a few undisputed shots of  Ron for comparison..

Who Is Behind Next Week's Pro-Ford Demo

...the "Stop the bullying:  it will get better for Rob Ford" thingy?  It's Dharminder Kumar, who is either the other member of Ron Banerjee's group  Canadian Hindu Advocacy, or, as some believe, a sock puppet for Ron Banerjee himself.  So you know the event, like so many CHA protests, will be a big...big success.

To get an idea of the kind of folks who might show up, its useful to note the CHA's endorsement of CIR (the Canadian Immigration Report).  CIR were the folks  invited to speak, and then booted from, a recent meeting of  the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, basically because they called the Nazis a great bunch of fellows.

Might be worth showing up at this thing with a camera, to see if one of the Ford's appears and gives everybody a hug.

PS.  In regards to CIR.  The Lussiers, who run the website, keep a very low profile.  One thing that seems clear, though,is that Julien Lussier is not, as he has claimed to be, a lawyer.  Or at least he's not the Que. lawyer with a similar sounding name.

Ron Banerjee: Two Man Band Or One Lonely Hindi And His Sockpuppet Army?

This post, from GridTO, implies that the group Canadian Hindu Advocacy, led by Ron Banerjee,  consists entirely of Ron Banerjee.  Me, I've always assumed that Ron had exactly one  follower by the name of  Naresh Patel, pictured below to the right:

Or was this just some poor sap who wandered onto the scene and got gestured towards by Ron?

Walk Your Dog In Front Of Mosque Day A Largely Dogless Failure

Hardy Weinberg, from the comments:

I know I have been trolling their facebook page a tad too much (it is actually quite fun, and Ron mentioned me on one of his interviews as a "known leftist"). 

It appears you and everyone else was right. About 10-20 people showed up, ironically without dogs. No one from the JDL showed up (probably cause the event was promoted on Stormfront). About 50 or so muslims showed up with dogs to counter.

Long story short there are a few discussions on the facebook page discussing how much of a failed event this was, with our friend Ron Banerjee claiming victory.

Oh and beyond Banerjee and Dharminder, it seems their good friend Mark Harding and Eric Brazau also attended. :)

Dharminder is the other half of Canadian Hindu Advocacy; if Ron is the "leader", he is presumably  "the membership".  Mark Harding is this guy.  Eric Brazau is apparently this fellow.  Doesn't sound like there was any media coverage, and in any event Ron is already planning his next act of idiocy.

Note To Toronto Media And City: Walk Your Dog In Front Of Mosque Day Still Appears To Be On

Judging by its Facebook events page, it has, unfortunately, not died under the weight of its own stupidity. Picking a local mosque  at random as to execute a stunt designed to do nothing but piss off the local muslim population seems particularly deranged at this juncture in history, but Ron Banerjee from Canadian Hindu Advocacy  is ready to rock.  Over 300 people say they will attend, but of course these are Facebook people so who knows how many will really show?  It might not take many to create a scene of ugliness.

Canadian Hindu Advocacy Kicks Teh Crazy Up A Notch

A few weeks back, Queen's Parked hosted Toronto's annual Al Quds day event.  This is where a bunch of middle eastern types get together and protest the Israeli occupation of Palestine, wave signs, and chant "Death to...!" various nations.  In the past, some of the speakers may or may not have strayed over the line into overt antisemitism, but this year the attendees kept it relatively clean. In fact, if you click through the link above, it was the pro-Israeli counter protests who seemed  unable to restrain themselves.  Certainly, they were the ones who had most run-ins with the nice policemen providing event security.

One of the folks arrested was a Jewish fellow named Alan Einstoss, who showed up with his 165 lb bull mastiff and led it into the (mostly Muslim) crowd, insisting on his right (as a Canadian dammit!) to walk his humongous dog wherever he damn well pleased.  Of course the police stepped in and hauled him away, but not before some alleged pushing and shoving took place and not before the dog, who really does seem to be a gentle creature, allegedly got kicked.  I say allegedly, because I am not sure I see anything that is clearly a push or a kick on the vid through the link.

What is clear, though, is that this alleged outrage against Canadian dogdom must be avenged (or the terrorists have already won!), and who but Ron Banerjee and Canadian Hindu Advocacy have stepped in to do the avenging:

...in response, a group called Hindu Canadian Advocacy, (a group with two known members, Ron Banerjee and Dharminder Kumar, who both maybe one in the same person) are organizing on Facebook a “walk your dog in front of the mosque day,” to be held on September 14th, in front of the Salahuddin Mosque on 741 Kennedy Road, between 4:30pm and 7:30pm. 

I don't how they picked their mosque.  Maybe randomly.  Or maybe Ron is travelling exclusively by public transit these days and needed  a place close to a major bus line.  Again, I don't know.  In any case, the event facebook page  indicates that about 250 people plan to attend, and the mosque administrator has indicated that he may ask for government protection.  Also worth noting: the lads from Stormfront may send a contingent:

So just a quick note to Ron and Dharminder: if you see some pasty-faced bald dudes in leather outside the mosque, they're not going to be able to tell the difference between you and the Muslims. And even if you explain that you're Hindu, they won't get the distinction.

If there is anything mildly encouraging to say about all this, its that the Canadian wing of the Jewish Defence League seems to be staying clear.  Let's hope Meir and the gang find something better to confront that day.

Free Speech Throwdown: Warman Vs. Des Rosiers

I attended the Freedom of Speech and Hate Speech in Canada debate held by CIJA last night, pitting Richard Warman against Nathalie Des Rosiers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.  I intended to live-blog the event with my new, incredibly sexxxy Acer Iconia, but the place didn't have wifi, so these remarks are just off the cuff.

And I won't say much about the debate itself, because frankly I'd heard most of it before.  RW was thorough and logical in his responses, and most of his jokes worked.  Des Rosiers was passionate, but I found her vague in places.  Her objection to S13 being that someone's right to free speech somewhere might get chilled somewhat some day...though she couldn't point to concrete instances of this actually having happened.  My impression is that the majority of the room was in Warman's corner.

I chatted briefly with Meir Weinstein, who is a civil enough fellow in person.  If I were to summarize his current views, it is that the white supremacist movement has been entirely supplanted by radical Islamists as a threat to the Canadian Jewish community (mostly by being a threat to Israel), and that really the latter group are the only ones worth pursuing these days.  I think he's dead wrong, or at least that it isn't an either/or (but not both!) proposition.  And I don't see why he would want to see S13 discarded as one of the tools in the tool-kit for fighting hate, whatever the source of that hate.

As a side note, Meir and the gang (including possibly a small contingent from the Canadian Hindu Advocacy) will be driving up to Quebec later this month (the 26th, I think) to protest Huntingdon Mayor Stephane Gendron's recent remarks on the Israel/Palestine conflict.  These are the latest in a series of inflammatory statements by the fellow, and a few have clearly strayed over the line into Anti-Semitism.  More power to Meir and Co., then, but be careful--don't get yourselves lynched out there in the back-country!

Gary Harding, the only Canadian to be convicted of hate-mongering under the criminal code, was also in attendance.  And, minus the beard, he looks astoundingly like Dr. Dawg.  And that's not a joke or an attempt to insult the Dawg; Harding even had the same style of hat.  I almost went up and said hello, but noticed a mad gleam in his eye (Dawg also has a gleam in his eye from years of NDP indoctrination, but its a slightly different gleam.  That's how I could tell the difference).  I didn't catch much of what Harding said to the people around him; however, a couple of them looked as though they wanted to change seats but were too polite.

It doesn't seem like anyone from Free Dominion showed up, through apparently several of them watched via webcast.  That's a pity, because  there was a FreeD guy sitting next to me at the Lemire hearing whose name, and a DNA sample, I wanted to collect this time out for inclusion on my personal enemies list. 

Went out for drinks later with Bernie Farber and other notables from the old CJC.  Almost all of our discussion was ruled officially "off the record", and will remain so, because I don't want to get sued nine ways from sideways.  However, the general sense seemed to be that this was all window dressing and, no matter where CIJA eventually comes down on the issue of section 13 (they're currently fence-sitting), its gone which--given how hard it is to get the police to act on a hate speech complaint via the criminal code--means Canada will have no viable legal means of combating hate speech.  There have been hints dropped that, as a replacement, the Tories will move to make the criminal code provisions easier to use, but nothing concrete so far.  In any case, we shall see.  There will be a fight in the HOC over Storseth's bill to repeal the measure; so far nobody from the NDP or Liberals has come out in support.  And surprises can happen, even in a majority parliament.

Finally, Ron Bannerjee of the Canadian Hindu Advocacy was apparently in attendance, but I did not meet him.  Which is also a pity: one of my readers recently commented that the guy was an honest to goodness porn star, which remark I deleted as possibly defamatory.  Maybe Ron could clear this up, though.  If its true, my hat is off.

Cracks Appear In Multi-Faith Coalition

"Multi-Faith Coalition" are what the folks protesting Friday prayers at Valley Park Middle School.  Looks like they have already started to come unravelled, or at least some elements within the coalition are having Ron Bannerjee Problems:

No word on whether the CHP has disassociated itself from the CHA (Canadian Hindu Advocacy), because the latter group is really just Bannerjee and some old guy.  No word either on whether they also want to dissociate themselves from any Bannerjee sock-puppets. 

Valley Park Middle School Update: Canadian Hindu Advocacy Vows More Protests!

 And their leader, Ron Banerjee, doesn't care whose prayers get interrupted:

“We’ll picket in front of the school when they begin praying. Let’s see how much praying they can do with our loudspeakers and hundreds of people there. We want to make it clear we don’t approve of prayer and gender apartheid inside the school. If our loudness disrupts their prayers, then so be it.”

Firstly, since Banerjee managed to scare up all of a single elderly hindi at the last protest, I question his noise making abilities (although not his ability to blow smoke).  Secondly, you would think that, whatever your opinion of the school's attempts at religious accommodation, actually disrupting the prayers of 10 year old kids would be considered dirty pool.  But Ron Banerjeee doesn't think that, because Ron Banerjee is a dick.

On a more civilized note:

The Toronto wing of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) issued a statement supporting the accommodation of Muslim prayers. “School space for prayer on a voluntary, extra-curricular basis, is included in the principle of religious accommodation which Ontario school boards are required to honour under Ministry of Education guidelines,” CIJA stated. “Reasonable religious accommodation, which is enshrined in human rights legislation across the country, benefits all faith communities, including the Jewish community. The absence of reasonable religious accommodation would negatively affect Jewish students and those of other faiths. School boards should closely monitor religious accommodation activities taking place on their property and all such activities should be consistent with the values of the board.”

Expanding on that position, Howard English, vice-president of the Greater Toronto region of CIJA, said reasonable religious accommodation “benefits the Jewish community tremendously. It allows for absences on religious holidays and for voluntary extra-curricular Jewish heritage programs in schools as well.”

However, English added the TDSB “has the responsibility to monitor any kind of extra-curricular activities.” He suggested that it might require having an Arabic-speaker observe the prayers.

I am told the CIJA is what the now defunct CJC has become.  Nice to see that the new org. has some of the same progressive tendencies as the old.

Macleans Sinks To New Low

...publishes Ron Banerjee, one half of the infamous Canadian Hindu Advocacy.  Kenneth Whyte, you must be so proud.