Far-right blight

A far-right canvassing push in Manitoba this month is raising concerns among Winnipeg residents.

Stickers promoting Nationalist-13, a men’s-only neo-Nazi group also known as NS-13 based primarily in Hamilton, Ont., have appeared in Winnipeg and parts of southern Manitoba. The stickers bear national socialist branding and messages such as “White Man, Fight Back” and “White Community, Political Action, Training and Fitness.”

Winnipeg writer Jess Woolford recently encountered an NS-13 poster on Pembina Highway.

“It was appalling,” Woolford said. “It has the Nazi death heads covering people’s faces. It was pretty disturbing to come across this … I just didn’t expect to see it so blatantly displayed in my neighbourhood.”

Tanveer Sharif, who came across NS-13 posters in his West Fort Garry neighbourhood with his son, hopes police are closely monitoring the situation.

“Canadian society is a society of tolerance, accepting each other and accepting diversity. If these kinds of posters are going up, that definitely doesn’t reflect most of Canadian society, so I’m definitely concerned,” Sharif said.

In recent weeks, NS-13 posted about spreading recruitment material in Steinbach and Winnipeg on its Telegram account, an encrypted communication app where the group has more than 4,000 followers.

In a post on the r/Winnipeg subreddit, a number of residents expressed dismay at the propaganda blitz and documented themselves removing posters and stickers.

NS-13, whose slogan is “folk, family, future,” touts itself as an “active club.” According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks extremism across the ideological spectrum, active clubs are white-nationalist cells that present themselves as fitness-focused organizations. On the fitness side, they primarily serve as mixed-martial-arts training programs and fight clubs.

Active clubs have global presence with a comparatively high representation in Canada, according to a 2026 Public Safety Canada assessment.

“There’s violence inherent in the active-club model,” said Evan Balgord, executive director for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, one of the country’s leading watchdogs for far-right extremism.

“The ideology is to prepare to be able to use violence. (And) the white-nationalist movement in Canada is the largest it has ever been.”

Ontarians Matthew Althorpe and Kristoffer Nippak, who were arrested in 2023 on terrorism-related charges after an RCMP investigation, were connected to the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen organization and involved in Canada’s first active clubs.

Both were convicted in the past year. Since 2024, at least eight other active club-linked men have been charged with violence and terrorism-related offences in the U.S. and Sweden.

The Winnipeg Police Service directed questions regarding the posting of recruitment material to the RCMP, which would not comment on recent NS-13 or active-club organizing in Manitoba in order “to protect the integrity of our criminal investigations and preserve our ability to investigate.”

Michael Nesbitt, a law professor at the University of Calgary and fellow with the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic studies, said that while the Atomwaffen Division was designated a terrorist entity by the federal government, it does not necessarily mean separate neo-Nazi groups or active clubs in Canada are engaged in crime just because they share ideology and organizational models.

Criminal liability depends on their conduct, such as committing or planning terrorist activity or wilfully promoting hatred — extreme vilification and detestation — against identifiable groups, he said.

“If you’re in a free and democratic society and you want to protect that society, you have to look to the values of the society that you’re protecting. And two of those that we hold really dear are freedom of association and freedom of speech,” Nesbitt said. “(But) some ideas become so despicable, violent and hurtful to the very groups that we are trying to protect through elections and free speech and free association that they can no longer be tolerated.”

In 2024, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network undertook an investigation to expose members of a small group called the Manitoba Active Club (MAC). The club’s primary social media channel went dormant not long after the findings were published.

In recent weeks, the Free Press discovered NS-13 is using an account with the same name — “White Power Vortex” — as MAC on Telegram for interviewing prospective NS-13 members.

Interested applicants go through a vetting process that includes a questionnaire assessing their views about national socialism, their martial-arts skills and whether they have non-white children.

Balgord said NS-13 is part of a growing ecosystem of white-nationalist groups in Canada with overlapping, sometimes competing, networks. NS-13 is among the most ideologically extreme but also the “least professional,” he said.

The Dominion Society of Canada, a more public-facing far-right group, has also had a recent presence in Winnipeg.

The non-profit, based in Ottawa and co-founded by Daniel Tyrie (former executive director of the People’s Party of Canada), claims to have 3,000 members since its establishment last year and presents itself as a Canadian nationalist organization.

The group describes itself as non-partisan, though it has documented associations with prominent “white advocates” such as Jared Taylor and Second Sons co-founder and Nazi apologist Alex Vriend, who was reportedly issued a special Dominion Society membership card numbered 88 — a common code for “Heil Hitler.”

“I think that obviously organizations like the Dominion Society and Second Sons and the community of Diagolon are all complementary of another,” Dominion Society co-founder Ken Jones said in 2025.

Its website section on “remigration,” a core plank of its agenda, provides a rough policy blueprint for deporting five to nine million people, including permanent residents and Canadian citizens born in Canada to non-Canadian parents.

Earlier this month, approximately 50 students at the University of Manitoba called for a ban of the Dominion Society from campus after the group distributed posters promoting remigration at the university.

A U of M spokesperson confirmed posters that had been put up “without institutional approval,” but they “do not intend to pursue campus ban.”

In early September, the Dominion Society shared a video to social media of an affiliate climbing a ledge on campus, taping a Dominion Society poster to a pole and describing himself as a “strong white man” and calling for “remigration.”

Balgord said the Dominion Society and NS-13 are key currents of a broader far-right surge in Canada but assesses their respective challenges differently. He’s skeptical the Dominion Society, to whom the more-extreme NS-13 is hostile, is connected with local NS-13 activity.

“The Dominion Society wants to look respectable so it can build political power and enact mass deportations,” he said.

While the Anti-Hate Network’s past investigation into active clubs in Manitoba only identified a handful of participants, Balgord argues even a small number of extremists pose an “ever-present” threat of vigilantism.

He worries institutional efforts to address white nationalism in Canada have not increased in proportion to the movement’s growth.

The RCMP spokesperson said the national police service “is actively monitoring the rise of hate-motivated crime and incidents across the country,” as part of its scrutiny of “ideologically motivated violent extremism” across the political spectrum.

Nesbitt also recognizes a rising tide of extremism in Canada, but remains positive in his assessment of the institutional response.

“In general, Canada has done an excellent job on this. (But) it continues to be a debate,” he said. “Courts continue to deal with it thoughtfully to try to find the right lines between public safety and protecting our values.”

— with files from Morgan Modjeski

conrad.sweatman@winnipegfreepress.com