Smith Discusses Past With Sudbury Soldiers of Odin
Last year (2019) you may recall the "investigative journalist" at Global News who attempted to write a hit piece, linked here, about my friend and Financial Agent (for my campaign) Justin L. Smith in a weak and pathetic attempt to tie Maxime Bernier and the PPC to alleged hate groups in Canada. We will be discussing that article in the future but for now I wanted to share this story with you.
If I remember correctly it was in March 2019 that I discussed Justin's past with Justin concerning his involvement with the Soldiers of Odin in Sudbury after an ANTIFA group in Sudbury posted an inaccurate and misleading article stating Justin was an official candidate for the PPC. Basically they were attempting to do what the so-called reputable mainstream media tried six months later. In fact this biased article written by this left-wing ANTIFA group was the source of information for the reporter from Global News. Based on the emails to me and a phone call to Justin, by the reporter, we believe it might have been his only source. So much for "investigative reporting". I can use Google does that make me an "investigative reporter" too?
Anyways, Justin fielded a question from an emailer asking about his involvement with SoO and he answered their questions thoroughly and honestly. The emailer seemed satisfied by his responses. I discussed the situation with the PPC in late spring, asking if we should share the responses he gave so that everyone knew that I was aware of Justin's past. I was instructed to just leave it alone and hopefully it would not come up. Well, I wasn't naïve and I'm not even a "professional". I knew it would come up eventually and it did. My contact at the PPC told me after the Global News article came out that I was right that we should have just shared it all back in the spring.
Justin and I have since discussed the whole matter and we decided it was his right to share his side of the story as the inaccurate ANTIFA article and Global News article (that claims he/PPC did not respond when in fact he did, see below) live on in the internet. These articles will be written from our point of view and will not include any emails from the PPC. I have already shared their view on the whole matter back then. I would like to point out in a future article the sad "investigative reporting" and present Justin's official response to the article which Global News refused to print.
For now, let us continue with the email exchange between Justin L. Smith and the emailer whose identity will remain anonymous.
The point of this story is not to endorse or support nor condemn the Soldiers of Odin and/or its membership in any way. It is to tell Justin L. Smith's side of the story involving his activities in Sudbury and some of his participation with the People's Party of Canada. Both the Sudbury Against Fascism [Antifa] group and the "investigative reporter" from Global News failed to do fair and adequate research before writing their defamatory hit pieces. I felt this was unfair and I approached Justin to write about this incident over six months later.
Kevin M. Klerks
Writer/Editor
If I remember correctly it was in March 2019 that I discussed Justin's past with Justin concerning his involvement with the Soldiers of Odin in Sudbury after an ANTIFA group in Sudbury posted an inaccurate and misleading article stating Justin was an official candidate for the PPC. Basically they were attempting to do what the so-called reputable mainstream media tried six months later. In fact this biased article written by this left-wing ANTIFA group was the source of information for the reporter from Global News. Based on the emails to me and a phone call to Justin, by the reporter, we believe it might have been his only source. So much for "investigative reporting". I can use Google does that make me an "investigative reporter" too?
Anyways, Justin fielded a question from an emailer asking about his involvement with SoO and he answered their questions thoroughly and honestly. The emailer seemed satisfied by his responses. I discussed the situation with the PPC in late spring, asking if we should share the responses he gave so that everyone knew that I was aware of Justin's past. I was instructed to just leave it alone and hopefully it would not come up. Well, I wasn't naïve and I'm not even a "professional". I knew it would come up eventually and it did. My contact at the PPC told me after the Global News article came out that I was right that we should have just shared it all back in the spring.
Justin and I have since discussed the whole matter and we decided it was his right to share his side of the story as the inaccurate ANTIFA article and Global News article (that claims he/PPC did not respond when in fact he did, see below) live on in the internet. These articles will be written from our point of view and will not include any emails from the PPC. I have already shared their view on the whole matter back then. I would like to point out in a future article the sad "investigative reporting" and present Justin's official response to the article which Global News refused to print.
For now, let us continue with the email exchange between Justin L. Smith and the emailer whose identity will remain anonymous.
The point of this story is not to endorse or support nor condemn the Soldiers of Odin and/or its membership in any way. It is to tell Justin L. Smith's side of the story involving his activities in Sudbury and some of his participation with the People's Party of Canada. Both the Sudbury Against Fascism [Antifa] group and the "investigative reporter" from Global News failed to do fair and adequate research before writing their defamatory hit pieces. I felt this was unfair and I approached Justin to write about this incident over six months later.
Kevin M. Klerks
Writer/Editor
------------------------------------------
Response to Global News that they failed to publish intentionally (I say this because news articles are fluid and can be updated at any time. No updates were performed to their article with this response between its' first publishing date and, at least, today August 28, 2021).
Dear Mr. Drolet,
My name is Justin L. Smith. I serve on the PPC riding association of Huron-Bruce. I'm issuing a statement in response to a story that was published by your news outlet. Thank you for accepting this and clearing up the confusion around this issue. I'm grateful that Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, has taken the time look in this issue and it's on his advice that I'm making this statement.
I was a member of a social group in Sudbury. We were called the Soldiers of Odin. The group was a safe place to say and believe that Western values are good for society. To put our values into actions, we committed to community service. Our group was open to anyone and did not discriminate against members based on race. I naïvely believed that by publicly saying what our Canadian group stood for, we would not be painted with the same brush as other groups elsewhere with the same name. I came to see how very naive and wrong I was.
Because of the negative connotations created by other similarly named groups, I chose to disassociate myself from the Soldiers of Odin and even moved to a new city. I have been eager to be part of a movement that unifies Canadians and that desire was a large part of why I joined the People’s Party. I wanted to get involved with the Party from the start and immediately sought a position on the EDA of my new city. I was open with the riding association about my past right from the start. They gave me a chance. I had renounced my past association, I completely renounce all racism and renounce any association to any group that would promote racism. I want to see Canadians of all races, ethnicities, and religions come together as Canadians with common cause and vision. That’s what I stand for. That’s what I see in the PPC. I’m grateful that the PPC has given me a chance to work toward that and hope I can still work toward that.
As we learned from our Prime Minister this week, all Canadians have mistakes in their past.
Thank you,
Justin
Response to Global News that they failed to publish intentionally (I say this because news articles are fluid and can be updated at any time. No updates were performed to their article with this response between its' first publishing date and, at least, today August 28, 2021).
Dear Mr. Drolet,
My name is Justin L. Smith. I serve on the PPC riding association of Huron-Bruce. I'm issuing a statement in response to a story that was published by your news outlet. Thank you for accepting this and clearing up the confusion around this issue. I'm grateful that Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, has taken the time look in this issue and it's on his advice that I'm making this statement.
I was a member of a social group in Sudbury. We were called the Soldiers of Odin. The group was a safe place to say and believe that Western values are good for society. To put our values into actions, we committed to community service. Our group was open to anyone and did not discriminate against members based on race. I naïvely believed that by publicly saying what our Canadian group stood for, we would not be painted with the same brush as other groups elsewhere with the same name. I came to see how very naive and wrong I was.
Because of the negative connotations created by other similarly named groups, I chose to disassociate myself from the Soldiers of Odin and even moved to a new city. I have been eager to be part of a movement that unifies Canadians and that desire was a large part of why I joined the People’s Party. I wanted to get involved with the Party from the start and immediately sought a position on the EDA of my new city. I was open with the riding association about my past right from the start. They gave me a chance. I had renounced my past association, I completely renounce all racism and renounce any association to any group that would promote racism. I want to see Canadians of all races, ethnicities, and religions come together as Canadians with common cause and vision. That’s what I stand for. That’s what I see in the PPC. I’m grateful that the PPC has given me a chance to work toward that and hope I can still work toward that.
As we learned from our Prime Minister this week, all Canadians have mistakes in their past.
Thank you,
Justin
------------------------------------------
Answers provided by Mr. Justin L. Smith were part of an email exchange written in March 2019 and have been re-formatted into questions and answers for ease of reading.
HOW DID THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN GROUP START?
It all started in Finland where a guy created the first group to help their citizens with what they thought of as an important issue - massive immigration levels that significantly increased local crime. It was his and his group’s idea to walk around their communities to report on and deter crime. While many of the alleged perpetrators of local crime were, in fact, Muslim [Islamic], the group’s intent was inaccurately reported as “anti-Muslim” and “anti-immigrant” in the early days. In reality though the group was just trying to be more eyes on the ground to watch for crime committed by anyone not just Muslims.
As you are probably aware the media and those on the left take what they can and spin it in a negative way to make headlines. This regular patrolling combined with the founder’s arrest, led the uneducated media to assume that all people with that group name are the same and painted everyone with the same brush.
CAN YOU TELL US THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN IN CANADA AND THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN IN FINLAND?
The Soldiers of Odin in Canada did not have a webpage or anything like that when I was involved, beyond the odd Facebook page. The Soldiers of Odin in Canada were mostly comprised of disorderly groups of individuals whereby a lot of locations are on their own using the name and logo for whatever purpose they choose, while others are somewhat united. I have not been a part of the group for some time now so I can not tell you what they have been up to since 2018.
In Canada, the group was created to focus on the issues we had going on here. Originally the Finland group wanted to help their communities and we saw that as a good thing, so we adopted the same name and logo. There was no significance in the Odin name other than the two countries wanted to offer their help to their communities. We did not have a significant increase in crime due to immigration in Canada, so we mainly focused on helping the homeless and veterans.
Eventually, Finland wanted all groups with the SoO name to do what they did even if it did not make sense in our country. They (F-SoO) wanted all chapters to start sending them money for using the name. If either condition was not met, then the countries or chapters were not “Finland approved”. This had little to no effect in reality because here in Canada it was just a term or saying and not an official name for an organization.
This caused a rift within Canada because some did not want to do things the Finland way as they had different priorities than we did while others wanted to be united at any cost. A national vote took place with all the members to see what Canada would do. The voters decided to not follow Finland because our societies and priorities are quite different. But at the same time, it was decided to keep the name and logo unchanged.
This independence from Finland continued for a few months. When some individuals wanted to do things differently and were kicked out of the group because they wanted to be more aggressive instead of cleaning up neighbourhoods. Hamilton and London, for example, formed their own chapters separate from the peaceful Canadian ones. This led to the break-up of the official Canadian Soldiers of Odin (C-SoO) with many chapters re-joining the Finland organization while others operated independently continuing to support local community efforts.
(Editor: note that the “Sons of Odin” are a separate organization, see article here, while researching this story I had a hard time distinguishing the two groups, which are separate. This separation was made by Justin in another part of the email not used in this story. It appears that mainstream media has used a lot of revisionist reporting to state that the "Sons of Odin" and the "Soldiers of Odin" are one and the same, they are not).
WHY KEEP THE SAME NAME AS THE FINLAND ORGANIZATION?
Most of our members were just average people living paycheque to paycheque and could not afford to buy new shirts, hats, et cetera again, that is basically the reason we kept the same name for our group.
WHAT ARE THE FINLAND CHAPTERS DOING IN CANADA?
I am not sure what the “Finland approved” chapters are doing within their communities. I do not have a list of them so I could not even begin to try to find out today. The Soldiers of Odin Ontario was broken up when the rift occurred between the various chapters. Same as the Canadian one even though the name still exists.
WHAT DID THE SUDBURY SOLDIERS OF ODIN GROUP SPECIFICALLY DO?
The Sudbury Chapter of the Soldiers of Odin was one of the earliest chapters and I was involved for just over a year and have not been involved since 2018. During that time, the only things we did were for the community as a whole. These activities included picking up used needles where no one else would including a bushy area directly beside St. Anne’s High School. In the spring we would pick up garbage in various public parks around the city. We assisted elderly veterans with yard work and outdoor projects they could not do themselves at not cost to them. We gave out free winter clothing to anyone who wanted any during our “Warm Event” as well as Subway sandwiches and Tim Hortons coffee and hot chocolate with the cost taken out of our own pockets. We stood outside of the soup kitchen and gave away about a dozen garbage bags worth of hats, boots, coats, sweaters, et cetera. We helped with parking at the organ donor car show during the one summer without advertising or promoting our group in any way with logo clothing or printed materials.
WHAT WAS THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SOUP KITCHEN?
We volunteered at the Blue Door Soup Kitchen in Sudbury because they always needed help and they knew they could rely on us. It was twice a week during the summer we were scheduled and many times outside of that if they needed more people. They would call us up to the morning of and we would go and help them.
We had been helping them on a regular basis for close to a year hassle-free until another local group was created – Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA]. They took what they read online as true and harassed the Soup Kitchen to get us kicked out. The executives in charge of the soup kitchen said that we could continue only if we did not wear anything with our chapter name or logo on it. Since we were only there to help, we agreed without hesitation. The name and logo do not matter as much as those who need help.
That was not enough for the [ANTIFA] group. They continued to harass the soup kitchen until we agreed to stop voluntarily participating in helping those in need. Donors were threatening to pull funding if the Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] harassment continued, and we did not want that to happen to the soup kitchen.
Surprisingly not a single member of Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] filled our spots which caused the soup kitchen quite a hardship for a while because they had become dependent on our volunteerism.
WHAT DID THE COMMUNITY SAY ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SOUP KITCHEN?
We received a significant amount of support from the community, including politicians, because we did nothing wrong. Yet we still had to leave because Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] wanted us out regardless of who suffered.
Whenever one of us were around town and ran into someone who ate at the soup kitchen, they would often say that they missed us. Not once has anyone ever said that we intimidated them or made them fear us or any similar threat but Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] said that we did and, as you know, the squeakiest wheel always gets the grease.
DID THE SUDBURY SOLDIERS OF ODIN PARTICIPATE IN ANY QUESTIONABLE ACTIVITIES WHEN YOU WERE INVOLVED AS A MEMBER?
The Sudbury chapter never attended any rallies or protests and were instead quite vocal on supporting the community and inclusiveness. We had nothing against anyone who was willing to get along with any religion, race, gender, et cetera. We said that time and time again but those who believe anything, even with proof of the opposite, could not be convinced and continued to put us down. Not one member of the Sudbury chapter had ever done anything negative and yet we continued to be labeled “racist” and “anti-immigration” simply because of the name.
WHAT IS IN THE A NAME?
What is in a name? Not all “Muslims” are bad. We hear that a lot and it is true. So, if a community of people who share the identifying name of “Muslim” have some individuals who commit terrorism and other heinous acts while other individuals of the same name do not does that make the entire community bad? Are all white people racist because some white people are racist? Are all men sexist because some men are sexist? Painting everyone with the same brush is absurd and that is one of the reasons I left the group.
(Editor: It's a lot like ANTIFA, are they "protesters" as many would have you believe or are they really "domestic terrorists"? If ANTIFA groups have a couple individuals who promote violence and anarchy does that mean they are really the representation of all ANTIFA groups everywhere?)
WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE SUDBURY SOLDIERS OF ODIN GROUP?
I knew that even though the group was full of good people (Sudbury) the name would be attached to me negatively and if I wanted to pursue my career in the legal field I could not continue to be associated with them. As short as my stay was with them, however, my past participation in the group and the negative association with the name has remained with me to this day.
HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
My entire life has been to help the community from elementary school onward, volunteering wherever I lived in whatever capacity I thought was best. Whether through school functions, my church, or local charities and organizations. I gave back and continue to do so. I guess I should have been more selfish and not donated my time and effort because it has led to this, me being labeled almost every name in the book solely because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world around me.
WHY DID YOU MOVE AWAY FROM THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY TO SUPPORT THE PEOPLE’S PARTY OF CANADA?
I agree with the PPC platform entirely and it makes sense. I believe it will benefit the most Canadians instead of neglecting the majority in favour of the minority. I used to mostly agree with the Conservative platform but the PPC has more points to which I align myself. And the Scheer Conservatives are basically Liberals from before the Harper era. Both parties have moved left and now are both in favour of globalism and that is not in the best interest of Canadians. If you look at the votes cast in the last Conservative leadership race, the actions done, and the words spoken, the corruption becomes clearer. Not to mention that the Conservative Party of Canada does not have an actual platform the last time I checked. I went away from the CPC because the other members who are still members support Scheer, and, to me, have the same globalist/elitist agenda, or are at least okay with it and therefore are not pro-Canada.
DID YOU RUN AS A CANDIDATE FOR HURON-BRUCE FOR THE PEOPLE’S PARTY OF CANADA IN 2019?
I have always wanted to do my part to help as many people as I can in any capacity as I can. After Maxime Bernier created the PPC I was involved from day one. There are not many people in the riding who are interested in being involved in politics and so I put my name forth that, if the PPC wanted, I would be willing to be a potential candidate if no one else came forward. I had never been involved in politics before this because no party or leader has ever reflected my personal beliefs or morals.
I joined and helped create our Electoral District Association, and, if they wanted me, I was available. If they choose who would be the face of the PPC, if not me, there would be no hard feelings because I believe in the party and Max wholeheartedly and I will support the party any way that I can. From holding a sign in the cold weather to running the local election campaign, I am at their disposal.
IF YOU ARE NOT CHOSEN AS CANDIDATE WHAT WILL YOU DO?
Once they have chosen who they want to be the Huron-Bruce fact of the PPC I will either continue down my legal career path or put that on hold and hopefully work for them in Ottawa for the next four years. I believe that being a part of the Federal government will help the most people because everything they do has the potential to impact the entire nation.
EDITOR UPDATE: Justin L. Smith was not chosen as the official candidate for the PPC Huron-Bruce in 2019. The Anti-Racist Sudbury [ANTIFA] was informed of this error in July 2019 but after nine months still has never retracted or corrected their article. As is typical with the left it's not about "accuracy" so much as it is about labeling everyone "racist" in some sad attempt to silence them.
Answers provided by Mr. Justin L. Smith were part of an email exchange written in March 2019 and have been re-formatted into questions and answers for ease of reading.
HOW DID THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN GROUP START?
It all started in Finland where a guy created the first group to help their citizens with what they thought of as an important issue - massive immigration levels that significantly increased local crime. It was his and his group’s idea to walk around their communities to report on and deter crime. While many of the alleged perpetrators of local crime were, in fact, Muslim [Islamic], the group’s intent was inaccurately reported as “anti-Muslim” and “anti-immigrant” in the early days. In reality though the group was just trying to be more eyes on the ground to watch for crime committed by anyone not just Muslims.
As you are probably aware the media and those on the left take what they can and spin it in a negative way to make headlines. This regular patrolling combined with the founder’s arrest, led the uneducated media to assume that all people with that group name are the same and painted everyone with the same brush.
CAN YOU TELL US THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN IN CANADA AND THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN IN FINLAND?
The Soldiers of Odin in Canada did not have a webpage or anything like that when I was involved, beyond the odd Facebook page. The Soldiers of Odin in Canada were mostly comprised of disorderly groups of individuals whereby a lot of locations are on their own using the name and logo for whatever purpose they choose, while others are somewhat united. I have not been a part of the group for some time now so I can not tell you what they have been up to since 2018.
In Canada, the group was created to focus on the issues we had going on here. Originally the Finland group wanted to help their communities and we saw that as a good thing, so we adopted the same name and logo. There was no significance in the Odin name other than the two countries wanted to offer their help to their communities. We did not have a significant increase in crime due to immigration in Canada, so we mainly focused on helping the homeless and veterans.
Eventually, Finland wanted all groups with the SoO name to do what they did even if it did not make sense in our country. They (F-SoO) wanted all chapters to start sending them money for using the name. If either condition was not met, then the countries or chapters were not “Finland approved”. This had little to no effect in reality because here in Canada it was just a term or saying and not an official name for an organization.
This caused a rift within Canada because some did not want to do things the Finland way as they had different priorities than we did while others wanted to be united at any cost. A national vote took place with all the members to see what Canada would do. The voters decided to not follow Finland because our societies and priorities are quite different. But at the same time, it was decided to keep the name and logo unchanged.
This independence from Finland continued for a few months. When some individuals wanted to do things differently and were kicked out of the group because they wanted to be more aggressive instead of cleaning up neighbourhoods. Hamilton and London, for example, formed their own chapters separate from the peaceful Canadian ones. This led to the break-up of the official Canadian Soldiers of Odin (C-SoO) with many chapters re-joining the Finland organization while others operated independently continuing to support local community efforts.
(Editor: note that the “Sons of Odin” are a separate organization, see article here, while researching this story I had a hard time distinguishing the two groups, which are separate. This separation was made by Justin in another part of the email not used in this story. It appears that mainstream media has used a lot of revisionist reporting to state that the "Sons of Odin" and the "Soldiers of Odin" are one and the same, they are not).
WHY KEEP THE SAME NAME AS THE FINLAND ORGANIZATION?
Most of our members were just average people living paycheque to paycheque and could not afford to buy new shirts, hats, et cetera again, that is basically the reason we kept the same name for our group.
WHAT ARE THE FINLAND CHAPTERS DOING IN CANADA?
I am not sure what the “Finland approved” chapters are doing within their communities. I do not have a list of them so I could not even begin to try to find out today. The Soldiers of Odin Ontario was broken up when the rift occurred between the various chapters. Same as the Canadian one even though the name still exists.
WHAT DID THE SUDBURY SOLDIERS OF ODIN GROUP SPECIFICALLY DO?
The Sudbury Chapter of the Soldiers of Odin was one of the earliest chapters and I was involved for just over a year and have not been involved since 2018. During that time, the only things we did were for the community as a whole. These activities included picking up used needles where no one else would including a bushy area directly beside St. Anne’s High School. In the spring we would pick up garbage in various public parks around the city. We assisted elderly veterans with yard work and outdoor projects they could not do themselves at not cost to them. We gave out free winter clothing to anyone who wanted any during our “Warm Event” as well as Subway sandwiches and Tim Hortons coffee and hot chocolate with the cost taken out of our own pockets. We stood outside of the soup kitchen and gave away about a dozen garbage bags worth of hats, boots, coats, sweaters, et cetera. We helped with parking at the organ donor car show during the one summer without advertising or promoting our group in any way with logo clothing or printed materials.
WHAT WAS THE SOLDIERS OF ODIN INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SOUP KITCHEN?
We volunteered at the Blue Door Soup Kitchen in Sudbury because they always needed help and they knew they could rely on us. It was twice a week during the summer we were scheduled and many times outside of that if they needed more people. They would call us up to the morning of and we would go and help them.
We had been helping them on a regular basis for close to a year hassle-free until another local group was created – Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA]. They took what they read online as true and harassed the Soup Kitchen to get us kicked out. The executives in charge of the soup kitchen said that we could continue only if we did not wear anything with our chapter name or logo on it. Since we were only there to help, we agreed without hesitation. The name and logo do not matter as much as those who need help.
That was not enough for the [ANTIFA] group. They continued to harass the soup kitchen until we agreed to stop voluntarily participating in helping those in need. Donors were threatening to pull funding if the Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] harassment continued, and we did not want that to happen to the soup kitchen.
Surprisingly not a single member of Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] filled our spots which caused the soup kitchen quite a hardship for a while because they had become dependent on our volunteerism.
WHAT DID THE COMMUNITY SAY ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SOUP KITCHEN?
We received a significant amount of support from the community, including politicians, because we did nothing wrong. Yet we still had to leave because Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] wanted us out regardless of who suffered.
Whenever one of us were around town and ran into someone who ate at the soup kitchen, they would often say that they missed us. Not once has anyone ever said that we intimidated them or made them fear us or any similar threat but Sudbury Against Fascism [ANTIFA] said that we did and, as you know, the squeakiest wheel always gets the grease.
DID THE SUDBURY SOLDIERS OF ODIN PARTICIPATE IN ANY QUESTIONABLE ACTIVITIES WHEN YOU WERE INVOLVED AS A MEMBER?
The Sudbury chapter never attended any rallies or protests and were instead quite vocal on supporting the community and inclusiveness. We had nothing against anyone who was willing to get along with any religion, race, gender, et cetera. We said that time and time again but those who believe anything, even with proof of the opposite, could not be convinced and continued to put us down. Not one member of the Sudbury chapter had ever done anything negative and yet we continued to be labeled “racist” and “anti-immigration” simply because of the name.
WHAT IS IN THE A NAME?
What is in a name? Not all “Muslims” are bad. We hear that a lot and it is true. So, if a community of people who share the identifying name of “Muslim” have some individuals who commit terrorism and other heinous acts while other individuals of the same name do not does that make the entire community bad? Are all white people racist because some white people are racist? Are all men sexist because some men are sexist? Painting everyone with the same brush is absurd and that is one of the reasons I left the group.
(Editor: It's a lot like ANTIFA, are they "protesters" as many would have you believe or are they really "domestic terrorists"? If ANTIFA groups have a couple individuals who promote violence and anarchy does that mean they are really the representation of all ANTIFA groups everywhere?)
WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE SUDBURY SOLDIERS OF ODIN GROUP?
I knew that even though the group was full of good people (Sudbury) the name would be attached to me negatively and if I wanted to pursue my career in the legal field I could not continue to be associated with them. As short as my stay was with them, however, my past participation in the group and the negative association with the name has remained with me to this day.
HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
My entire life has been to help the community from elementary school onward, volunteering wherever I lived in whatever capacity I thought was best. Whether through school functions, my church, or local charities and organizations. I gave back and continue to do so. I guess I should have been more selfish and not donated my time and effort because it has led to this, me being labeled almost every name in the book solely because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world around me.
WHY DID YOU MOVE AWAY FROM THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY TO SUPPORT THE PEOPLE’S PARTY OF CANADA?
I agree with the PPC platform entirely and it makes sense. I believe it will benefit the most Canadians instead of neglecting the majority in favour of the minority. I used to mostly agree with the Conservative platform but the PPC has more points to which I align myself. And the Scheer Conservatives are basically Liberals from before the Harper era. Both parties have moved left and now are both in favour of globalism and that is not in the best interest of Canadians. If you look at the votes cast in the last Conservative leadership race, the actions done, and the words spoken, the corruption becomes clearer. Not to mention that the Conservative Party of Canada does not have an actual platform the last time I checked. I went away from the CPC because the other members who are still members support Scheer, and, to me, have the same globalist/elitist agenda, or are at least okay with it and therefore are not pro-Canada.
DID YOU RUN AS A CANDIDATE FOR HURON-BRUCE FOR THE PEOPLE’S PARTY OF CANADA IN 2019?
I have always wanted to do my part to help as many people as I can in any capacity as I can. After Maxime Bernier created the PPC I was involved from day one. There are not many people in the riding who are interested in being involved in politics and so I put my name forth that, if the PPC wanted, I would be willing to be a potential candidate if no one else came forward. I had never been involved in politics before this because no party or leader has ever reflected my personal beliefs or morals.
I joined and helped create our Electoral District Association, and, if they wanted me, I was available. If they choose who would be the face of the PPC, if not me, there would be no hard feelings because I believe in the party and Max wholeheartedly and I will support the party any way that I can. From holding a sign in the cold weather to running the local election campaign, I am at their disposal.
IF YOU ARE NOT CHOSEN AS CANDIDATE WHAT WILL YOU DO?
Once they have chosen who they want to be the Huron-Bruce fact of the PPC I will either continue down my legal career path or put that on hold and hopefully work for them in Ottawa for the next four years. I believe that being a part of the Federal government will help the most people because everything they do has the potential to impact the entire nation.
EDITOR UPDATE: Justin L. Smith was not chosen as the official candidate for the PPC Huron-Bruce in 2019. The Anti-Racist Sudbury [ANTIFA] was informed of this error in July 2019 but after nine months still has never retracted or corrected their article. As is typical with the left it's not about "accuracy" so much as it is about labeling everyone "racist" in some sad attempt to silence them.