WATERLOO REGION — Jeffrey Shallit remembers it well.
About 100 people carrying signs marched outside European Sound Imports on a cold November day in 1992 to protest author David Irving who was speaking inside.
The British revisionist historian, who disputes aspects of the Holocaust, arrived at the King Street store with help from the Heritage Front, a neo-Nazi group aiming to set up shop in Kitchener.
German Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege, who has ties to the Ku Klux Klan, attended the event.
So too did Holocaust survivors from a tailor shop up the street and members of the city’s Christian and Jewish community.
“Obviously we were furious and puzzled as to why this kind of stuff was happening in Canada,” recalls Shallit, a University of Waterloo computer science professor.
“I had recently moved to Kitchener and I was very surprised by having that kind of thing in the town that I was living in.”
The event received national attention and added to Waterloo Region’s growing reputation as a place of interest for white nationalist groups.
That has changed. Today, police say white pride groups no longer have a major presence in these parts.
“As far as the skinheads go, they have pretty much gone away,” said John Stemmler, a sergeant with the Waterloo Regional Police intelligence branch.
“They may be coming back, but at this point we don’t have a lot to do with them. I don’t see any concern (here) at this point.”
Members from at least four white pride groups — Blood and Honour Canada, Canadian Heritage Alliance, Tri-City Skins and the Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team — called the area home four years ago.
One of Canada’s most active skinheads, Kyle McKee, also got his start here. He caused a stir in 2005 when he hung a Nazi flag from the balcony of his Kitchener home. He now leads the Calgary-based Blood and Honour.
But while the white pride scene remains strong in Western Canada, it has died down here.
“Are there still folks in Kitchener-Waterloo and elsewhere who would describe themselves as being skinheads, white nationalists or white supremacists? Absolutely,” said Len Rudner, regional director for the Canadian Jewish Congress in Ontario.
“But organizationally these folks appear to be a spent force. From what I’ve seen in Ontario … these groups appear to be in their twilight.”
Rudner credits strong police work, the dismantling of the Heritage Front — the group folded around 2005 — and effective laws in dealing with hate on the internet as playing a key role in stemming the tide.
“It doesn’t mean it can’t change,” he added.
Stemmler said Waterloo Regional Police is a member of a provincial task force dedicated to cracking down on white supremacists. The team, which involves police officers from 12 cities, regularly shares information.
He said members of white pride groups still live in the region, but he is not aware of any active groups or gatherings.
Earlier this month, two members of a Kitchener street gang dubbed True White Boy pleaded guilty to various charges including assault, theft and possession of marijuana.
During court proceedings, information came out that some of its members subscribe to a white supremacist ideology.
Police continue to monitor the group.
“These things tend to cycle and come under different names,” he said. “It’s not like skinhead nation is done.”
Still, fear exists.
Last fall, the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation and the Cambridge and North Dumfries Community Foundation released a Vital Signs report, which looked at community welfare from information gathered in 2008.
In the questionnaire portion of the document, 81 per cent, of the more than 1,000 who participated, identified hate crimes as an area in dire need of corrective action.
That same document reported 6.1 hate crimes per 100,000 people in Waterloo Region, which is 74.3 per cent above the national rate of 3.5 incidents and an 84.8 per cent increase from 2006.
“We hear the stories but people really hesitate to come forward,” said Lucia Harrison, executive director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre. “They (new Canadians) are scared of repercussions. They’re scared of the system.”
Most of the abuse is verbal, though one woman who came into the multicultural centre described being physically assaulted and insulted while walking down the street.
“I hear it enough,” said Harrison. “It’s not isolated incidents.”
Waterloo Region has seen its share of notorious hate related crimes.
In 2001, Howard Joel Munroe bled to death after he was stabbed in the heart during an altercation with a white street gang called the Slingers in Victoria Park.
About five years later, handicapped Sudanese refugee Francis Pitia and friend Salah Dawoud were swarmed in Victoria Park by 10 white men screaming racial slurs.
Pitia, who was left handicapped from polio, was beaten with his own crutch.
“There is a real tendency on the part of people in this region to not talk about racism,” said Harrison. “They pretend it doesn’t exist. We’ve always struggled with people not wanting to admit that it’s a problem here.”
Rohan Thompson, project manager at InREACH, works with youths involved with gangs, or at risk of joining one.
He says he’s dealt with one teen with an affiliation to True White Boy, but, aside from that case, hasn’t had dealings with youths with ties to white nationalist groups.
“That’s not to say that it doesn’t exist or that it’s not prevalent,” Thompson noted.
Indeed, Rudner says the Canadian Jewish Congress continues to work closely with police.
“Evil words do not always lead to evil deeds,” he said. “But they have done so often enough that we have to be very attentive to it. There are always going to be people out there who hate.”
Protesters formed a bond while uniting against Irving’s visit in 1992.
Shallit, whose dad is Jewish, wasn’t there to prevent the author from speaking. He wanted to raise awareness that some people still trumpet Nazi ideology.
And he thinks the effort was worthwhile.
After all, when Irving left town, something good happened. Hundreds of people from across Ontario flocked to Trinity United Church in Kitchener to talk about the Holocaust.
Discussions continued in schools and neighbourhoods.
“It sort of spurred more Holocaust history,” he said.
