Controversies
In 1999, 17 members of the Northern Alliance, including Bergmann and Tyler Chilcott, received letters from London's police force, describing the Northern Alliance as an "extreme right wing" group, and "requiring" the group members to appear at police headquarters to clarify their beliefs. The members refused to comply, and Bergmann and Chilcott took the letter to the leaders of the Freedom Party of Ontario. Bergmann and Chilcott were not charged with any offence, so party president Robert Metz decided to take up their cause as a free speech issue. Lloyd Walker, then-leader of the Freedom Party, requested that the Solicitor General of Ontario, David Tsubouchi, provide a list of "extreme" political beliefs that could result in such police action.
On December 3, 1999, the London Free Press, using information from Detective Superintendent Dave Lucio, published an article describing the Northern Alliance as "urban terrorists", and listed Bergmann as the group's leader. Bergmann launched a civil suit against the paper, based on the article and a follow-up piece published the next day.
During the 1999 controversy, Bergmann claimed that the Northern Alliance was not a formal organization, and denied that he held any official leadership position. Others have cast serious doubts on these claims and have argued that Bergmann deliberately downplayed his group's racialist beliefs in an attempt to gain mainstream credibility. In mid-2000, Bergmann organized a "Straight Pride" parade in London and Toronto, as a hostile response to the cities' Gay Pride parades. On December 14, 2003, an article in the Toronto Star described the Northern Alliance as "an especially poisonous hate group".
Jason Ouwendyk and the Northern Alliance are the subject of a complaint made to the Canadian Human Rights Commission by Richard Warman who has successfully taken several other far right figures to the Commission.
Read more about this topic: Northern Alliance (Canada)