Activism
Fromm was an admirer of Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, but changed his views after coming across the writings of Barry Goldwater.
In 1967, as a student at the University of Toronto's St. Michael's College, Paul Fromm co-founded the Edmund Burke Society with Don Andrews and Leigh Smith; and also founded its student wing "Campus Alternative". The Edmund Burke Society was a right-wing anti-communist group that agitated against prominent left-wing movements. The group would often disrupt, sometimes violently, left-wing rallies and events. The group's main focus was opposition to the New Left and other left-wing tendencies that the Edmund Burke Society associated with communism. In 1970, the group disrupted a speech by William Kunstler, resulting in the Chicago Seven's lawyer drenching Fromm with a pitcher of water. A melee between Edmund Burke Society members and Kunstler's supporters ensued, and Fromm was knocked unconscious to the floor.
With the support of members of the Edmund Burke Society, Fromm was elected president of the Ontario Social Credit Party in 1971 and was able to have other EBS members elected to the party's executive. Three Social Credit candidates in the 1971 Ontario election were avowed "Burkers".
As the New Left movement waned, Edmund Burke Society members turned their attention to issues of race and immigration and became increasingly attracted to white supremacist ideas. In February 1972, the group renamed itself the Western Guard. In 1972, after having lost the Social Credit Party presidency to Dr. James McGillvray, Fromm led a successful attempt by the Western Guard to take over the Ontario wing of the Social Credit Party of Canada. The national executive of the national Social Credit Party declared membership in the Western Guard "incompatible" with membership in the party and this led national Social Credit leader Réal Caouette to place the Ontario organization under trusteeship in order to counter Fromm's activities.
In May 1972, Fromm was the opening speaker at a Western Guard banquet honouring Robert E. Miles, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who became a leading ideologue in the Christian Identity movement. Fromm, Overfield and several others resigned from the Western Guard in May 1972, immediately after the Toronto Sun published an article on the group, which included information about the banquet. Fromm's departure left the leadership of the Western Guard in the hands of Don Andrews. Fromm claimed in a 1973 letter to the Toronto Star that he left the Western Guard "because of a growing radicalization of its politics and the irresponsibility of some of its activities." Later, he denied ever having been a member of the Guard saying he "never had any connection" with the organization. When confronted with his 1973 letter, he dismissed it as "a matter of semantics".
On August 4, 2008, Fox News interviewed Fromm, in relation to the prosecution of right-wing Canadian author Mark Steyn. The Southern Poverty Law Center criticised Fox for identifying Fromm only as a "Free Speech Activist".
In 2010, Fromm organized small protests across the country against the admission of a boat load of Tamil refugees arriving on the MV Sun Sea. In August he led a small protest in Calgary with members of the Aryan Guard outside of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's constituency office which "so terrified the receptionist that she locked the door and would not accept Mr. Fromm's delivery of a letter until police arrived." He also organized a small protest with Doug Christie in Esquimalt, British Columbia where the boat was docked and also led small pickets later in the month in Ottawa and Hamilton.
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