Inside the Far-Right Push to Influence Canadian Political Parties

Feb. 6, 2026

Editor’s note: This story includes descriptions of racist and antisemitic language.]

Over the course of a two-hour-long conference call in August, two leaders of Canadian groups that experts have described as white nationalist and eager audience members bantered about deporting 10 million people, decried the existence of mixed-race marriages and children and said they would “be happy to march millions of Punjabis into the Pacific Ocean.”

Speakers complained about Canadians with Italian, Greek and Ukrainian heritage who don’t fit their definition of a “heritage Canadian,” someone with preferably French or English background.

And the 14 speakers brainstormed about how to get mainstream political parties to help achieve their major goal of “remigration,” mass deportations of the people they judge aren’t truly Canadian. About 1,100 X users listened in, according to the Spaces dashboard for the event.

In the midst of the conversation, Othman Mekhloufi, a 22-year-old political staffer, spoke up. During the call, Mekhloufi — who was then working for a right-wing provincial party called OneBC — shared insights from what he claimed were contacts inside the Conservative Party of Canada.

“I don’t think you’re going to have the majority of Canadians ever vote for staunchly pro-deportation candidate,” he said.

“Rather, the best way to do this is going to elect a candidate who we can believe is going to get us closest to there, and who has a circle of staffers surrounding them that are going to enable deportations to happen.”

The discussion — and Mekhloufi’s contribution — were consistent with the groups’ push to shape party platforms and work toward making their views mainstream, said an expert who monitors hate groups.

The call was hosted by an X user who goes by the name Fortissax and describes himself as a “Canadian nationalist.” Participants included Alex Vriend, a figure who is openly antisemitic, has called for a violent “race war” and has made statements like “The Nazis were right.” Vriend was referred to by his online name, Ferryman, by other participants during the Spaces call. He is vice-president of Second Sons Canada, a white nationalist group that claims about 2,000 members.

Mekhloufi said policies — like calls to remove immigrants — should be advanced stealthily.

“I say politicians should always stay within the Overton window, but they should always challenge its very near ends, basically what Trump did in 2016,” Mekhloufi advised during the call, which was held on the Spaces platform on X.com.

“So don’t straight up advocate for deporting every single person that doesn’t have Canadian ancestry. Not because that may not be desirable, but because it’s not a good way to actually get into power. Because if you just lie and then you seize power — well, you can just do whatever you want afterward.”

Mekhloufi has attacked all immigration and said on X that “the U.S. military has 2.1 million uniformed personnel and a $1 trillion dollar budget. Every single member and resource should be mobilized to arrest and deport illegals alongside ICE.”

Last week, he praised mass deportations and called all immigration “poison.”

“The notion that immigration enforcement is only good when conducted against violent illegals is ludicrous. The people voted for mass deportations because the very essence of immigration is problematic. Legal or illegal, peaceful or violent — it’s all poison.”

In a now-deleted X post from Sept. 30, Mekhloufi said: “America was neither conquered nor stolen, because Indian Americans had no civilization to conquer. This continent was uninhabited until the colonists got here. Did we conquer Antarctica from Penguins or did we settle it?” In another, he said: “American Indian tribes have been the primary threat to American life since 1492.”

In an emailed response to questions from The Tyee, Mekhloufi said he was not a white nationalist and does not hold antisemitic views, adding that he has been attacked online for supporting Israel. Mekhloufi, who said he is of Middle Eastern descent, said his views on limiting immigration are not race based.

In the same correspondence, Mekhloufi referred to Aryanism — “the doctrine popularized by Nazism that the so-called Aryan peoples possess superior capacities for government, social organization and civilization” — as an example of an “edgy idea.”

In now-deleted X posts, Mekhloufi has said some ethnic groups — Indians, Pakistanis and sub-Saharan Africans — have lower IQs than Europeans and Arabs.

Although he participated on the Spaces call with the leaders of Second Sons Canada and the “Canadian nationalist” group Dominion Society of Canada, Mekhloufi said he has “never endorsed these groups” and has “never been affiliated with them.”

Mekhloufi also denied making misogynistic comments on the call.

The Tyee then asked about a comment he made about Jenni Byrne, whose management of the last federal Conservative election campaign has been criticized.

“Pierre obviously makes all the calls, and I can’t tell you why he didn’t speak about immigration. My speculation told me that they don’t want to stir controversy because they’re pussies,” he said during the Spaces call.

“That’s usually the consequence you get when you have an unmarried, childless woman running your campaign. Cough, cough, Jenni Byrne.”

Mekhloufi replied that he’s “a natalist” who believes both men and women should have produced children by age 40, because “it’s pro-civilizational, and I want civilization to survive.”

The Conservative Party of Canada did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

A researcher who studies the far right says Mekhloufi’s comments on the Spaces call shed light on the political ambitions of white nationalists in Canada and highlight the threat posed by the extreme right for Canada’s mainstream Conservative parties.

“I think that should tell the CPC leadership that doesn’t agree with mass ethnic cleansing that they need to have a serious look at the people that they work with and the future of the party,” said Evan Balgord, the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

Balgord and other researchers use the term “ethnic cleansing” to talk about the white nationalist goal of mass deportations, or “remigration,” because these groups are focused on expelling people who are not of European descent.

The Tyee obtained a recording of the Spaces call from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

Mekhloufi and political parties

In a Sept. 11 post on X that was subsequently deleted, Mekhloufi said he’s “worked for and supported” the Conservative Party of BC. The party did not respond to The Tyee’s request for comment.

According to a Conservative source who has been active in local federal campaigns, Mekhloufi worked on the campaign of Indy Panchi, a Conservative candidate for the riding of New Westminster-Burnaby-Maillardville, during the 2025 election. The source spoke with The Tyee on condition of anonymity because he fears repercussions from other party members for speaking to the press.

A photograph displayed by the right-wing website Rebel News shows Mekhloufi with Panchi and a campaign sign in the background.

Panchi declined to comment for this story and asked The Tyee to contact the Conservative party. The party did not respond to multiple requests for comment sent via email and voice mail, and Panchi did not reply to a followup message that included the photograph.

For several months Mekhloufi worked for OneBC, a provincial party that had two MLAs sitting in the B.C. legislature. Mekhloufi told The Tyee he was a contractor, not a staffer.

Concerns about his stated beliefs led to the implosion of OneBC in mid-December, with staff divisions. MLA Tara Armstrong broke with leader Dallas Brodie and left the party to sit as an Independent.

Mekhloufi said he is not currently working with Armstrong.

Asked whether he’d worked with the Conservative Party of Canada or the B.C. Conservatives, Mekhloufi said he doesn’t discuss his clients.

The political ambitions of Canada’s white nationalist movement

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s Balgord said white nationalist groups in Canada appear to be having success in recruiting new members. They’re also inspired by the hardline direction of the Trump administration on immigration and deportations.

“They think that they are closer to success than they were at this time last year, and they’re right,” Balgord said.

“We’re at a point in this country in Canada where we have the largest white nationalist movement that has ever existed in this country’s history.”

Balgord said he’s measuring the influence of white nationalist groups by audience size and ability to fundraise.

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has tracked connections between Diagolon, Second Sons Canada and the Dominion Society. Leaders from all three of those groups participated in the Aug. 28 Spaces call that Mekhloufi also joined.

Diagolon started as a loose group of social media content creators who often framed their racist and antisemitic diatribes as comedy. In 2024, the group organized an in-person “terror tour” that made stops in suburbs and small towns across Canada.

Two members of Diagolon — Jeremy MacKenzie and Vriend — have gone on to found the group Second Sons Canada, which Balgord described as a “militant” group focused on physical training.

A recent CBC investigation into Second Sons Canada found that “its leaders welcome neo-Nazis into their ranks, call the official statistics of the Holocaust the product of ‘propagandists,’ use racist slurs and say Canadian politicians should be executed.”

The CBC investigation also highlighted MacKenzie’s description of “remigration as a violent, possibly deadly undertaking involving weapons.”

Balgord described the Dominion Society as the “political wing” of the movement, but Daniel Tyrie, the co-founder of the organization, disputes that description.

“Characterizing the Dominion Society as the ‘political wing’ of other groups is a baseless and misleading claim that misrepresents our structure, mission and activities,” Tyrie told The Tyee in an emailed statement.

“We view this as an intentional attempt to undermine the credibility of a fast-growing organization whose message on national identity and remigration is resonating with a growing number of Canadians.”

Tyrie is the former executive director of the People’s Party of Canada; he founded the Dominion Society along with Greg Wycliffe, a content creator. According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Tyrie and Wycliffe frequently appear on livestreams and Spaces calls with MacKenzie and Vriend.

Tyrie told The Tyee he had appeared in various livestreams alongside MacKenzie and Vriend and did not rule out future appearances. But he said that does not equate to “organizational association or co-ordination.”

Vriend has also displayed his membership card for the Dominion Society on Telegram, with the membership number 88 — a shorthand for “Heil Hitler” used by white supremacists. The Tyee has verified the Telegram post.

While the Dominion Society presents a more polished social media image than Diagolon or Second Sons Canada, it also pushes a constant message of “remigration,” jokes about deporting South Asian people and produces nostalgic videos that depict a past Canada when a higher percentage of the country’s population was of European descent.

Numerous social media posts make it clear that the group wants to reverse decades of immigration from non-European countries.

“They’ve said very specifically that their goal is to take existing political parties and push them further,” Balgord said. “They talk about wanting to criticize and control the Conservative party into adopting racist policies.”

Balgord said OneBC is the most far-right political party to elect a representative in Canada. The party rejects Indigenous rights and title, champions social conservative causes and has called for a halt to immigration.

Using taxpayers’ money, the party recently released a film called Making a Killing, which accused First Nations governments of lying about unmarked graves being found at former residential school grounds. The film also cast doubt on the testimony from residential school survivors about the widespread abuse that happened at the institutions. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs called the film “racist misinformation.”

But Mekhloufi’s public positions posed a problem for OneBC.

In December, Brodie said it was Mekhloufi’s antisemitic comments that led her to call for his removal from the party.

She did not specify which comment she was referring to, but Wyatt Claypool, a OneBC caucus staffer who works closely with Brodie, told The Tyee it was a post from Mekhloufi that referred to “JQ,” or the “Jewish question.” Mekhloufi has denied the comment was antisemitic, saying he was just repeating a comment he’d overheard.

“I hate antisemitism. It’s the most crushing, most horrible, toxic thing that can come into a society,” Brodie told the Canadian Press in December.

Claypool said the rift happened because “Mekhloufi’s behaviour and beliefs were out of line with OneBC’s classical conservative perspective.”

“We place a high value on the truth but he saw politics as a game to be played,” he said.

Balgord pointed out that the Dominion Society has been supportive of OneBC, especially when the party talks about immigration issues.

Claypool said he doesn’t accept Balgord’s description of OneBC as “far-right.”

Balgord said that to meet the Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s definition of “far-right,” a political party, organization or individual “has to meet the condition that it harbours racism or other forms of hate that are incompatible with a multicultural democracy — such as denying or minimizing the atrocities of the Indian residential school system.”

Claypool said OneBC has never had any connections with Tyrie or the Dominion Society. 

[Top: Last August, Alex Vriend, left, Daniel Tyrie, centre, and Othman Mekhloufi, right, participated in a Spaces call to discuss how to influence mainstream Conservative parties to adopt anti-immigration policies. Photo illustration by The Tyee. Vriend and Tyrie photos are video stills from a CBC report and YouTube. Mekhloufi photo submitted.]