The former leader of the Canadian Ku Klux Klan is apologizing for promoting views he now calls "abhorrent" and says others should "learn from my mistakes" and leave the racist movement.
James Alexander McQuirter, once one of Canada's most influential racist leaders, said he had quietly abandoned his views.
"These ideas are an anathema to me now, to such a degree that even thinking about them is abhorrent to me. When I read or think about that time in my past, it's like reading about someone else," he said.
McQuirter, 50, is the most significant figure in the Canadian racist movement ever to publicly renounce his past views.
