Tracking Canada’s fascist fight clubs

By Eric Szeto, Ivan Angelovski, Christian Paas-Lang, Grant LaFleche and Jordan Pearson

In public parks, gyms and martial arts clubs — where children take classes — some of Canada’s most notorious white supremacists are preparing for violence.

The members of these fight clubs, known in white nationalist communities as “active clubs,” are hiding in plain sight. As part of their recruitment and online propaganda, they post videos of their training sessions, taking care to hide their faces and obscure their locations.

But a months-long CBC visual investigation, in collaboration with The Fifth Estate, reveals exactly where some of these groups are training.

“It's f–king unacceptable,” said Kevin Mans, the owner of Niagara BJJ in Welland, one of the martial arts studios CBC identified. “I have built a team that is pluralistic… these guys are scum.”

Active clubs are part of a decentralized white supremacist and neo-Nazi network that has grown globally in recent years, increasingly moving from online forums to real-world training groups and anti-immigration protests.

'Active clubs' are all over Canada. What are they?

Active clubs bill themselves as defenders of Canada’s European roots offering a path to community and fitness. But some experts regard them as the fastest-growing extremist threat in Canada.

These are people that in many cases are training for what they believe is to be an upcoming race war.

“On the surface level, they are recruiting people that are interested in getting in shape and learning martial arts,” said Mack Lamoureux at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a U.K.-based think-tank dedicated to studying authoritarianism, hate and extremism.

“The minute you peel back even the slightest layer of this onion, it becomes far more insidious. These are virulent white supremacists. These are people that in many cases are training for what they believe is to be an upcoming race war.”

There are 187 active clubs in 27 countries, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, with several in Canada. One of the most prolific is the Hamilton-based Nationalist-13. More recently, a group called Second Sons has spread across Canada, which experts say is an active club in all but name.

White nationalism's evolution
Canadian active clubs "have very, very deep connections with other far-right and extremist organizations,” said Lamoureux.

These include groups like the Canadian Proud Boys and the notorious Atomwaffen Division, which has been linked to five killings in recent years.

Both groups were listed as terrorist organizations by Public Safety Canada in 2021, and disbanded in Canada shortly afterward. However, they remain active internationally with Canadians still involved, and some of their members dispersed into active clubs.

In a 2023 terrorism investigation, the RCMP arrested two Ontario men for their roles in creating recruiting videos for Atomwaffen. The RCMP concluded “many former Atomwaffen Division members joined Active Club Canada.”

Active Club Canada, which the RCMP “observed performing combat training exercises in local community parks,” is now defunct. But it was a precursor to current active clubs like Nationalist-13.

The RCMP also said members of Active Club Canada had ties to a violent skinhead gang known as the Vinland Hammerskins. In 1993, three Canadians affiliated with the Hammerskins were found guilty of murdering a Black man in Texas.

Private gyms

CBC spent months collecting and analyzing clues in social media posts to locate and identify the exact parks and gyms where members of Nationalist-13 (also known as NS13) and Second Sons trained, and confirmed them by visiting locations in person. CBC discovered these groups were often training in gyms or martial arts studios that also cater to children and a diverse clientele.

CBC’s visual investigations team used resources such as Darkside and OSINT Industries — searchable databases that include information pulled from the open web and past data breaches — to help identify and locate various active club and Second Sons members.

Members of NS13 and Second Sons have attempted to keep the images online anonymous by blurring or obscuring their faces. (CBC did not edit any images to hide the identities of group members.) Take this one, for example.

However, in the screengrab from an NS13 video on the left, there's a boxing glove on the wall next to the person skipping. By searching gyms in the Hamilton area, the CBC team located that same boxing glove on the wall of a local branch of Amazing Fitness, pictured on the right.

Another example: In a screenshot of an NS13 video on the left, there are two distinctive windows above the boxing ring. The same windows can be seen in the Amazing Fitness gym, on the right. (CBC blurred the faces of the patrons, who are not with NS13.)

As well, one of NS13’s most prominent members, Brandon Lapointe, could be identified by the tattoos on his arm at Amazing Fitness.

Lapointe can be seen in other NS13 images with the same tattoos. Photos also show him with the same tattoo and shorts. According to Facebook and Telegram posts provided by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Lapointe is seen wearing Proud Boys clothing in multiple images.

Lapointe did not respond to CBC’s request for comment.

When CBC visited the gym, John Moran, the manager at Amazing Fitness, said he didn't know this was happening. He said in a statement afterward that “we have no affiliation whatsoever with these individuals or their ideology, and we categorically reject any form of hate or discrimination.”

CBC also identified two Brazilian jiujitsu gyms in southern Ontario used by Second Sons. Here, Second Sons members pose at one of the gyms. Alex Vriend, seen in the middle, is an open white supremacist and was a prominent member of the far-right group Diagolon. Vriend has spoken publicly about his connections with Nationalist-13.

CBC reached out to Vriend through Second Sons but did not receive a response.

When CBC revealed Second Sons had trained at his facility and used it to promote their cause, Rob Barham, the owner of Hammer BJJ, said, "I don't affiliate myself with … any sort of white supremacy groups."

“I have a firm policy that I don't want those types of behaviours or those types of energies in this place,” said Barham. “I'm trying to protect that and trying to foster something good for the kids of the community that can come here and better their life.”

Primo has frequently posted demeaning comments about immigrants and Jews, shared Nationalist-13 posts and recently wrote "Make Canada White Again” on his X account.

Primerano did not answer questions about his involvement in Second Sons, and told CBC News in a statement that he did not want to be contacted about this story.

Neo-fascist clubs

Active clubs tend to be male-focused groups that are proactive in promoting their white supremacist ideals — ranging from public protests to stickering campaigns to social media posts. There is an expectation the current political order will be swept aside, potentially by force, for a new white-focused society.

Behind rallying cries of “tribe and train” and “folk-family-future," active clubs are coded — sometimes explicitly — with the symbolism and language of white nationalism. Antisemitic and anti-immigrant themes are common in their social media feeds, as is Nazi iconography.

When members of Nationalist-13 post training photos, for instance, they hide their faces with the Totenkopf, the grinning death mask used by the Nazi SS. They even celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, calling him “one of the greatest men to ever live,” and look forward to realizing his “vision.”

These kinds of social media posts are not innocuous, said Richard Moon, a professor of law at the University of Windsor. They may in fact be illegal.

“I think a lot of what's said in the post that you provided me with would constitute hate speech under the Criminal Code,” said Moon.

In the last few months, NS13 has moved to become more public than ever before. Clad in all-black uniforms and masks, they joined members of other active clubs in anti-immigration protests in Toronto, London and Hamilton, holding banners calling for “mass deportations.”

NS13 did not respond to CBC’s request for comment.

It just goes to show how manipulative these groups are, that they are going to lie about what they're doing.

Mack Lamoureux, Institute for Strategic Dialogue
Second Sons, meanwhile, is an “active club in everything except name,” said Lamoureux.

It promotes itself as a fitness-based fraternity based on European culture. But unlike NS13, there is no Nazi iconography in Second Sons' internet content. Beyond its use of the Red Ensign, the group alludes to the Great Replacement, the conspiracy theory that white people are being driven to extinction.

Second Sons spun out of Diagolon, which the RCMP has labelled an “extremist, militia-like organization.”

CBC reached out to Second Sons via the group’s email address and received a response from Morgan Guptill, partner of Diagolon founder Jeremy MacKenzie. Guptill's email signature referred to her as “Queen of Diagolon.” She said she does not speak on behalf of Second Sons.

In the email, Guptill said she didn’t understand “why ‘men’ in this country fail to support other men gathering regularly to improve their physical and mental well-being, as Second Sons does. I also fail to understand why anyone in this country with an IQ above 80 would oppose, at minimum, a full moratorium on immigration given the current economic trajectory.”

There is no indication the places where the training is happening are neo-fascist havens. Some, like Niagara BJJ in Welland, where Second Sons members took a group photo, take pride in training a diverse community of people, including children.

Kevin Mans, the owner of Niagara BJJ in Welland, said that as soon as he saw the photos CBC shared, he called his staff and told them these Second Sons members couldn’t come back. Mans said that unbeknownst to him, someone had booked a private event and used the facility in May.

Lamoureux said this demonstrates how active clubs and adjacent movements are infiltrating martial arts spaces.

“The fact that the gym owner doesn't know that they were training [there] doesn't surprise me at all," Lamoureux said. "It just goes to show how manipulative these groups are, that they are going to lie about what they're doing.”

Public parks

These groups aren't just using private businesses. In many videos on social media, Nationalist-13 is training in parks.

NS13 has trained at the undisclosed location below on multiple occasions, including with the Frontenac Active Club from Quebec.


CBC News used clues like the goal post and the crack in the roof shown in the images to narrow down where these photos were taken.

CBC News then examined photos of every soccer field in the area, eventually finding one with a gazebo in Brantford.

In this social media post, NS13 is seen training under a roofed structure. Using Google Maps, the CBC News team searched parks in the Hamilton area with similar structures, using the water fountain and blackboard as markers.

CBC eventually geolocated it. The NS13 training happened next to a children’s splash pad at Myrtle Park.

Behind the people sparring in the social media post below is a green-roofed building and white dome facility. Using Google Maps, the team searched parks in Hamilton with similar structures near each other, matching the bathroom and white-domed tennis court.

The training happened next to the Children’s Garden at Gage Park.

“To see city facilities and city parks being used in this way is just absolutely unacceptable,” said Hamilton city councillor Nrinder Nann. “I think it's a serious public safety concern. The rise of extremist organizing is a national security threat and it isn't an issue to take lightly.”

White nationalists have become increasingly violent in recent years. In 2017, a white nationalist killed six people at a mosque in Quebec City, while another used a pickup truck to run over a Muslim family in London, Ont., in 2021, killing four. The next year, a white nationalist killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

Lyndon George, executive director of the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre (HARRC), said given the violent nature of this ideology, these groups shouldn’t be able to operate with impunity in public places.

“We shouldn't have to wait for that violence to happen for there to be a response,” said George.