As Tony McAleer stepped onstage at Metro Hub in Kelowna’s Cultural District on February 10, 2025, I was somewhat underwhelmed. When I had bought my ticket for an event hosted by a former white supremacist, I was expecting a tall, burly, tattooed man with scars reminiscent of his skinhead past. Instead, a clean-cut, grey-haired man with a kind, smiling face stood under the lights. He was wearing a pair of dress pants, a blazer with a glittering brooch, and a black T-shirt that read in a bold white font, “THE CURE FOR HATE.” Nothing about his appearance could have hinted at his dark and violent past.
Today, Vancouver-born Tony McAleer travels across Canada and the United States speaking to communities about the interrelationship between pride, compassion, and hatred. His film The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz, directed by Peter Hutchison, has been shown to
6,100 students across the U.S. He founded the not-for-profit group Life After Hate and authored The Cure for Hate in his mission to help extremists abandon their movements and usher compassion into their lives. At his events, he describes his own journey out of the neo-Nazi scene and reinforces his commitment to bear witness to the atrocities he once denied or contributed to.
McAleer played major roles in a variety of hate groups as a teenager and young adult. He was a founder of the Aryan Resistance Movement, one of Canada’s largest neo-Nazi groups, and assisted in organizing for other hate groups such as the White Aryan Resistance and the Aryan Nations. As the Internet became more accessible in the 1990s, McAleer butted heads with the Supreme Court of Canada twice as he started an online hotline that espoused racist ideology and helped develop websites for extremist groups. On top of all this, he was at one time a devout Holocaust denier. McAleer’s track record is long and truly shocking. It felt strange to know that this man responsible for peddling misinformed and flat-out evil ideas was standing before me.
What about this event piqued my interest? It is not like I am a former white supremacist or someone who deals with neo-Nazis on a regular basis. In fact, I am privileged enough that I could choose to ignore the issue of such nationalist extremism because it does not pose as significant of a threat to my being as it does to others’. But when this event came to my attention, my curiosity was spurred. I wanted to know why and how McAleer became a skinhead, what motivated him to leave the scene, and most importantly, how we can prevent such ideas from taking hold in our communities.
While extremist and white supremacist ideologies are nothing new, such rhetoric has experienced a surge to the mainstream in the past decade. As white people become less of a majority in American politics, many of them feel as though their recognition and power is being depleted and see such moves to greater political and social equality as a threat. This, in combination with Donald Trump’s first term as president, has fanned the flames of a white nationalist culture. Those who parrot white supremacist ideas and propaganda have been gaining attention and support, and a culture of white supremacy is growing more, not less, prominent.
An article from the Center for American Progress cites a significant white minority that feels as though it is losing cultural and political power as being responsible for the uptick. These feelings, combined with the increased awareness of racism, social turmoil, and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, have allowed white supremacy to flourish in highly public areas of social life.
The hateful popularity boost has reared its ugly head most notably in the United States, but this does not mean Canada is exempt. In July 2024, Statistics Canada released the 2023 data on police-reported hate crime, which found that hate crimes have been increasing in Canada since 2018. These statistics show a gradual increase from 2018 to 2019, with a 35.6% increase in 2020. The next major spike occurred in 2023, when the number of police reported hate crimes increased from 3,612 incidents to 4,777 incidents. Since data was collected in 2014, the most common motivation for hate crimes were race and ethnicity.
It is important to note that police reported data does not paint the whole picture of the state of crime in Canada. Police reports do not provide a complete data set, and an estimated 29% of crime goes unreported in Canada. On top of this, hate crimes are widely underreported due to victims fearing retaliation or that the justice system will not take them seriously. This is to say that there are very likely more hate crimes occurring within our borders that we know of, and that there are victims of these crimes that have not received justice. While it is not the business of this piece to detail the issues with the criminal justice system and its handling of hate crimes, nor would I be able to do the topic justice here, it is significant to make these issues known and consider them in our understanding of how white supremacy survives in Canada.
Entering this event, I was very interested in finding out what pushed Tony McAleer to become a white supremacist, especially one who once played such a large role in the Canadian skinhead scene. I could have guessed that part of the appeal for McAleer would have been the community or the collective support from those who were similar, but I imagined that the ideology was the main motivating factor behind associating with such groups. Instead, I was honestly surprised to learn that ultranationalism came second to the desire for connection.
During the evening, McAleer presented the film The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz, in which he documents his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau to acknowledge the atrocities committed in World War II against Jewish people of Germany. McAleer seeks out understanding of and reconciliation with the Jewish community, which he once peddled antisemetic ideology against. As a former Holocaust denier, he explains his commitment to a life of learning and growth.
The film also discusses the events surrounding his introduction into the dark world of extremism and violence. A strained relationship with his father combined with a lack of connection with family and friends guided him toward a culture in which he felt accepted and heard. The skinhead groups he joined provided him with something he had not experienced before — power and attention.
British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner shares this understanding of how people become indoctrinated into white supremacist ideology. In a report released in March 2023, they highlight the uptick in hate and aggression towards groups designated as “other” during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing increased fear and anxiety of the unknown as a major cause of misdirected anger.
The report categorizes four types of hate offenses: thrill seekers, who commit hate crimes to feel power; defensive perpetrators, who commit hate crimes because they feel encroached upon by those in their communities they assume do not belong; retaliatory perpetrators, who commit hate crimes in order to respond to a perceived attack on their group; and mission perpetrators, who seek to completely eradicate a targeted group.
It is significant to note that only 1 in 169, or 0.059% of those who commit hate offenses fall into the category of “mission perpetrators.” While this can be somewhat of a comfort, it also means that the vast majority of hate crimes are perpetrated by everyday people, not just neo-Nazi crooks.
The main driving force behind McAleer’s retreat from skinhead ideology and violence was the birth of his children. As a single father, raising his son and daughter required him to step away from his previous work of perpetuating hate to stay home and protect his own children. It was through parenthood that he began to understand the power of compassion and connection.
McAleer also stated that the other contributing factor to his turnaround was receiving compassion from someone he felt he did not deserve it from. He described to the crowd the experience of sharing his dark past with a therapist. Once he had finished spilling his guts about his wrongdoings, his therapist leaned in with what was illustrated as a "Cheshire cat grin,” and said, “you know I’m Jewish, right?” McAleer explains that it was through the support of his counsellor, a person he did not feel he deserved any sort of compassion or attention from, that he was able to completely recognize his wrongs and begin connecting with others that were once in his position.
Following the presentation of the film, McAleer opened the floor to questions. I took advantage of this opportunity to ask for his thoughts on how university aged people can push back against white supremacy in the digital age, and asked, “how [can] young people resist and combat disinformation and hatred online when it is so easy to access?”
“We’re not gonna escape from social media,” said McAleer. “But what we can become conscious of is our addiction to outrage.”
He described the anger he felt during the 2020 American Election, watching then-presidential candidate Donald Trump spew shocking rhetoric and ideology. This is something that I also experienced then, as well as in the 2024 Election, and every day since President Trump’s inauguration. McAleer said that it took a lot of self-awareness to be able to acknowledge the impact that constant media consumption had on his psyche, and then another great deal of self control to be able to step away from the constant bombardment of news and reports and updates. “It’s not that I don’t stay informed,” he explained, “but I’m not dialing in to find out the latest outrage … it’s not good for your body, or your mind.”
He also provided advice on finding the truth in the media today by explaining the value in understanding the content you consume as only being “half-true.” This, he explains, allows you to seek out more information and learn the mechanisms behind the events you watch on a screen every day. “You have to triangulate where the truth is. You can’t get your outrage from one source.”
McAleer’s answer to my question ended with some advice for young people seeking to find their way in the modern world characterized by constant connection and political tension.
“Be curious about other people. Be curious about yourself … look at all your behaviours and beliefs, and ask yourself these questions: is it the same as one of your parents’? Is it the exact opposite of one of your parents’? Or is it actually yours?”
If you have been a victim of a hate crime or would like to learn about local resources that are available to you, please visit https://kcr.ca/community-services/anti-racism/.
1 Jardina, Ashley E. (2019). As cited in Clark, Simon. (2020). “How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics.” Center for American Progress. Source Link.
2 Jardina, Ashley E. (2019). As cited in Clark, Simon. (2020). “How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics.”
3 Statistics Canada. Table 35-10-0066-01. Police-reported hate crime, by type of motivation, selected regions and Canada (selected police services). Source Link.
4 Statistics Canada. Table 35-10-0066-01.
5 Keeler, Alexandra. (2024, October 7). “B.C. crime survey reveals distrust in justice system, regional divides.” Canadian Affairs. Source Link.
6 Government of Canada. (2022, August 25). “Disproportionate Harm: Hate Crime in Canada.” Source Link
7 British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. (2023, March). From hate to hope: Report of the Inquiry into hate in the COVID-19 pandemic. Source Link
8 British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. From hate to hope: Report of the Inquiry into hate in the COVID-19 pandemic.
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