In light of increased activity and visibility of the Canadian Combat Coalition (C3) within Sudbury, we thought it important to share some more information on C3 and why we feel so strongly that they must be opposed.
Canadian Combat Coalition (C3) were founded by Ryan Dean (alias Greg Huck) from Edmonton, AB. Dean is a former member of Soldiers of Odin, but they are not really a splinter group and do not have very strong ties other than that. Dean is an interesting character himself, but was ousted from leadership in a soft coup after revelations of domestic violence by the members from Sudbury. Currently, they are led by Dan Dubois from Sudbury, who holds the title of National President. Since then, there has been nearly constant conflict and drama between C3 and Dean, most recently with Dean accusing Dan Unrau (Ontario President, also from Sudbury) of orchestrating an assault on him on October 3rd, 2018.
Almost all of the members of C3 are white men who are middle-aged or older, but it is important to remember that many of these men are married and in many cases there is also a white woman behind the scenes supporting them.
The main propaganda platform and organizing space for C3 is the Canadian Combat Coalition National group on Facebook. It is to C3 and Dan Dubois’s advantage that much of the content in this group is too hateful, vile and disturbed for most media (Content Warning: Graphic Violence, Islamophobia). When we last combed through the group for members that are from Sudbury in Novemeber 2018, we found 101 members who had indicated in their Facebook profiles that they live in Sudbury. Keep in mind, that being in a Facebook group does make someone a member of C3 – despite Dan Dubois sometimes claiming this and saying that they have over 3000 members – and this is to be interpreted as more of a general barometer of their reach in Sudbury.
We are also aware of several local members of C3 who do not indicate on their Facebook profiles that they live in Sudbury.
Local members of C3 also regularly travel to other cities, mainly Toronto and Ottawa, in order to attend far-right demonstration and network with other racist groups. Dan Dubois in particular has been spotted with many other far-right figures.
Dan Dubois with Faith Goldy
Dan Dubois with Kevin Goudreau
(Kevin Goudreau is also from the Sudbury area, but has not lived here for about 20 years. It’s beyond the scope of this document to cover him, but if you’re interested in finding out more about him, this is a good place to start.)
Last Fall in Sudbury, a group of C3 showed up to the Take Back The Night march claiming that the previous year’s rally was “disrupted by Muslims” and that they were there to “protect the women.” After being rude, disruptive and disrespectful throughout the march, making sexist and transphobic comments, they were asked by the organizers to leave. They called the organizers “libtards” and continued on.
C3 members at Take Back The Night 2018
Dan Dubois livestreamed a good portion of this incident and it was from this video footage that we were able to identify many of the local members of C3, thanks to Dan naming them in the video. In total, we identified nine members of C3 who were at Take Back The Night, although Dan Dubois claims there were ten.
In terms of ideology: C3 are pretty typical of the far-right in Canada, but their worldview deserves some discussion. The narrative they put forward is that of a “white working class left behind”. The epitome of “white working class” in this narrative is the military veteran, who cannot pay his bills or get enough to eat because of a nebulous cabal of “globalists” that are importing a mass of Muslim immigrants to destabilize and undermine traditional (white) Canadian society.
On occasions when these “Globalist” enemies of the white working class are actually named, they are almost always Jewish.
George Soros portrayed as a evil puppetmaster controlling the Prime Minister behind the scenes
It is accurate to describe the worldview put forward by C3 as being most defined by two features: Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Two other dominant features of this group’s mindset that must be mentioned are paranoia and conspiratorial thinking.
At the first Yellow Vests rally in Sudbury, C3 members observed a police helicoptor hovering nearby and immediately speculated that the helicoptor was there to spy on them. In online comments, members took it a step further, stating that it was a helicopter sent by the UN because of their opposition to the UN Migration Compact. When they discovered the chopper was looking for a missing person, they concluded that this was, of course, merely a cover story.
Dan Dubois reacts to his own interview with CTV News
It is easy to laugh at C3 and to write them off as a small group of harmless, deranged nutjobs. While they are funny and they are deranged, they are not harmless and it is extremely dangerous to think of them this way. The danger of these conspiracy theories is that they act as a filtering mechanism that allow people like Dan Dubois to find followers that are exceedingly uninformed, guillable and suggestable.
This is the real danger of conspiracy theories. If you convince someone that the UN is sending helicoptors to spy on a small political demonstration in downtown Sudbury, you could concievably convince those people of absoloutely anything. Convincing those same people that white males are a persecuted minority, that the Holocaust did not happen, or that 80% of Europe is currrently under Sharia Law are trivial things that only take a little time.
Tagline from the popular 1990’s television show The X-Files
What makes the rhetoric of C3 so dangerous is that many of these views are things people want to believe. It would be very convenient for some if people were gay simply because of liberal college professors, if global warming were fake, if systemic racism is not real and if everyone fleeing a war-torn country were rapists and murderers undeserving of sympathy or help.
These ideas are persuasive precisely because people want to believe them and this is why we cannot afford to ignore them, to assume that good information will be inherently more persuasive than bad information and that reason will invariably win out over the irrational. History shows that even the most absurd conspiracy theories have consequences. It is for this reason that we cannot afford to ignore them, however ridiculous they may seem.
Anti-Racist Sudbury 