In recent years, Canadians have watched a disturbing trend emerge from the political margins. White nationalist organizations that once operated primarily online have become increasingly visible in public life. From coordinated propaganda campaigns to public demonstrations and recruitment efforts surrounding supposed “active clubs”, these groups are attempting to reintroduce old ideas under new branding.

Ontario has not been immune.

Reports from journalists and anti-hate researchers have documented white nationalist organizations conducting public actions, including rallies, banner drops and symbolic demonstrations intended to attract controversial attention and normalize exclusionary politics. The Canadian Anti-Haste Network has warned that white nationalist movements within Canada are becoming more organized, more confident, and more interconnected than they have ever been in decades.

While much of this activity may seem to occur within Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario would be wise to not assume that it is insulated from these developments. Ideas do not respect geographic boundaries. Social media, online forums, and political networks ensure that extremist narratives can spread anywhere, including our own communities.

What makes this particularly troubling is that white nationalist movements often rely on a distorted version of history. This whitewashed history often portrays immigration as a threat to Canadian identity.

What they fail to mention is that Northern Ontario’s history tells precisely the opposite story.

Modern Northern Ontario was built by waves of newcomers to Canada.

Long before European settlement, Indigenous peoples lived, traded, governed, and cared for these lands. The development of Northern Ontario’s towns and industries later depended on immigrants who arrived from around the world in search of opportunity in Canada.

Finnish workers helped build the labour movement in Northwestern Ontario and became a defining part of Thunder Bay’s growing cultural identity. Italian immigrants played a central role in the mining economy of Sudbury. Ukrainian, Polish, Croatian, and other Eastern European communities contributed to the growth of resource towns across the North. French Canadians settlers established communities throughout the region, while Chinese workers and other immigrant groups contributed greatly (and suffered greatly) to railway construction and industrial development that connected Northern Ontario to the rest of Canada.

Simply put, without immigration, Northern Ontario as it stands would not stand.

The mines that generated wealth, the railways that connected communities to the nation, with the neighbourhoods that became townships were built by people who, at one point, were newcomers themselves.

That reality creates a profound contradiction for modern white nationalist movements.

Many of the communities celebrated today as core parts of Northern Ontario’s heritage were once viewed with suspicion. Italians faced discrimination. Eastern Europeans were often treated as outsiders. Finns were sometimes portrayed as politically dangerous because of their labour activism. Newcomers routinely encountered prejudice from those who claimed they did not belong; their working-class struggles were often dismissed.

Over time, those claims were proven wrong.

Immigrant communities became neighbours, business owners, trade unionists, elected officials, and community leaders. Their traditions became part of Northern Ontario’s identity. Their children and grandchildren helped shape the region’s future.

This history matters because white nationalism depends on selective memory. It asks people to celebrate the contributions of yesterday’s immigrants while condemning today’s. It treats diversity as a recent problem rather than a long-standing feature of Canadian and Northern Ontario history.

The truth they don’t want you know is that Northern Ontario has always been diverse.

The North’s strength has never come from ethnic purity or cultural uniformity. It has come from working-class people from across language, religions, and backgrounds to build communities in one of the most challenging environments on the continent.

None of this means every discussion about immigration should be beyond criticism or debate. Questions about housing, healthcare, fair employment, and population growth are legitimate political issues. A democratic society requires honest discussion about public policy.

But there is a stark difference between debating policy and promoting white nationalism.

One seeks solutions. The other seeks scapegoats.

At a time when white nationalist groups are attempting to expand their visibility and influence, Northern Ontarians should remember their own history. The region was not built through exclusion. It was built through cooperation, migration, labour, and community-building against a common struggle.

The people who built Northern Ontario came from many places.

That is not a weakness in our history.

It is one of our greatest strengths.

-K-