Soldiers of Odin Canada
activist group
Soldiers of Odin Canada is an activist group which splintered off from Soldiers of Odin Finland.
Quotes
editOntario
editDavid MacKinnon, president of Soldiers of Odin Ontario
edit- We don't go out and intimidate people or flash our vests,
We have nothing to hide.
Last fall, a little girl found a needle on Louis Street, and she got poked by it,
As a parent myself, I couldn't imagine my child coming home with a needle that just got stuck in her hand.
I know some people want to keep it just because they worked hard for the name,
Some people want to keep it because Finland is pissed, and they want us to change it so some of us will be doing it just to spite them.
If somebody starts posting racist stuff, they get the choice: take it off immediately, don't do it again or you're out,
Saying every Soldier of Odin is bad would be like saying every Muslim is a terrorist. They're not and neither are we.
- We're just trying to prove that we're not racist,
I find what's hurting us is the fact the police chief made that statement apologizing and that he shouldn't have taken the picture.
That's probably been the worst part of it all because the soup kitchen is getting calls,
Which I think is kind of sad because why would you stop feeding people because of who's feeding the people?
I can't speak for every member,
But we've been in Canada for two years now. Before this all blew up, we were here, not long after Soldiers of Odin started. The name was already here. You just didn't hear much about us.
I did a little bit of research when I joined. But when I joined, I was told they weren't racists.
So some of us want to keep the name for spite, because Finland is mad at us, they don't want us using it,
Finland calls Canada traitors, except for Quebec, of course. Myself, I like to spite them, because we're Canada, we're not Finland.
When they talk about them now, they call them the former Soldiers of Odin,
All we do is help out at the soup kitchen, collect needles, recently we started helping out with organ donors. We're not going anywhere. We're going to keep doing what we can.
I don't mind that at all, we don't mind at all,
As far as immigrants coming here, we're all for it. We have no issue with it at all.
It doesn't matter what religion they are, what race they are or where they're from. If they need help, we will help them ... Our motto is, we're here to help. It doesn't matter who it is.
My comment was they shouldn't speed things up, they should leave it as it was,
We have no problem with them coming here, we just think that when you start rushing people through, you miss things sometimes and you can let a bad apple in.
I know there's a lot going on,
There's a lot of bad out there and a lot of good. I try to focus on what we're doing around here, especially in Ontario. We're trying to clean up our image around here.
We were at New Sudbury Days (Sunday) and a lot of people came up and said hi, some kept going,
The police chief wouldn't even walk near us. He turned and walked in the other direction when he saw it was us standing there.
While I was gone, the police chief walked up to our members of the club and said he knows who we are, he said he knew we were out there cleaning up needles and he thanked us,
Then he was going to take a picture with us, but they said David's not here, he's our president and he'll be back shortly.
The police chief came back about 45 minutes later, came up, introduced himself as Paul, shook my hand and said, 'let's do this picture.
Claude Torma, president of Algoma Soldiers of Odin
edit- We’re scared of people thinking we’re a bunch of thugs. Today we wanted to go out in the daylight because if people see us walking around in all our black shirts at night they might get the wrong idea,
We’re walking a very fine line right now and if we make one little move that looks wrong everyone is going to be calling us racists and thugs right away but really we’re not. We’re not vigilantes. We’re not doing patrols.
Russ Bingham, president of Hamilton Soldiers of Odin
edit- we are not soldiers of Odin they are their own group and are not in any way affiliated to the Sons of Odin
- They're all good people. You'll see,
They're like family. A lot of us work together.
water and granola bars
They say not to paint them all with the same paintbrush,
But they are what they are. They read the same book. They have the same ideas. They're evil people, they're nasty people, and I don't want them in my country, to be honest with you.
We don't care if Muslims are here. That's not what we're saying,
We're not saying stop immigration. That's nothing to do with what we're saying at all. But Shariah law is scary stuff.
We're not here to start a fight,
We don't look for problems.- 9 June 2017 interview with CBC News
- We decided to cancel the event in respect of the gay community,
We'll be arranging another in July- 16 June 2017 2nd interview by CBC News
- im no longer with Sons of Odin but do support the movement im a president of Hamilton Soldiers of Odin now
Justin Smith, president of Sudbury Soldiers of Odin
edit- There are some out there who believe we are fascists, racists, and any other bad names you can think of,
Even though we have been here for over a year now, we’ve only been called names recently. Never have any members done anything bad to anyone and not even the regional nor the provincial police have heard of anything.
If they have no evidence of criminal activity, which some members of the public claim, why is it that claims of violence and harassment are now commonplace?
We pick up needles when no one else will, we help at the soup kitchen because they need help, we assist with local legions when they need help and veterans who cannot do their own yard work, we pick up garbage which others carelessly discard, we help other groups if they need people to help them (as with the organ donor car show), we also help individuals who ask for it or if others ask on their behalf,
We have not participated in any activities which may be taken negatively. We are all average people who want to better our communities. None of us wishes anything bad on anyone and if we come across someone within our ranks who is a bad apple, they are removed. That’s if they make it through our vetting process. We only want to help by giving up our own time, effort, and money.
We are not racists or anti anyone," wrote Smith. "If you get along, we have nothing against you. We’re not fascists either because real fascists are for strong autocratic or dictatorial control, which we’re not. Google is the bathroom wall of the Internet because anyone can post anything so don’t take everything you see to heart. Feel free to reach out to us if you want to know more or just to get to know us.
They want to do whatever they can to run us out of town for picking up needles and helping out at the Soup Kitchen,
We’re hoping that maybe after Christmas, the New Year, when things calm down, and people realize we are not the one in Finland (and that) we are something different,
It would be nice. Most of the patrons enjoyed us.
- Check out People's Party of Canada. I just joined.
- I signed up to volunteer for People's Party of Canada. Join me!