John Ross Taylor

John Ross Taylor (ca. 1910 - November 6 1994) was a prominent Canadian neo-Nazi leader.

Born into a well-known Toronto family, Taylor associated with the Quebec-based fascist leader Adrien Arcand in creating a national fascist party, the National Unity Party during the 1930s. Taylor played a key role in organizing the putative party in English Canada before he broke with Arcand and joined the Canadian Union of Fascists.

Taylor was interned as a Nazi sympathiser during World War II.

In the 1963 Ontario election, he ran in St. Andrew riding for the "Social Credit Action", a splinter group from the Social Credit Party of Ontario. He won 102 votes, or about 1% of the total cast.

In the 1974 federal election, he was an independent candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in the riding of Davenport, and received 102 votes (0.69% of the popular vote), placing fourth in a field of six candidates. From 1970 to 1977, Taylor was leader of the Social Credit Association of Ontario as a result of a takeover of the party by Paul Fromm and the Western Guard. Ernest Manning had the provincial association put into trusteeship and Taylor, Fromm and their supporters were expelled though Taylor continued to lead a splinter group that claimed to be the Social Credit party. Because of the dispute he had to run as an Independent in the 1974 federal election.

In 1976, he became leader of the white power Western Guard Party. In the 1980s, Taylor was twice found in contempt of court for refusing to comply with a 1979 order by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to end his recorded "White Power" messages on the Western Guard Party's phone line. He was imprisoned from October 1981 to March 1982, and again later in the decade for violating the Canadian Human Rights Act. In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the ruling against Taylor.

In the last years of his life, Taylor was active in the Aryan Nations after he moved to Calgary following his release from prison. He died in a Calgary boarding house in 1994.

He appears, as a slightly dazed figure, in the documentary film "Blood in the Face" , directed by Kevin Rafferty, which looks at the American neo-fascist movement.

External links

* [http://www.chrt-tcdp.gc.ca/search/view_html.asp?doid=1&lg=_e&isruling=0 Summary of the 1979 hearing before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.]
* [http://www.canlii.org/ca/cas/scc/1990/1990scc130.html Canadian Human Rights Commission v. John Ross Taylor] Summary of the case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.