The Toronto Sun, May 9th, 1995.  Page 5.

The damage comes from the left

    It is the rallying cry of the post-Oklahoma City era  -  that
such a tragic bombing could happen here because there are violent
extremists in Canada, too, so we had all best be on guard against
the forces of darkness from the right.

    This is the view of world best captured by the Toronto Star's
Michele Landsberg, who, in  a  recent column which happily marked
her return to physical, if  not  intellectual  health,  described
Canadian   voices  spouting  "warmed-over  versions  of  American
dogmas:   Extreme  individualism,   attacks  on  immigration  and
affirmative action, gun-mania, hatred of government, contempt for
victims.

    "The kind of sick thinking that led to the  Oklahoma  bombing
has   its  breeding  ground  in  this  fever-swamp  of  tolerated
intolerance, racial  bigotry  and  paranoia.   There's  a line of
connection, a continuum of hard views."

    Well, shucks, there are extremists here, and even  a  history
of  political  violence,  albeit a much more limited history than
America's, but the  difference,  overlooked by virtually everyone
who enters this discussion, is that in Canada, the  tradition  is
virtually all from the left.

    From the sit-in at Sir George Williams University in Montreal
in  1969,  when  students  led by such notables as black activist
Rosie Douglas and Liberal Sen.  Anne  Cools (who later received a
full pardon for her role in the nastiness) trashed the  computers
and  did  $1.5  million  worth  of  damage; to the kidnapping and
murder a year later of  Pierre  Laporte by the separatist FLQ; to
the bombing of Litton Systems in Toronto and the dynamiting of  a
B.C. Hydro substation by the group called Direction Action to the
1993 trashing of white supremacist Gary Schipper's Toronto house,
the  Canadian  continuum  of extreme action is almost exclusively
from the left of the political spectrum.

    (The only acts in  recent  years  that  might  be  considered
exceptions  are  the  arson  at a Toronto abortion clinic and the
shooting of a  Vancouver  physician.   In  neither case has there
been an arrest, and abortion, I would argue in any cause, is such
a volatile issue it belongs in a loopy category of its own.)

    This would appear to be the case in the torching, early  last
Sunday  morning, of the home and headquarters of Holocaust-denier
Ernst Zundel,  though  frankly,  when  one  is  swimming in these
increasingly muddied waters, nothing is for sure.

    But early indications - video tape from cameras at the Zundel
residence, coupled  with  evidence  from  independant  witnesses,
suggest  that  the  man  in  the  white  cowboy  hat who was seen
sprinkling gasoline about the building  may  well turn out not to
be a rightwing fanatic, but rather a leftwing one.

    Certainly, Zundel and his Carlton St. headquarters have  been
targets for years.

    Most  recently,  he  has  been  the  particular favorite of a
strange little group called Cabbagetown Campaign Against Nazis in
Our Neighborhood - C-Canon, for short  - which has a Toronto post
office  box  for  a  mailing  address  and  a   now-dysfunctional
telephone number.

    Just  two  months  ago,  C-Canon  was  advertising a March 22
meeting called to deal with Zundel.

    "Zundel  in  our  neighborhood,"  the  group's  flyers  read.
"Exposing a local  hate  monager.   C-Canon  presents a community
forum to  find  solutions  to  the  problem  of  fascism  in  our
neighborhood."  The flyers came complete with a map, pointing out
the location of "Zundel's bunker."

    Even  the  condemnation  of  Sunday's  arson sound luke-warm.
"It's an unfortunate, deplorable  event,"  Louis Lenkinski of the
Canadian Jewish Congress told the Star.  "That's not the  way  to
deal with people...no matter how distasteful the opponent."

    What's  that  mean  -  the torching of Zundel's house is less
regrettable than, say,  the  torching  of Lenkinski's house would
be?
    Ernst Zundel is a distasteful fellow.  His  belief  that  the
Holocaust  never  happened  is,  to  me, so beyond the pale it is
barely worthy of contempt.  But he is not typical of the Canadian
fanatic, and his group is  not  typical of the Canadian political
extremist, and the blessedly limited tradition of  bombings,  and
violence,  and  destruction  in Canada comes not the the likes of
Zundel, but rather from the smug and virtuous left.

    * Read Christie Blatchford Tuesday through Friday
    > Group says it torched Zundel house: page 30