HALIFAX — Until this week, few Canadians had heard of the Proud Boys. That changed on Canada Day, when five young men in matching black polo shirts disrupted an Aboriginal ceremony in Halifax.
That brief, 10-minute confrontation has put the military career of each man in doubt —
and it has shone a spotlight on a retrograde group that sprung up last year amid the rise of Donald Trump and the many in-your-face, far-right groups that support him.
Will Sommer, a journalist in Washington, D.C., who has followed the small movement, said the group was founded in the U.S. by Gavin McInnes, a Canadian who helped establish Vice Media and is now an outspoken political pundit with an internet talk show and regular stints on Fox News and Canada’s Rebel Media website. (Vice severed ties with McInnes in 2008.)
Proud Boys: ‘Willing to go places and disrupt things’
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They are alt right.