Jamie Sarkonak: Police reprimand of anti-immigration event undermines democracy

Screenshot of the Aug. 27 Hamilton Police Service news release. Photo by Hamilton Police Service website

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During the summer of 2021, Hamilton Police officers looked on as a group of Indigenous sovereigntists tore down the city’s Sir John A. Macdonald statue and sawed right down the middle of its face. Instead of arresting the numerous parties to the crime right then and there, they waited, eventually laying a charge on a 56-year-old who was absolved months later through a stay of proceedings.

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Fast forward to 2026, and the leaders of the very same police organization now want you to know that mere non-violent assembly is unacceptable in their town if it’s “divisive and exclusionary” and “can negatively impact the sense of safety and belonging within our community.” They’re speaking, in an Aug. 27 news release, of the Dominion Society of Canada, a nationalist anti-immigration organization that strives to hold a conference in Hamilton this weekend as police run around Elmer Fudd-style warning potential venues not to engage their ever-escaping prey.

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“Hamilton Police continue to encourage venues to consider the impact this event and its messaging may have on the broader community when making decisions about hosting it,” goes the police statement. It adds that an “operational plan” is in place to handle the event should it transpire, but the clear purpose of the message is to nudge and wink local businesses out of opening their doors to the conference.

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Why the controversy? The Dominion Society advocates for halting immigration and “remigrating” a large number of non-Canadians on much broader grounds than exist at present. For example, while the current rules give many non-citizen criminals the right to remain in Canada, this group wants to deport them all. This group would restrict birthright citizenship to the offspring of citizens only. It would cut social services to non-citizens, repeal official multiculturalism, ban halal and kosher slaughter, naturalize “economically productive, culturally integrated” permanent residents while removing the rest, etc.

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The group also distinguishes “heritage Canadians” — the descendants of the initial settling nations of Canada and the Indigenous — from the rest, and marks them as a group in need of preservation.

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Altogether, the group’s anti-immigration goals and emphasis on national and ethnic identity have attracted condemnation from Liberal-appointed senators and various leading conservatives. Indeed, it’s no mystery why the group’s goals would make a first- or second-generation immigrant, or those with non-western heritage, feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

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None of this is criminal, however. For any group, even objectionable or unsavoury ones, to hold a conference in a civil manner is to participate in lawful, democratic assembly, and those who vehemently disagree are free to gather and express themselves accordingly. To try to snuff out that exchange before it can even happen, as the Hamilton Police are doing, is unacceptable … and hypocritical, considering how the police handled the politically motivated takedown of Sir John A. Macdonald five years ago. Was the wanton behaviour of those agitators not divisive and negatively impactful upon people’s sense of safety and belonging in the community? No doubt, but somehow, it wasn’t a problem back then.