Terror propagandist 'Dark Foreigner' should get 14 years for 'vile' crimes, Crown argues

CBC

2 days ago

Social Sharing
WARNING: This story contains descriptions and images of racist online content targeting Jews.
Everyone agrees, even the defence. For inciting hate, fear and division by calling for violence against Jews with his terrorist propaganda videos and images, Patrick Gordon MacDonald is going to prison for a substantial period of time.
At a sentencing hearing in Ottawa's Superior Court last week, federal Crown prosecutors based out of Montreal implored the judge to hand down 14 years for MacDonald's "vile" crimes under the alias Dark Foreigner, while his defence argued for six to eight years and about 10 months of credit for time already served in custody and on bail under strict conditions.
In April, Justice Robert Smith convicted MacDonald of all three charges he faced: participating in terrorist activity, facilitating terrorist activity, and inciting hate against Jews for one or more terrorist entities, including the now defunct Atomwaffen Division and the neo-Nazi James Mason. Smith is scheduled to announce his sentencing decision in early September.
Until then, MacDonald, 28, remains on bail living with his parents under electronic monitoring and other conditions. The Crown twice applied to have him brought back into custody (upon his conviction and at the sentencing hearing last week), but the judge sided with the defence. MacDonald has not breached his conditions.
In 2018 and 2019 — when he was 20 and 21 — MacDonald helped create and share three racist, hate-fuelled terror recruitment videos in Ottawa, Belleville, Ont., and Saint-Ferdinand, Que., among other places.
One video shows people wearing skull masks moving through a wooded area and shooting firearms. Near the end, the flags of the U.S., Israel and European Union are shown on the ground, being drenched in an accelerant and set on fire, interspersed with shots of armed people storming a building in tactical formation.
The video includes a slur against Jews. "Stay tuned shooters," is the last text to appear.
'An almost indescribable negative impact'
Court heard a victim impact statement from B'nai Brith Canada written by one of the Jewish human rights organization's regional directors, Henry Topas.
MacDonald, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, watched from the courtroom gallery, his parents sitting several rows behind him as they have throughout his trial.
"The videos he helped produce were designed to encourage a revolution to destroy the 'Jewish system' and to encourage viewers to 'purge the weak,'" Topas told the judge, appearing via video.
"To Mr. MacDonald and the Attomwaffen Division, we are a disease in need of eradication to enable the establishment of a white ethno-state. Such dehumanization has an almost indescribable negative impact on our community.
"Canadian Jewry did not survive the Holocaust, pogroms, and other unimaginable atrocities and hardships to face threats of annihilation from neo-Nazi terrorists in our adopted homeland," he continued. "Our forefathers did not commit themselves to contributing to the betterment of Canadian society for their progeny to face calls for our eradication."
More witnesses called
The Crown produced two new witnesses for the two-day sentencing hearing: an "analyst" working in the national security sphere whose identity is shielded by a publication ban, and expert witness Matthew Kriner, executive director of the Acceleration Research Consortium and Institute for Countering Digital Extremism.
Prosecutors Carly Norris and Catherine Legault said the calls for murder in the propaganda are particularly aggravating, and that the court needs to send a strong message that people can't publish content like MacDonald's online, then throw up their hands and say they're no longer responsible for it.
"Because there are people our there who will consume this, and consume it and consume it ... young people who can easily be manipulated," Norris told court.
Defence lawyer Douglas Baum said that in Canada, MacDonald's "obviously repulsive" beliefs and propaganda never amounted to anything more "than an evil fantasy," with no links to actual violent action.
He also pushed back against the Crown's argument that MacDonald's propaganda will live online forever, radicalizing some and instilling fear in others. Baum told the judge MacDonald can't be held responsible for the internet age and the public domain where his content circulates — "otherwise he can never overcome this. Otherwise there is no redemption."
'My remorse is sincere'
MacDonald, a first-time offender, read a statement saying he takes "full responsibility" for his actions and is "sorry for the awful things I said and drew. I wish to never do anything like this again."
He apologized to the "broader Canadian community with all of its diversity: Jewish, Muslim, Black, Indigenous, Asian, and anyone else I missed.
"My remorse is sincere, and I hope you can accept it."
He also thanked the organizations he has volunteered with for the past two years, creating logos and posters. The organizations include a daycare, Ottawa's Scottish society, a Scottish pipe band, a Catholic church's refugee outreach committee, the Canterbury Community Association, an Indian festival, the Knights of Columbus, and the intervention program itself.
'Did not take full responsibility'
A pre-sentence report written by MacDonald's probation officer, dated June 20, said MacDonald "disputes some of the details of his offences" and "did not take full responsibility for his actions," but added that MacDonald didn't deny that he was involved in white supremacist, neo-Nazi subcultures.
He took part in an intervention program for people with hateful, biased or extremist ideologies from August 2023 to June 2025, and met weekly with his caseworker.
The Crown pointed out that a letter from the intervention program about MacDonald's participation contained no review of his progress, nothing about whether he renounced his ideologies, and no mention of whether he's likely to reoffend. Defence lawyer Doug Baum countered that he didn't ask for opinions like those because it would amount to "speculation" about what's going on in his client's mind.
MacDonald and his family told the probation officer that he has renounced white supremacist, neo-Nazi ideologies.
The report notes that because of MacDonald's current legal jeopardy, it's "difficult, if not impossible" to assess whether that's true, "however all the information available to the writer indicates the subject has made positive changes in this regard."
Lacked direction, didn't fit in
His parents were "adamant" that racist or white supremacist views were not taught at home, the report states.
MacDonald told the probation officer that he lacked direction in his late teens and early 20s and got caught up in the white supremacist, neo-Nazi subculture, which supported him when he started creating his terror propaganda. But he said he wasn't pleased with his life at that time, and that the subculture was a "scapegoat" for his personal problems.
Around the time he learned that police and intelligence officers were looking into him in 2021-2022, "he started to rethink his beliefs and to focus more on himself instead of broader political issues," the report states.
Attention from law enforcement has negatively impacted his life, his family told the officer. MacDonald said his relationship with a long-distance girlfriend ended in 2022 after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service contacted her, and his mother believes he wasn't getting work because potential employers were contacted by police.