An Ottawa man has been found guilty of trying to sow hate, fear and division by helping create racist recruitment videos and other terror propaganda for a now defunct far-right international terrorist group and a prominent neo-Nazi.
Patrick Gordon Macdonald, 27, helped create and distribute hateful videos and images to incite fear
Kristy Nease · CBC News
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WARNING: This story contains descriptions and images of racist online content targeting Jews, Muslims, the 2SLGBTQ+ community and others.
An Ottawa man has been found guilty of sowing hate, fear and division by helping create racist recruitment videos and other terrorist propaganda for a now defunct far-right international terrorist group and a prominent neo-Nazi.
Superior Court Justice Robert Smith found Patrick Gordon Macdonald guilty of the three charges he faced: participating in terrorist activity, facilitating terrorist activity, and inciting hate against Jews for one or more terrorist entities, including Atomwaffen Division and the neo-Nazi James Mason.
Macdonald, 27, occasionally looked at the floor but otherwise showed no emotion during the judgment. His parents looked on from separate benches at the rear of the courtroom.
He committed the crimes in 2018 and 2019 — when he was 20 and 21 — in Ottawa, Belleville, Ont., and Saint-Ferdinand, Que., among other places. One of the videos was shot at an abandoned cement plant in Belleville, and another at an old schoolhouse in Saint-Ferdinand.
The videos were expressly designed to incite fear in the public, recruit members and propagate terrorist ideology, Smith said. They ask viewers to “burn it all,” “purge the weak,” “create your own cell,” and “join us or perish with the rest,” among other exhortations.
One video shows people wearing skull masks moving through a wooded area and shooting firearms. Closer to the end, the flags of the U.S., Israel and Europe are shown on the ground, being drenched in an accelerant and then set on fire, interspersed with shots of armed people storming a building in tactical formation.
The video includes an offensive ethnic slur against Jews. “Stay tuned shooters,” is the last text panel to appear.
The judge ruled that Atomwaffen Division was in fact a terrorist group back in 2018 and 2019 when the videos were made, despite not being officially labelled a terror group in Canada until 2021.
Smith accepted the evidence of the Crown’s expert witness, finding that errors which the defence had attacked were minor in nature and did not contradict the majority of her evidence about Atomwaffen’s history and accelerationist goal: to collapse what it believed is a Jewish-controlled society by using targeted violence to instigate a race war, and to replace it with a white ethnostate.
One of the videos was viewed 35,000 times, and another was viewed 25,000 times, Smith noted.
Macdonald knew full well that Atomwaffen was a terrorist group, Smith ruled. He used the online alias Dark Foreigner to disseminate its hateful propaganda on multiple social platforms, and he hid his passwords and account names above his ceiling tiles to avoid detection, Smith told court.
Crown wants bail revoked
Macdonald has been on bail since August 2023 after his parents promised to supervise him at their Ottawa home and pay $40,000 if he breaches any of his release conditions. Court heard Wednesday that the bonds are in the form of a lien against their house.
Immediately following the convictions, federal Crown prosecutor Catherine Legault asked the judge to revoke Macdonald’s bail. She argued that he’s been convicted of serious crimes — making him an increased flight risk — and that keeping him in the community would undermine public confidence in the justice system.
Smith sided with defence lawyer Douglas Baum, who asked for a hearing on the issue. Macdonald has behaved responsibly on bail so far, Baum argued, and his conditions are strict with numerous safeguards in place.
A hearing was scheduled for April 22 and the judge ordered a pre-sentence report. Macdonald remains on bail.
Macdonald pleaded not guilty at the outset of his trial in November. Closing arguments were heard in early December, after which the judge retired to decide the case.
Elsewhere in Ontario, two other men are accused of helping creating Atomwaffen Division recruitment videos, among other allegations. They were arrested by RCMP and charged in December 2023, months before Macdonald was arrested and charged.
The Superior Court trial of Matthew Althorpe and Kristoffer Nippak by a judge alone in Toronto is currently scheduled to start in January 2026 and run for six weeks.
The RCMP release states that many former Atomwaffen members joined Active Club Canada, which has performed combat training exercises in community parks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CBC Ottawa multi-platform reporter Kristy Nease has covered news in the capital for 16 years, and previously worked at the Ottawa Citizen. She has handled topics including intimate partner violence, climate and health care, and is currently focused on the courts and judicial affairs. Get in touch: kristy.nease@cbc.ca, or 613-288-6435.
