Masked Loyalist Pioneers Display Remigration Banner at B.C. Legislature

Victoria resident Julie Baetz saw a dozen people dressed in black and wearing masks walk up the steps of the B.C. Legislature during her commute to work. The group unfurled a banner bearing the word "remigration" and the name Loyalist Pioneers.

Baetz took pictures from a distance and later confirmed online that the group was a white nationalist organization. The demonstration took place the day after the October 24 provincial election, in which the Conservatives won a sweeping majority.

“But if you read their internal messaging, violence is always a part of that equation.”

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue classifies the group within the "white nationalism 3.0" or Active Club movement. This decentralized network uses physical fitness, combat sports, and camaraderie to recruit members into white supremacist and extremist activities.

The broader movement spreading across Canada also includes Second Sons and Nationalist-13, both primarily focused on anti-immigration. The term "remigration" is used by far-right movements to promote mass deportation or forced expulsion of immigrants and their descendants.

University of Victoria adjunct professor Edwin Hodge, who studies extremism and radicalization, called the term a white nationalist dog whistle. He said the group's narrative claims it only wants to help non-white people return to their lands of origin.

Hodge added that internal messaging always includes violence as part of that equation. Unlike 20th-century white nationalist movements such as neo-Nazi skinheads and the Klan, this new wave hides its agenda behind a veneer of respectability.

He said outward-facing websites and rhetoric contain little mention of white nationalism and instead focus on camaraderie and brotherhood.