Warning: this article contains explicitly homophobic, racist, and antisemitic elements
A demonstration “against LGBTQ+ propaganda in schools and institutions” is to be held in Québec City on July 8. The demonstration is part of a series of events that have been taking place in Québec for some time, with the apparent aim of demonizing LGBTQ+ communities and their allies. The pretext for holding the rally in front of the Musée de la civilisation in Québec City is a current exhibition examining “the multiple realities linked to gender identities.”
François Amalega Bitondo, whom we have mentioned several times in recent months, is involved in this mobilization, but he is not the instigator. Perhaps to bolster his somewhat shaken credibility, this time he has teamed up on Facebook with some mysterious “young people” who claim to be behind the action.
Who are these young people, and where exactly is this call to demonstrate coming from? This article aims to show that the initiators of the July 8 anti-LGBTQ+ demonstration are, in fact, a small group of young keyboard neo-Nazis (including one we’ve been following for a few years) and that the support base for this mobilization is firmly anchored in Québec’s far-right and neo-Nazi networks, including the entourage of Sylvain Marcoux’s Christian Nationalist Party, which clearly exerts considerable influence over these young minds.
In light of the information provided in this article, it is clearer than ever that the communities concerned and their allies must mobilize and resist by any means necessary the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ hatred, which is clearly encouraging fanaticism in conservative and conspiracy theory circles these days.
A counterdemonstration will be held in Québec City on July 8;
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Who Is LUCAS ALI BOUCHER THÉRIAULT?
For several weeks following the creation of the Facebook event by a certain Lucas Ali Boucher Thériault on June 8, 2023, the only two publicly listed organizers were Thériault and conspiracy theory activist François Amalega.
More recently, other co-organizers have been added, including Carl Giroux, an anti–health protocols influencer, and two other individuals who seem to be connected (at least via social media) to young Boucher Thériault: Justin Crépeau, from Québec City, and the “Chose Mat” account.
Lucas Boucher Thériault is a resident of the Lanaudière region (Joliette, Saint-Jean-de-Matha) who is no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, but who has already been on our radar for a few years, due to his dubious activities on social media. We’ve been following him on Instagram and Twitter, as well as on Discord, where he created an “identitarian” channel when he was just thirteen.
By the summer of 2021, his activity already betrayed a far-right orientation, and it is clear that young Lucas has only become more fanatical since then. As well as adopting all the well-known antisemitic motifs (on Twitter, he recently recommended a neo-Nazi propaganda documentary that is extremely popular in these networks), his discourse has focused incessantly on LGBTQ+ communities, which he associates entirely with “grooming,” i.e., the grooming of minors for the purposes of sexual exploitation. This longstanding far-right obsession, combined with the established homophobia that comes straight out of religious morality, has been getting the conspiracy theory circles all worked up recently, as evidenced by the hallucinatory (and explicitly transphobic) language surrounding recent attempts to mobilize against drag queen story hours.
In June 2021, Lucas Boucher Thériault created the Instagram account “lucas_le_patriote”; from summer to winter 2021, several other accounts were also created under different pseudonyms, and numerous clues (photos, clothing and accessories, cross-references and redundancies, etc.) made it easy to link these accounts to Lucas Boucher Thériault. The screenshots below indicate that the accounts “Metalbuzz268,” “Vector_the_boss,” “Blair_insta_,” “Tomate_kasher88,” and “Lucasbackup14” are all administered by Lucas Boucher Thériault. Note the use of the numbers 14 and 88, two notorious neo-Nazi codes, and the many other far-right references. Even in the absence of conclusive evidence, we believe that the “Tabarnak38tabarnak” account is part of the same little system. However, it could also belong to a friend. We leave it to our readers to draw their own conclusions.
From June to August 2021, Lucas Boucher Thériault was also active on the Discord platform, under the pseudonyms “Commander Lucas” (Christian Power) and, later, “Loyalty.” After creating the “Québec identitaire” channel (first called “Xero’s Anti-Governement,” then “Nam Deus”), he and others discussed the creation of a patriotic militia, to which he devoted a chat room. He even published a “manifesto” (in reality, a very bad English essay), the metadata of which reveal his identity. It was at least partly in this toxic broth that he became a fanatic.
He turned up on Twitter in October 2021 with the account @knowyourenemyt_ (created in July 2018). He adopted the nickname “Bad Goy” (goy means non-Jew). As examples of his activity, he promotes the antisemitic webcasting platform Goyim.tv and the Goyim Defense League, described by the Anti-Defamation League as an informal network of individuals whose “goal is to cast aspersions on Jews and spread antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories”; on June 15, he shared a tweet from the neo-Nazi group Active Club in California; on June 17, following the disappearance at sea of hundreds of refugees off the coast of Greece, Lucas Boucher Thériault posted a tweet expressing regret that twelve people of Pakistani origin had survived the shipwreck. . .
It is perfectly reasonable to think that Lucas Boucher Thériault is just a child in need of attention who has made a series of deplorable choices under the influence of malevolent ideologues; that’s absolutely true. However, as soon as this young person’s bad choices led him to advertise himself as a neo-Nazi—for several years, with no sign of any desire to consider the direction he was drifting in—and finally to publicly organize an anti-LGBTQ+ demonstration, a red line was crossed. We believe that it then became necessary to denounce him in an equally public way. The same reasoning applies to the other young people named in this article.
We take no particular pleasure in introducing this young man and his cronies to the consequences of their actions, but some important lessons have to be learned the hard way when basic common sense or parental guidance aren’t enough to correct the faulty direction in life. Neo-Nazi nonsense behind a keyboard is one thing; organizing in real life is quite another. It’s never too early in the game to understand that the consequences are proportional to the level of commitment.
Signal-Boosting the July 8 demonstration
There is, therefore, no doubt about Lucas Boucher Thériault’s role, but we also believe it would be useful to trace the origins of this call to demonstrate the chronology of the signal-boosting, which reveals the role of other Nazis in this shambolic plan.
On Telegram
- On June 2, the Telegram channel “Comité Anti-Grooming” was created, describing itself as a “group of dissidents opposed to LGBT propaganda aimed at young people.” The call to demonstrate was published there.
- It was also posted on Instagram on June 14 by an account of the same name (recently renamed “anti_grooming_quebec”), which another Instagram user publicly stated was administered by Justin Crépeau. First interesting coincidence.
- We have also learned that Sylvain Marcoux was part of the small « Comité Anti-Grooming » Messenger group where the idea for the July 8 demonstration was developed.
- On June 7, 2023, the Telegram account “FierCF” (@Skullmaskowner1488) posted the appeal on the public chat channel Nomos-TV.
It should be noted that the “FierCF” account avatar when this was published was a Totenkopf (SS insignia) and the username was @Skullmaskowner1488 (the skull mask and the number 1488 are two broadly recognized neo-Nazi references). The user in question later changed his username to @fuckni**rs1488 (the racist word is redacted here), and more recently to @jeanpatriote14. At the time of writing, his avatar is a Carillon Sacré-Coeur. Note here the transposition of the symbols of French-Canadian nationalism onto those of Nazism.
It is not possible to state with certainty that this Telegram account is linked to the young co-organizers named here, but there are strong indications that it is, and this user’s efforts to promote the July 8 demonstration on the Nomos channel coincide perfectly with the activity during the month of June of the other social media accounts cited here.
- On June 8, Lucas Boucher Thériault created the Facebook event for the demonstration; it was posted the same day by the Parti nationaliste chrétien, Sylvain Marcoux’s neo-Nazi-inspired group.
- On June 22, “FierCF” confirmed in the Nomos chat room that the event would take place.
On Twitter
There is every reason to believe that the @AntiwokeL73304 account (created in June 2023) is administered by one or other of the co-organizers of the July 8 demonstration. Although the name and look of the account have since been changed, for a few days the public nickname was “Anti F***t Army” (the homophobic slur is redacted here) and its avatar was a Totenkopf. The profile description read “Also a proud NS,” which stands for National Socialist, i.e., Nazi. The current name of the @AntiwokeL73304 account is “Vieux rat grincheux” [Grumpy Old Rat].
- On June 13, after sharing Amalega’s callout for the demonstration, “Vieux rat grincheux” revealed in a comment that he was one of the organizers. Two days later, he expressed surprise that the antifascists hadn’t yet mentioned his detestable demonstration. (That did it!) We quickly confirmed by consulting the account’s subscribers that this user is in the sphere of influence of Nomos-TV and Sylvain Marcoux’s Christian Nationalist Party.
On Facebook
Around the same time, Justin Crépeau (“el_grand_zouf” on Instagram), who is listed on Facebook as a co-organizer, was also actively promoting the July demonstration on various pages.
It turns out, by his own admission, that Justin Crépeau is the real mastermind behind the July 8 event, and that Lucas Boucher Thériault is the only other real co-organizer, with the support of François Amalega.
As for the co-organizer “Chose Mat,” we haven’t gathered any conclusive information about him, apart from the fact that he says he studied at the CÉGEP in Lévis and that he follows François Amalega, Le Harfang (Fédération des Québécois de souche) on Facebook, Nouvelle Alliance (a crypto-fascist nationalist Nouvelle Amanchure), Sylvain Marcoux’s Christian Nationalist Party (him again!), Éditions Tardivel (linked to Atalante activists), and an empty page whose avatar is the logo of the defunct neo-Nazi forum Iron March.
It turns out that last November, a certain Justin Crépeau contacted Montréal Antifasciste by Messenger to ask us if we really intended to “do an article on him.” Clearly, someone (not us) must have used this threat to intimidate him. Before we’d even replied to his first message, he was quick to denounce “un autre fasciste d’extrême droite neo nazi” [another far-right neo-Nazi fascist] (note the choice of the word “another”) “qui appelle à la mort des juifs et des noirs c’est **** **** il a 19 ans et vit à st-jean chrysostome lévis (sic) [who calls for the death of Jews and Blacks is **** **** he’s 19 and lives in st-jean chrysostome lévis (sic)].”
Update : The day after the article was published, **** **** contacted us on the advice of a friend. He swears he was added as a co-organizer without his consent by Lucas Boucher Thériault. He assures us that he has no political affinity with the other two organizers, and that he never intended to organize or even participate in this demonstration. He claims to have followed the fascist pages for the sole purpose of informing himself and “trolling”. He also claims that Justin Crépeau set up the denunciation against him. According to him, Justin Crépeau is the real mastermind behind the July 8 demonstration, and Lucas Boucher Thériault is the only other real co-organizer, with the support of François Amalega. We’re giving him the benefit of the doubt and have chosen to amend the article accordingly.
Carl Giroux, for his part, is a baseball cap–wearing nutbar who makes frustrated videos in his car—the pandemic generated hordes of them. He runs the LibreChoix Facebook page, which has recently embraced the anti-LGBTQ+ cause. We don’t have much to say about this douchebag of the people, except that he was present at the May 16 Mercier-Est anti-drag queen story hour demonstration, and the hostility he encountered there apparently took him by surprise. Giroux may be unaware of the neo-Nazi pedigree of his comrades, but he will no longer get the benefit of the doubt after he reads this article. It’s a good bet that he’ll say that the antifa invented it all under orders from George Soros and the globalists.
Who is behind these Little neo-nazis?
Beyond the sordid details, what does this demonstration reveal about these adults who associate with young people they know nothing about for the sole purpose of boosting the credibility of their hate-filled crusade against drag queens, trans people, and “gender theory”? And what about these young neo-Nazi racists who are taking advantage of the influence of a fruitcake of Cameroonian origin to infiltrate the populist anti-LGBTQ+ movement? Under the circumstances, we are be hard-pressed to say who is who’s useful idiot.
If we have to talk about grooming, beyond the moral panic that is unfairly targeting LGBTQ+ communities, it would undoubtedly be more relevant to look at the extremely toxic influence exerted by false prophets and fascist ideologues like Sylvain Marcoux and his neo-Nazi party or Alexandre Cormier-Denis and Nomos-TV on a section of the new generation that is perhaps overly susceptible to their idiotic and hateful propaganda. They are the ones who are really responsible for this mess, as are those who, in more polite language, stir up the same anxieties in the media and the political arena.
Perhaps we also need to acknowledge our collective failure, having allowed the memory of the Holocaust to be lost to the extent that the appalling legacy of Nazism can today hold this sort of appeal for section of the new generation.
This development poses a much more imminent threat to Québec society in 2023 than does a museum exhibit on gender diversity, grag queens reading stories to children, or the comings and goings of members of LGBTQ+ communities who want nothing more than to live their lives in peace and dignity.
Let’s not let this scourge spread. Let’s fight fiercely against the influence of these toxic individuals.
Now and always anti-fascist!