Neo-Nazi's donation leads to MP Sloan's expulsion from Conservative Party

Jan. 19, 2021

By Nate Smelle

UPDATED: Jan. 21, 2021

News broke early Monday evening that Hastings Lennox and Addington's Conservative MP Derek Sloan had accepted a donation from infamous Canadian neo-Nazi Frederick Paul Fromm. The article, published by PressProgress, revealed that last August, Fromm - a known white supremacist and Holocaust denier - made a $131 donation to Sloan's bid to become leader of the federal Conservative Party.

While Sloan was unavailable for comment, he took to Twitter to address the scandal. Attempting to distance himself from his neo-Nazi supporter, he wrote "Today, at approximately 4 p.m. eastern time, I became aware of a PressProgress article that brought to light that Paul Fromm, a person with known connections to racist groups, donated $131 to my campaign. My campaign raised well over $1,300,000 and had over 13,000 separate donations. On any given day we had upwards of hundreds of different donations, and my team, which was run in many cases by volunteers, processed cheques and other things. At no time was I ever aware of this donation. Paul Fromm is a notorious name to some, but not to everyone, and clearly this name, mixed as it was in the midst of thousands of other donations, did not ring any bells to my team. Upon learning about what happened, I immediately contacted the executive director of the Conservative Party, Janet Dorey, and requested this donation be returned."

Less than 24 hours earlier, federal Conservative leader Erin O'Toole released a statement regarding far-right extremism within the Conservative Party in which he asserted that he was pro-choice, and that the party “welcomes all Canadians, regardless of race, religion, economic standing, education, or sexual orientation.”

O'Toole was quick to respond to the controversy, announcing that same evening that he had decided to expel Sloan from the Conservative caucus. In his statement, O'Toole said “Derek Sloan's acceptance of a donation from a well-known white supremacist is far worse than a gross error of judgment or failure of due diligence. In accordance with the Reform Act, I have initiated the process to remove Mr. Sloan from the Conservative Party of Canada caucus. I expect this to be done as quickly as possible. Moreover, as leader of Canada's Conservatives, I will not allow Mr. Sloan to run as a candidate for our party."

He added, “Racism is a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values. It has no place in our country. It has no place in the Conservative Party of Canada. I won't tolerate it.”

Bancroft This Week spoke with the controversial social conservative MP's chief of staff, Benjamin Martin, moments after he received word that Sloan was being kicked out of the party. Noting that the donation to Sloan's leadership campaign was received by the Conservative Party under the name Frederick Paul Fromm, and that Fromm usually goes by the name Paul Fromm, Martin said the neo-Nazi's donation slipped by undetected. Outraged by the party's decision to boot Sloan from the caucus, he said “Even if you were looking for the name you wouldn't have necessarily seen it. Nobody knew about this donation. It was a small donation made in early August. It was processed by the party. The way that they came out and made it look like Derek was willingly excepting donations from neo-Nazis is ridiculous and false.”

Alleging that O'Toole wanted Sloan out of the party because of the scandals his social conservative views have caused, Martin believes Sloan was "set up." Expressing his frustration, and his reason for asserting that the party had been planning to expel Sloan, he added “We had not heard a single thing, nobody from the party, Erin O'Toole‘s office, nobody had contacted us about anything. That article had: 'A', a statement from the leader; and, 'B', a statement from Cory Hann, who does fundraising for the Conservative Party, very explicitly saying this was to Derek Sloan and it was a donation. It was ridiculous how that was written. This was all planned. They put out that statement yesterday about extremism in the Conservative Party, and then this happens today? They clearly had the interview already done with PressProgress. They knew this was coming. This was all premeditated.”

Maintaining that Sloan did not know the donation came from the notorious Canadian neo-Nazi, Martin said Sloan will continue to serve the riding as an independent MP.