Grant Bristow

Grant Bristow (born February 1958 in Winnipeg, Manitoba) was an undercover spy, or mole, for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), who co-founded and successfully infiltrated the Heritage Front white supremacist group for six years.

Grant Bristow began his career as a private investigator, working with several Toronto-based investigation firms through the early and mid-1980s.

Through this work, he developed both the personality and resources necessary to perform covert infiltrations and intelligence gathering.

Bristow's CSIS involvement commenced in 1986 through an official at the South African embassy.

He was hired to perform security work at their Ottawa embassy, which was the target of many demonstrations at the time due to the nation's continued Apartheid policy.

His work was successful and on August 20, 1986, the Canadian government expelled one of the South African officials and prohibited the other from re-entry to Canada designating him persona non grata.

He maintained his relationship with CSIS and the following year (while employed by day as an in-house investigator for a shipping firm), after being introduced through an acquaintance to far-right activist Max French, reported the introduction to his handlers.

Satisfied with his previous performance, they encouraged him to befriend French and see what information he could gather on the activities of Canada's far-right.

Due to his lack of any substantive knowledge, Bristow was given a crash-course introduction to the major players of the far-Right, as well as a copy of the Turner Diaries to familiarize himself with.

His relationship with French bore little fruit and was short-lived.

Fortunately for Bristow, an associate subsequently introduced him to another far-right sympathizer who provided an "in" via Don Andrews' Nationalist Party of Canada.

It was through this introduction and his attendance of Nationalist Party meetings that he made the connections and gathered the information that allowed the commencement of what was to be called "Operation Governor".

Operation Governor began in the autumn of 1988.

Its original scope was extremely broad, with no particular targets or goals.

Its primary function was basically nothing more than gathering any and all information available to him.

The Autumn of 1988 was an ideal time for this mission to begin primarily because many of the groups were lacking in numbers and intelligent membership.

As an educated professional, Bristow was an attractive prospect.

These factors made it simpler for him to infiltrate without raising any eyebrows.

Bristow quickly became friends with Party leader Don Andrews, crediting their fast friendship with "mirroring", an intelligence technique where one mimics the target's thoughts and feelings, forging a bond to gain trust.

Through his friendship with Andrews, he attended a 'Welcome Home' party for Wolfgang Droege, returning from a US prison where he served time for cocaine trafficking and a weapons charge.

This was his first encounter with Droege, with whom he immediately struck up rapport.

After a few conversations he realized that unlike the primarily verbal Andrews, Droege was the real thing.

He was interested in taking real action in support of his extreme ideas, which motivated Bristow to slowly move his focus and efforts from Andrews to Droege.

In total, Bristow was paid $50,000 by CSIS.

As time progressed and Bristow became further involved in the far-right, he was promoted from member to Security Chief of the Nationalist Party.

Throughout this time his friendship with Droege continued to grow, with Droege revealing more and more about himself and his past.

By mid-1989 however, Droege was increasingly dissatisfied with Andrews and the Party and began considering a departure to form a new group more to his liking.

In late July 1989, Libyan head of state Muammar al-Gaddafi invited delegates from the Nationalist party to attend celebrations for the 20th Anniversary of his revolution, all expenses paid.

Andrews was unable to attend due to legal obligations, so Droege and Bristow went together at Droege's insistence.

Their flight to Libya took them to Rome, where Italian Intelligence officers detained them and unsuccessfully attempted to convince them to cancel their Libyan visit.

They arrived in Tripoli with many other extremists from around the world (Qadaffi had invited many leaders of far-left and far-right movements around the world, hoping to unite them in opposition to their common enemy in Zionism), but despite their best efforts Droege left with only a $1,000(US) gift.

Several months after the assignment, Bristow was exposed by Toronto Sun reporter Bill Dunphy, in August 1994.

His work inside the Heritage Front became highly controversial in Canada, when exposed, due to much of his activity being viewed as that of a contributory nature, reflected by an August 14, 1994 Toronto Sun headline, "Spy Unmasked: CSIS Informant 'Founding Father' of white racist group".

According to an interview Bristow gave to The Walrus in September 2004, and as implied in the SIRC report of December 1995, one of two Embassy officials he had contact with at the time also requested he gather and provide intelligence on the Canadian anti-Apartheid demonstrators individually.

He says he was opposed to this idea (gathering intelligence on Canadians for a foreign government), desiring only to provide security for the embassy.

However, he feigned interest in the proposal and secretly arranged a meeting with a CSIS officer to report the Official's request.

This meeting marked the beginning of Bristow's involvement with the intelligence agency.

Following the meeting with the CSIS representative Bristow proceeded to co-operate, reporting details on the progression of the 'mission'.

Looking back on these times in 2005, Bristow said, "I was keeping watch over violent hate groups, it was the right thing to do."

From this position, he screened and collected detailed personal information on all new members, which was promptly copied and forwarded to CSIS.